No "power down" sounds on SW-616 Joe Jedi

[Darth Abominor]

hehe, indeed.

I did an experiment this afternoon with the standard speaker and 616 board.. got an odd result.

I wired the board directly into the lines as a split off the main Neg and LED+ lines. I get power-up/down, clash and swing sounds as well as LED (Lux3) power on/off at the push of the external activator button. So it works, but the sound is very low and the power gets quickly ripped from the battery pack.

Is this a reasonable way to wire the board, or am I risking frying it quickly with it's Main+ & Main- wired directly onto the lines leading from the latching switch?

[Arm on Fire]

pics would help greatly

[Darth Abominor]

If you saw my temp wiring job, you'ld have me on fire long before your arm. :P



I'll be putting a TCSS Premium Speaker on this setup in a few days, we'll see how loud it is then.

[Zook]

If you saw my temp wiring job, you'ld have me on fire long before your arm. :P



I'll be putting a TCSS Premium Speaker on this setup in a few days, we'll see how loud it is then.

The sound is going to be really low sitting outside the hilt like that. Put a resonator chamber on it or stick it in the hilt and you will notice a huge difference in sound.

Though I do see one thing wrong with your wiring.

You do not need to put a resistor in the middle of the board output and the LED. If you are going to use the board to run a LED directly you need no resistor.

also what are you using to power the board. That looks like a two battery holder. Are you using regular AAs or the Li-ion. I assume regular AAs since I doubt the board would survive the Li-ions (6V is max and some cant take that).

EDIT---One of the reasons the battery is running down so quickly is because 3V (2xAA) is barely enough to run the board much less a LED and speaker so as it drops a little below 3V its shutting down.

[Novastar]

Zook, you're right that 3v is certainly not enough to give both sound AND light... but... that might actually be a "long" battery pack for 4xAA. Rendering 6v I'd hope. That should be ok.

As to resonance... you may again be right Zook... but running the speaker directly off the battery pack may somehow skip over the amplifier the board would use to increase the volume. I'm not certain of that--just postulating. Back to work for me!!!

[Zook]

Zook, you're right that 3v is certainly not enough to give both sound AND light... but... that might actually be a "long" battery pack for 4xAA. Rendering 6v I'd hope. That should be ok.

Yeah I didn't think about the long 4AA packs.

As to resonance... you may again be right Zook... but running the speaker directly off the battery pack may somehow skip over the amplifier the board would use to increase the volume. I'm not certain of that--just postulating. Back to work for me!!!

That's how the original speaker is run off of those boards though. The speaker is in the battery pack with one lead running to the + of the pack and then there are 3 pins on the battery pack that connect to a connector (when slid into place) that runs to the board. 1 is main + one is main - and the other is speaker - (which are also marked on the board as such).

[Darth Abominor]

Yeah I didn't think about the long 4AA packs.





That's how the original speaker is run off of those boards though. The speaker is in the battery pack with one lead running to the + of the pack and then there are 3 pins on the battery pack that connect to a connector (when slid into place) that runs to the board. 1 is main + one is main - and the other is speaker - (which are also marked on the board as such).

The Battery Pack is a 4AA (1.2v 2500 rechargers) pack, so that's not the issue as I can see it. I am putting 2 sets of 4AA fully charged batteries into the setup for power drain tests today.. we'll see how long they last.

Also, the resistor is not on the board line, it just happens to be at an odd angle in the pic, it is pure LED+ for that 5v 2.2 bugger.

I have put the hilt over the speaker to force some resonance and it is louder for sure.. just waiting for the Premium TCSS Speaker to arrive soon to know for sure if the sound is up to par.

[Zook]

The Battery Pack is a 4AA (1.2v 2500 rechargers) pack, so that's not the issue as I can see it. I am putting 2 sets of 4AA fully charged batteries into the setup for power drain tests today.. we'll see how long they last.

Also, the resistor is not on the board line, it just happens to be at an odd angle in the pic, it is pure LED+ for that 5v 2.2 bugger.

I have put the hilt over the speaker to force some resonance and it is louder for sure.. just waiting for the Premium TCSS Speaker to arrive soon to know for sure if the sound is up to par.

yeah it is at a weird angle then because it looks like it goes into the LED plug on the board. Where is it hooked up exactly?

[Darth Abominor]

The LED is hooked directly into the order of:

Battery+ -->(split into LED/Sound Board lines) -->Switch+ (latching) -->LED+

It works, so something is correct, but the drain on the batteries still seems high. The fully charged control test will be this afternoon, then we'll know just how long this setup works with the Speaker, Sound Board & LED all running directly from the Main+.

**UPDATE** Ran the whole mess on 4AA 1.2v 2500 batteries (rechargers) and it ran without a dimming of LED or error in sound, while hitting the clash very often, for over 45mins.. then the speaker fell off. (HAHA, MR!!)

The wires that were used for the original speaker leads are just so damn thin and frail that I think they just popped off the frame when I placed the sink tube 'gently' over it to get a resonance sounding.