CF v4.0 help needed...

[Sithblade]

Hi all

Apologies in advance if I should be emailing Erv for this but I figure he's probably got enough on his plate, and there is plenty of CF knowledge here in the forums.

I've just finished wiring up my CF v4, and am getting some strange behaviour. I'm pretty sure it's something I've done as I'm relatively new to soldering and electronics and suchlike (but hey we've all gotta learn somewhere eh!). My wiring is pretty straightforward - I've got a green K2 on the LED +/-, a premium speaker that came with the v4 on the spk output terminals, an auxillary button running off the +ve, a saber on/off latching switch running off the +ve and a recharge port acting as a master power on/off also wired in-line on the +ve side. The whole lot is running off 4 x AA's (not rechargeables at this point).

When I remove the recharge port dummy key to power the board up, sometimes it fires up fine with the signature sound effect, and other times it will beep once, twice sometimes three times. Eventually perhaps after up to 10 attempts it will fire up fine then work great for a while. Sometimes it will power up with a beep and the LED comes on but no sound or some crackling (as if it's not finding the sound fonts). I've tried copying the contents of the SD card off, formatting it (FAT16) and recopying it all back on but to no avail.

Has anyone any suggestions of what I could try to troubleshoot? I'm suspecting a dodgy/intermittent solder somewhere perhaps but I can't see any obvious problems.

Any help greatly appreciated!

[SWAT Strachan]

I wonder if your recharge port is shorting out. Are you sure you have the negative links the right way around on the port? Also make sure you have the right switch option enabled in the config files. I think it's 0 for a normally closed latching switch, 1 for a normally open one, and 2 for a momentary. Best read the manual to be sure.

(I'm guessing here, I haven't gotten that far with my board yet)

[Sithblade]

Hi m8

Not sure about the recharge port, I might replace it with a straight latching switch anyway since I don't really plan on fitting rechargeables and it would actually get in the way on the hilt.

With the recharge connector points, I tested for current with my multimeter with and without the 'blank' recharge connector inserted and just wired them the way that the switch was closed with no key if that makes sense? I thought that was all there was to it as all I'm using the recharge for is just as a master power switch. I've checked the config files and all of them are set correctly for my latching switch so that appears to be ok. There does seem to be some reason why the CF isn't quite happy though...!

[SWAT Strachan]

Actually, there is one thing that might be causing it... I didn't realise when I got my CF4, but the card holder is one of those latching click-in click-out types, you'll know what I mean if you have one . The snag I hit was that I didn't notice that it was a latching type holder, and was just pulling the card out and pushing it back in without engaging the latch. This meant that the card wasn't quite in the right place for the contacts to reach it, and it resulted in an intermittent connection, causing symptoms similar to what you're describing.

Try taking the Micro-SD out, then push it back in firmly until you feel resistance, when you let go of the card it should pop back by about 1mm but stay in place. If it pops out further just press it in firmly again and release. Hopefully that'll sort it out.

Other than that, I've run out of ideas.

[eastern57]

Sithy,

In addition to checking the card, here's some other diagnostics that you can try... and later pass to Erv, if it still doesn't work:

take the activation and aux switches off entirely - it actually sounds like you put them all in line with the the battery connection (you probably didn't, but humor me). Put a latching switch in place of the recharge port (it's the same) - Just have the LED, speaker, and battery with the latching switch in between battery and board.

You should get a boot up sound when you throw the switch. If you do, then you can proceed. If you get beeps, it means the board isn't reading the card correctly and it's searching for a sound file it can't find. Following?

If you get the boot up sound, turn it off again, and you can wire the switches - make sure you use the correct pads on the side, "ACT, AUX and GND (for the common ground)"

If you have it wired up properly, it should work. If you get more beeps, format the card a few more times, reload it and try again.

Try this first - if it still doesn't work - well go from there...

good luck!

[Novastar]

To verify, Eastern is correct about the aux, on/off, lockup, (and low batt indicator) leads...

You MUST use those leads (and tie them all back to negative battery) for things to function properly. Refer to the wiring diagrams in Erv's .pdf on his website, or on the Sound CD Compendium I recently whipped up.

It's true that SOME things can be wired a bit differently and with creativity... but if you are not 100% CERTAIN of what you are doing... wire things just as the default CF diagrams describe...

[Sithblade]

Hiya chaps

Thanks for all your advice, it really is much appreciated.

Righto, I've just disassembled my wiring, partially to try a couple of things. Before I did anything I checked that my wiring was correct as per the diagram I was using from the CF manual PDF. Basically my wiring is exactly the same as on page 24 of the PDF with the excepion of no 'low battery' LED.



I have traced every wire and connection and it's all where it should be. My explanation in my first post above of the wiring wasn't accurate it seems, as the recharge port 'master' power switch is between the + from the battery output, and the + on the board where it's shown on the diagram. The other switches (activate and aux) are taken off the ground side between battery and the board itself. When the CF powered up without any beeps these buttons worked as intended which sorta confirms they were wired up correctly (faulty soldering notwithstanding!)

So I've removed the auxillary and the activate switches, removed the recharge port and just wired in the latching switch between the battery and board now. The speaker is still connected, as is the Lux. I'm getting wierder behaviour now than before. After powering the board on/off (with a 5 sec pause between each just to clear any memory on the board) I get any of the scenarios below on each occasion at random:

• powers up with the logo sound
• powers up with the logo sound followed by one beep
• powers up with the logo sound followed by two beeps
• powers up with no logo sound and two beeps
• no logo sound, no beeps!!!
• powers up, lux comes on flickering as per the last sound font I had loaded
• powers up, lux comes on, saber sounds played
• powers up, lux comes on, ancient saber sounds played with some of the effects (clash, lockup) for about 20 seconds before the SW theme starts being played (it's picked that up from the iSaber bank)

So although it appears everything is connected as it should be, there is some random factor which is causing lots of variance and interfering with the boot process. The one thing I've not done since doing the above is reformat the SD card a few times.

I'm sure it'll turn out to be something I've done wrong!!!

[eastern57]

Format the card. And do it a few times in a row.

The board is not matching the sounds correctly. do this: After formatting the card (a few times), turn on the power on. Even if it beeps, leave it on and let the power flow about 5 minutes. Turn it off and turn it on again. To put it stupidly, "let it warm up"

But I just want to stress how important formatting that card is ~STRESS~

[Madcow]

I've seen similar behavior before.
If it's what I suspect - you'll need to e-mail Erv. He is great with product support. I had him fix a faulty component on my board. the symptoms were similar.

Cheers,
MC

[Novastar]

Sithblade... one last question--when you copy the files over to the SD (after formatting, as you are properly doing)... do you copy the banks ALL AT ONCE?

Sometimes, if you do not do this... the files will STILL get copied over all "oddly" for CF to read things bit by bit.

If you are already basically clicking around with "select all" on the folders you want to copy and then dragging the entire thing EN MASSE to the SD with "one swift stroke" (as Tarkin might say)... then disregard my thoughts here...