How exactly is the Crystal Focus board hard to obtain?

[Sairon]

Ebay is your friend, and a joe jedi is the last MR saber that MR made, it is the build your own lightsaber with a prolite rgb. Also Google is your friend.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Since we are on the topics of spund boards I have a question I've been wanting to ask for a long time *takes a deep nervous breath*

Is it possible to buy just a MR sound board without the lightsaber?
If so (and if allowed in the forums) where?

Also what exactly is a Joe Jedi 616 board? And again, where can you get those?

Tim used to have FX sound boards in the store, but that was a few years ago.
There are currently no ways to get one without gutting an FX saber. Some times there are members at FX-Saber.com that have boards to sell, but even those are getting rare.

The Joe Jedi or SW-616 soundboard is the one from the MR construction set. Do a forum search and you should find a lot of information about that board.

[Vallen Kel-Romarr]

The Joe Jedi or SW-616 soundboard is the one from the MR construction set. Do a forum search and you should find a lot of information about that board.

NOTE to anyone doing this search -- doing a search for "Joe Jedi" (including quotes) will return useful results. The search function ignores anything of 3 characters or less, so you need to use quotes and search for the exact phrase. If the post/thread (however you're searching) didn't use the words 'joe' and 'jedi' right next to each other, this search won't find that post/thread.

Unfortunately, when I search, 'SW-616' returns no results. Because of the character limit of the search, '616 joe jedi MR' returns ALL results with the word "jedi" and ignores the rest of the search string. (The same applies to 'MHS', 'ID', 'OD', 'FX', 'LED', etc.) I can't seem to find a way around this, as the 'AND' & '+' operators still get ignored if combined with a short search term. Maybe someone who has better SearchFu or is more familiar with the forum UI can assist.

Interestingly enough, clicking on the '616' in the search cloud on the advanced search page DOES return ONE thread...

[Eandori]

It is not significantly harder to wire a CF than a US 2.1...that is assuming you have the skill to do either and not ruin a $130 or $230 soundboard.

CF has more features then US 2.0 does. If you use ALL the features of CF, then yes it's MUCH harder to set-up the US 2.0.

Let me give you a quick "for instance" to really prove the point...

The US 2.0 has an audio-selection menu for it's settings, and one sound font.

CF has up to 6 sound fonts, and up to 16 music tracks that can be played. Each and every sound font can be altered by the user if they wish to do sound-editing on their PC. The end result is some... 180+ files that can all be customized on CF.

Here is a copy/paste of the config file settings for one of my sabers before I sold it...

//Config file bank1 Novastar
hc=255
lc=70
hs=45
ls=10
sc=9
ss=6
i=0.65
gx=1.1
gy=2.2
rand=0
freq=120
shimmerd=130
shimmerp=10
shimmerr=5
auxflashd=25
dynshift=0
shift=0
gravity=110
buffer=9
noise=12
sample=14
swing=180
lockup=90
blaster=0
switch=0
instanton=0
instantoff=0
offprotect=0
auxreboot=1
force=1
mute=0
beep=40
valsnd=1
current=70
lowbatt=310
flickers=3
flickerd=70
flickerp=0
brake=0.80
slope=0.5

Each and every one of those settings has something very specific it does and a SERIOUS saber-smith has probably played with, and settled on a value for each one.

This is all beyond the extra wiring for all the extra circuits for special features that CF is made to support. Features like...
- Rumble motor
- Blink LED's
- Clash Flash LED
- Low Power LED
- Blade power lock

etc etc.

Have I made my point yet?

[Novastar]

Several people have said the Crystal Focus board is difficult to get, but I can't figure out why they are telling me that. They aren't available here, but can't I just simply go on the Plector Labs website and order one? Or is there a backlogged waitlist for them?

Gone in 60 seconds (ok, 2 hours):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0cWMLMyOr8

Gone in 5 minutes (ok, 4 minutes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjLS0J2AiMQ

And Edwin is in some ways correct about CF, and in some ways wrong--regarding how CF could be complex to set up...

* CF (once wired up) can literally be turned on with no modification... and your saber will most likely be dandy fine without any work at all

* An exception might be with your switch settings (momentary or latching). I think CF defaults to latching for the on/off switch.

* However... if you have some special needs with your LED current, and want to really be precise about the current driven into said LED... yup--you'd need to configure the LED more directly. I think CF defaults to running an LED @1A (ledcurrent=45, which is like 0.97A).

Otherwise--CF + its default SD card should function just fine with almost no modification. But the BEAUTY of CF... is its ability to be nearly 100% configurable. Right down to how much delay it takes for a button press to create the "lockup" sound... how the saber reboots... how quickly the saber "ramps up/down" with the light upon power on and off... and (as I said) what switch type you use.

[Eandori]

Good addition Nova, yeah you can just use defaults on CF across the board and simply not use features that it comes with.

In my eyes, that really destroy's the whole reason to use a CF though... It's like paying extra for a motherboard with overclocking features, then never touching them. Sure, even at it's default settings a CF board is well above all other boards... but... it's so much more!!!

[Novastar]

Oh, I just mean for those who are super-eager to just wire it up and get it running!

I agree... CF = you want to screw with everything until you're quite happy with all of the "pimping it out"... messing with variables... looking for that unique "flicker & glow"... all that jazz.

Then again, that's why I created the CD.

Now... if only I could MAGICALLY figure out some way where there was a great formula to make configuration files that yielded the same or extremely similar light driving for EVERYONE... which is fairly impossible due to:

* Differing battery voltages
* Differing LED fwd voltages and also the way they behave for "ramping" or dimming (for lack of a better way to say it)
* Differing CF current settings (some will over-drive, some will drive @ "spec", others will drive under???)
* Differing other devices on board the whole thing. Speakers... motors... special indicator LEDs... Tri-Rebels... whatever.

It's a friggin' NIGHTMARE to try to figure out "one size fits all" light values. So... for anyone with the CD who had problems with some of my config settings... sorry!! It's nearly impossible to control.

I just figured that using a voltage setup that was well ABOVE what the LED wanted/needed was the best standard to shoot for. Essentially: 7.2v + ~4v LED + good speaker + a few goodies.

[swear000]

Are you talking about dynamic voltage scaling?

[Novastar]

Absolutely not. DVS is used mainly in the large-chip computer worlds, where you have power hogs like uber video cards and 2.4Ghz processors and all that jazz. When you have (for example) ten 12v rails or whatever... and several of them with devices, programs and other thingamabobs and thongamajigs that aren't doing very much at the time... you can play DVS with them to save power and thwart hungry current and voltage thieves...

But mainly, it's used for power-saving on computers... you know... sleep mode, low-battery mode (laptops), hibernation mode, blah blah blah.

To a certain extent... CF *DOES* have a sleep mode... but... I'm not talking about that at all.

What I mean to say is... I cannot make "one size fits all" SD card configuration files that make the light driven from CF (LED current) behave identically from saber X to saber Y if saber X & Y have:

* Differing battery voltages
* Differing LED fwd voltages and also the way they behave for "ramping" or dimming (for lack of a better way to say it)
* Differing CF current settings (some will over-drive, some will drive @ "spec", others will drive under???)
* Differing other devices on board the whole thing. Speakers... motors... special indicator LEDs... Tri-Rebels... whatever.

It's hard to explain.

[Obi-Ben]

Gah! It's such a tease to know about all the different features the CF has, and then not be able to buy one (without a certain degree of luck). But the UltraSound looks like a great board too, so I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one. Thanks guys for explaining everything to me.