On the way to Crystal Focus V4

[erv]

The main topic about CF remain the one about "foie gras", but I'm opening this one to gather the customer wishes about this new upcoming version, and to exchange / discuss certain aspects and features I'd like to have in this V4.

As a reminder, here are the features we already have in the toast
RoadMap v3.1
- 6 sound banks (8 swings, 8 clash etc, like v1). Aux buttons pressed at startup => browsing the sound fonts, with an off-voice from the saber saying "bank one", "bank two" or... just put a descriptive sound you like ! could be a "preview" sound, the ignition sound, or something more descriptive like "sith config", "jedi config" "mixed config" etc. [done]
- one config file per sound bank, allows to have a damaged saber in one bank, a sith saber in the second one etc. [done]
- Boot sound. Just like your digital camera does. Can be a little sound "logo", or a "yes my master" if you like. [done]
- force push [done]
- pitch alteration of the swing sounds depending on the swing hardness. Maybe applied to clash, but it's meaningless IMO. [done]
- reverse the pitch shifting effect controlled by the orientation of the saber: lower with saber down, higher with saber up. Impossible to change the polarity of the effect, increasing too much the sample playback speed reduces too much the CPU power. Effect is hence "just" lowering the speed, saber up brings it back to normal speed (as setup on the sd card) [done]
- orientation of the saber controls pitch shifting but only for the hum and blade lockup effect[done]
- 4 LED sequence to illuminate the hilt when the saber is on. Sequence to be defined in an additionnal configuration file (LED.txt) on the SD card, with patterns and delays between transition of patterns [done]
- real low battery blinking indicator, voltage based [done]
- background music for the vocal menu [done]
- option to allow or not the play of the selected sound bank in the vocal menu Saves time when demontrating the banks or when heavily changing them. [done]
- optimized current measurement [done]
- blaster/force priority over swings : allows long blaster or force sounds not to be stopped by a swing to fake additionnal movements. Clashes however can break the sequence => variable duration for clashes [done]
- auxiliary circuit to drive an additionnal white flash (luxeon, simple LED) during blaster and clash. Specific duration of the flash can be setup on the card [done]
- instant on and off for the blade (already in 2.63) [done]
- blade lights up during iSaber, allows practice of a choreography with background music [done]
- additionnal flicker mode for iSaber : light is modulated with beat of the music [done]
- pulsing mode available in addition of the blade energy flickering mode (the so-called "movie flicker"). Not really screen accurate, but now that there are some alternate soundfonts like the phoenix blade of fire, this pulsing mode makes sense too. [done]
- shorten parameters name in the SD config file. Due to the growing number of parameters, I had to keep the param name short to stay under 512 bytes for the file size [done]

RoadMap for V4
- use a microSD card instead of the normal size SD card. I hacked a CF 3.0 to add a microSD holder. It works like a charm [done]
- Reduce the form factor of the board (to make it easier to install in a MHS, for instance, and because sometimes, size DOES matter) - the board is now 26.67 mm wide, I removed almost 1.6 mm [done]
- power on protection (same idea than the A-POP but for ignition) [done]
- test the board with 2 rebel in parallel @750 mA each + white clash flash [done]
- RGB mode to drive a endor / prolight or multiple LEDs, but ONE at a time, selection being made by changing of sound font with the vocal menu [done]
- Second force sound for the aux button combined with a clash. Allows the possibility to make a HUGE / SPECIAL clash sound (like you're REALLY angry before clashing the blade... a special sith feature ). Called force2.raw in the sound font. Additionnal parameter to enable/disable the feature. [done]
- additionnal + new random mode called RandomX. It does not repeat twice the same sound except in extremely rare case. It actually makes sure that you play all the 8 clash / swing sounds in sequence, but never twice the same sound. It does not replace the previous random mode, that is still working, it's an additionnal feature (random=3 in the config.txt file) [done]

as for the micro SD thing... Here are my thoughts about that, to explain why I'd like to move to this.
- I'm not able to get the good deal I had on the 32 MB SD cards you got with your CF.
- for basically the same price, you can get a 1GB microSD card
- the card works with the USB reader you already have since it's provided with an adapter, a sort of dummy SD card with a slot to insert the micro SD
- it's smaller and hopefully I can reduce the size of the board
- 1 GB allows to store more music for iSaber
- I finally found the microSD holder I was looking for. It's a bit more expensive but it's a pushin-pushout. The card is really locked and the contact with the card is better, it's should be even more reliable during hard shocks / blade impacts (I salvage a chair with an old blade testing a saber for a customer and after 5 minutes of impacts, the SD finally move a bit).
- micro SD are more expensive, but not so much, and they are now easy to find, at least easier than old and (theoritically) inexpensive small capacity normal SD cards.

feel free to ask "reasonnable" features so that I put them in the list. Please DON'T ask to drive 3 LEDs at the same time, that's all.