Crystal Focus 4.x and beyond Bug list & Fix

[Novastar]

Good points, guys.

Since v4.x has the mini-SD holder... it's as yet not "super duper" well-tested as to what happens if the SD jiggles around. Those little things are TINY, and since they (apparently) work with a little bit of "spring action"... it can be tough to know if they are seated right or if they will stay.

Personally... I only have v2 and v3 style CF ("normal" SD cards), and those are held by pressure. Plus... I add a little electrical tape once the thing is ready to go, and I tape the SD down. When I need to replace/change fonts, I can easily peel off the tape.

I have indeed had problems with the SDs slipping out, but very few, and it's always been when I did not "buckle 'em down".

[Logan Cade]

I bought (6) 1 gb Kingston Micro SD cards off Ebay for quick swapping and I’ve had some similar troubles with them. Seems they’re manufactured in different places, the ones made in Taiwan work flawlessly but the ones made in Japan have had issues like you were mentioning. I too believe it’s in the contacts because when it acts up and I get the beeping and the blade turning on by its self, it’s like it’s not reading the files correctly.

I’m trying different things, contact cleaners and tightening up the housing, but so far nothing concrete.

Also watch that nothing is coming in contact and pushing on the SD card while it’s in the hilt. I have mine attached to a sled with the battery pack and the extra wiring in front as I push the sled in might be part of my trouble at times.

[killphil]

Good points, guys.

Since v4.x has the mini-SD holder... it's as yet not "super duper" well-tested as to what happens if the SD jiggles around. Those little things are TINY, and since they (apparently) work with a little bit of "spring action"... it can be tough to know if they are seated right or if they will stay.

Personally... I only have v2 and v3 style CF ("normal" SD cards), and those are held by pressure. Plus... I add a little electrical tape once the thing is ready to go, and I tape the SD down. When I need to replace/change fonts, I can easily peel off the tape.

I have indeed had problems with the SDs slipping out, but very few, and it's always been when I did not "buckle 'em down".

I did the exact same thing when I had a saber with CF 3.0. It was always coming loose when I would whack it a little to hard, once I secured it with electrical tape, that problem ceased. The problem with these smaller ones, is there is really no room to tape it down. I've tried it, and the tape always seems to come loose.

To be fair, though, I've had this saber for almost a year now (Thanks, Madcow), and this is the 1st major issue I've had with it.

The funny thing is, that when the SD card would loose contact on 3.0, the power would just cut off. What I experienced last night, was the saber freezing on me. Whatever led was blinking on the bargraph would stay lit, as well as the blade. It would stay frozen for about 2-3 seconds, power would cut off completely, and then the whole thing would reboot.

It would only do this when I made impact to get a clash.

Of course, like I said, I found contamination on the outside of the SD card holder, and it was sorta nestled inside the SD card holder via one of the slots on the bottom. So this might not have been an issue with the SD card loosing contact.

I consider all this valuable, though, as it gives me one more resource to trouble shoot should I run into future problems.

Appreciate the insight, guys.

[Madcow]

I've done a number of CF 4.X sabers now. Only once did I find one that had an issue with the SD card staying in tight.
What I did was - apply a small square of Tuck tape to the back side of tha card (opposite side from the contacts. Tuck tape is really thin and super adhesive. That made the card fit in a little tighter.


Also - if the micro SD card is not a quality one - it may have trouble keeping up with a fast series of clashes. Then it would crash the saber and re-boot. (Correct me if I'm wrong Erv).


MC

[erv]

I've done a number of CF 4.X sabers now. Only once did I find one that had an issue with the SD card staying in tight.
What I did was - apply a small square of Tuck tape to the back side of tha card (opposite side from the contacts. Tuck tape is really thin and super adhesive. That made the card fit in a little tighter.

Also - if the micro SD card is not a quality one - it may have trouble keeping up with a fast series of clashes. Then it would crash the saber and re-boot. (Correct me if I'm wrong Erv).
MC

A few points :
- yes, indeed, any holder is meant to have the card inserted in and out, hence contacts are little spring effect pins. On regular SD cards, those little pieces of metal are big and have inertia, with heavy shocks then can temporary loose contact with the card. The pads on the SD are large enough so that contact can't be lost if the card jiggles left / right. Nova is right, what I usually did was to add a bit of tape on the card to make it thicker on the top side (opposite of contact side) to make sure it can move backward, and applies more pressure on the contacts, hence reducing the mechanical dynamic range.

- micro SD : the fact it's a locked tray makes the thing even more reliable, cause some pressure is directly applies on the card, however contacts are smaller. Some chinese cards aren't fully compliant with the thickness / mechanical specs of the micro SD. On my side, I have to admit that on the ton of uSD holder I got and soldered, some of them might not be equal in terms of quality. Like MC said, a bit of thin, clear tape on the top side when you're done with configuration will help ensuring the SD can't move. Since the card itself is really small, it has REALLY LOW inertia, so kinetic energy can't really make it move, unless if it's loose. The worst situation is getting the saber falling on the pommel with the SD butt on the pommel side, it will tend to force the uSD out.

I try to keep going with quality, Japan made uSD cards (kingston). Most of them are really good, I got a few odds, and really few born dead. The main problem is I think the regular sized SD adapter, it's really cheap. I don't recommend using it in a CF using regular SDs unless you feel insertion of the uSD in the adapter is tight and strong, then you add the piece of tape on top to make it even thicker.

in extreme cases, soldering the uSD is also an option

- rebooting board : that's not a bug, it's just that if contact is lost with the card, a watchdog ends up rebooting the board so that you're not stuck for ever like "could we stop the demo so that I disassemble the saber please ?".
That's also very practicle when you work on configurations, I often hot remove the SD, it stops and reboots after one sec, waiting for the SD insertion, then I put the updated card back in the holder and it starts immediatly.

Erv'

[Novastar]

Ok... this is a small, "unofficial" bug that Don Close, Erv and myself have found with (at least) v4.x of CF.

NOTE: This bug is *NOT* part of the new run of CF... it will be repaired with the new release.

* You have CF v4.0 or v4.1 (possibly older versions as well)
* You are doing some kind of "flash on clash" setup. In other words, you probably have an RGB or LEDEngin or Rebel, or some kind of multiple die setup
* While running the saber in any sound mode... you trigger the clash (by whacking the saber, duh)...
* BEFORE the clash (and "flash") has completed, you power off the saber
* The clash circuit LED will remain on

* Turning the saber "on" again will reset things

Now... this is pretty difficult to accomplish unless you accidentally turn off your saber during a lot of spinning and smashing, swinging and clashing. It's nearly impossible to achieve this error with APOP functioning... and even more difficult to achieve if your switches are recessed.

Anyhow. It's being resolved for the upcoming release of CF v4.x.

--Nova

[erv]

yeah, so now officially it has to be called 4.3 lol
already fixed
thanks nova !

[Mcich]

ok been changing the LED setup on my CF 4 to have the led's in my MPP clamp scrolling in different patterns, now the first time I altered the led's it was fine, after browsing out through the PDF manual for the CF I noticed that it stated to format the card before altering the sound fonts.

ok so I still have no speaker but I wanted to get the led's all setup for when she gets mended, so I format the micro SD and reinstall all my fonts and their proper config files, ep1 config etc etc. and rename them config, install them in the correct folder and whatnot.

now when I take out the kill key no idle blinkies, when I power on no scrolling blinkies, the main led shimmers for a second then just hits a steady on glow, no pulsing or anything, I turn it off and the main led still stays on.

what is throwing me for a loop is that before I formatted the SD card it ran perfect, anyone have any suggestions on how to get it going again?

[erv]

you need to format only if you plan to change the sounds, if you're just editing the configuration files, leds.txt etc you don't need to.

for your problem,
format the card in FAT16, and copy back in shot the default package to see if it works.

[Mcich]

alas the only format options I get are fat or fat32

forgot to mention, I am also changing the sound fonts to have an episode 1 - 6 SD card

ok formatted, added the default files, now its gone weird lol

the saber is on when the button is off, when the saber is off the blinkie is flashing but the power and aux button are ignited as well

edit time:

ok I reformatted using FAT then installed the fonts I intend to use, the LED's didnt blink, but the saber did power up and have the effects in the clamp I wanted, I changed my LED configs back round to idlepulsing=1 and they are running again, strange.

well least its working, all I need now is my speaker soldered back on and thats it!!! cant wait till payday so I can send her off to be mended