Crystal Focus X (v10) specs, demo and discussion

[erv]

Disable strip power on all channels. During dev i considered have strippower automatically discarded when disabling ledstrip but it still has some use even in HB led mode, to control a load independently of color profiles

[MikeyX]

Thanks for the quick answer - wasn't expecting to hear until after christmas!

That fixed it! 

Reference for others - for High Power LED setups the two key parameters are now:

ledstrip=0
strippower=0000

(note that the default in the current package is ledstrip=0, strippower=1111).

[erv]

all good ! yes, I left the defaults to 1111 for strip power to avoid people having xmas tree type of fx with the ledstrip, if left to 0000 (as it would keep underpowering the strips, inducing PWM flicker based on the blade color, mirrored to power drivers) while with HB leds, there's no risk of frying anything as the current to the leds is much less and limited by the external resistor.

[RavenXp]

I have a couple of questions.  One, I plan on making a somewhat intricate lighting system and may need to set up some accent LEDs in parallel, I see in the manual the board only outputs a max of 15mA so what I want to know is if the power Xtender 2.0 that TCSS has would work with the accent pads like it did with previous boards.  I think it should, but I want to confirm with the expert before I proceed.  Second, I want to know if the PWM pads on the bottom of the board are active or disabled when using neopixel.

Edit: Upon thinking about it a bit more, I think the Xtender should work but I don't believe things like fading effect would translate through as it seems to be designed to be an on/off gate that feeds power through from the battery when it receives the boards 3.3V output

[erv]

the PEX will work like before, fading/pulsing included

[erv]

also, 10.003 is out there, supposed to fix some of the issues noticed in 10.002 and bring some more stuff for the angular ranges, including for stabs, force, force clash. More thresholds for accent swings, force, force clash.
And real time color tuning of the blade color in Spectrum, more spectrum modes as well.

I'm trying to find some time today to make a demo reel for this, I shot some video this morning, now I have to edit and put some comments

[MikeyX]

Thanks for updated firmware Erv.

I've had a chance to update a couple of sabers to 10.003 beta and give them a very quick run-through - one HP LED and one Neopixel. I haven't tried many of the new features (although had tried some already with 10.002 beta which was on both sabers), but I really like the new configs for force, force clash, stabs etc.

Based on these very quick tests I have a few points / questions:

* On the HP LED saber - occasionally the blade stays on after powering down. It's dimmed, but definitely still on. This seems to happen completely randomly, and I think may have happened on 10.002 beta as well. I thought it might be related to using qoff (the qoff is definitely shorter than the poweroff duration), but it also happened on a bank with qoff=0.

* I've had problems with Spectrum mode 1 on my HP LED setup. On the Neopixel it works fine (and I like the spacing between the changes when you have fewer profiles). On the high power LED it enters spectrum mode no problem, but then any movement to cycle through the blade colours just results in a 'skipped' sound and the blade never changes. I have tried extending the "used_profiles_color" and "used_profiles_blade" bitfields to 32 bits long (11111111111111111111111111111111) as noted in the change log just in case (I have <16 of both profiles configured at the moment) but this makes no difference. Thanks for extending the number of blades/colours to 32!

* I have a question / issue with the new 'orient' setting. The two sabers I have updated are mounted opposite directions, and I set them appropriately (orient=2 and 3). This works as expected for the drag and other angular configurations (drag is triggered correctly when pointed down with hdrag=500,-90,-20 on both sabers for example despite having opposite orientations). However in both cases the poweron ordering by hilt orientation has been flipped from what it was. So now with 4 poweron sounds hilt pointing up plays poweron4.wav and pointing straight down plays poweron.wav - this is the opposite to what I expected - have I misunderstood how it should work (if so I will flip all my poweron sounds?

* Suggestion for the poweron interrupt (poi). I'm aware that this is partially my fault as I suggested the change to allow smooth swings to play during a poweron (which you implemented with poi=1). This works great with smooth swing only fonts as it does not stop the poweron sound (which plays to the end), but it mixes in the smooth swing nicely with it in a very realistic sounding way (to me). However with hybrid (accent swing) fonts unfortunately the accent swings halt the poweron sound. This sounds wrong to me (although is completely in line with the poweron interrupt setting!) Unfortunately I can only do movement flowing powerons with smooth swing only fonts. Would it be possible to have a setting where accent swings as well as smooth swings are mixed in with the poweron?

Any / all of these might just be my errors/misunderstandings - apologies if that's the case.

[RavenXp]

the PEX will work like before, fading/pulsing included

Thank you for the reply, that's good news actually.

What about my second question, the 4 PWM pads on the bottom of the board tied to channels 1-4, are those still usable for a crystal chamber LED when the blade is set up for neopixel?

[erv]

the PEX will work like before, fading/pulsing included

Thank you for the reply, that's good news actually.

What about my second question, the 4 PWM pads on the bottom of the board tied to channels 1-4, are those still usable for a crystal chamber LED when the blade is set up for neopixel?

yes, if you use strippower config. However, I would rather suggest to use the accent pads, which are more flexible for a crystal chamber. They can be both sequenced or mirror the blade

[erv]

Thanks for updated firmware Erv.

I've had a chance to update a couple of sabers to 10.003 beta and give them a very quick run-through - one HP LED and one Neopixel. I haven't tried many of the new features (although had tried some already with 10.002 beta which was on both sabers), but I really like the new configs for force, force clash, stabs etc.

Based on these very quick tests I have a few points / questions:

* On the HP LED saber - occasionally the blade stays on after powering down. It's dimmed, but definitely still on. This seems to happen completely randomly, and I think may have happened on 10.002 beta as well. I thought it might be related to using qoff (the qoff is definitely shorter than the poweroff duration), but it also happened on a bank with qoff=0.

* I've had problems with Spectrum mode 1 on my HP LED setup. On the Neopixel it works fine (and I like the spacing between the changes when you have fewer profiles). On the high power LED it enters spectrum mode no problem, but then any movement to cycle through the blade colours just results in a 'skipped' sound and the blade never changes. I have tried extending the "used_profiles_color" and "used_profiles_blade" bitfields to 32 bits long (11111111111111111111111111111111) as noted in the change log just in case (I have <16 of both profiles configured at the moment) but this makes no difference. Thanks for extending the number of blades/colours to 32!

* I have a question / issue with the new 'orient' setting. The two sabers I have updated are mounted opposite directions, and I set them appropriately (orient=2 and 3). This works as expected for the drag and other angular configurations (drag is triggered correctly when pointed down with hdrag=500,-90,-20 on both sabers for example despite having opposite orientations). However in both cases the poweron ordering by hilt orientation has been flipped from what it was. So now with 4 poweron sounds hilt pointing up plays poweron4.wav and pointing straight down plays poweron.wav - this is the opposite to what I expected - have I misunderstood how it should work (if so I will flip all my poweron sounds?

* Suggestion for the poweron interrupt (poi). I'm aware that this is partially my fault as I suggested the change to allow smooth swings to play during a poweron (which you implemented with poi=1). This works great with smooth swing only fonts as it does not stop the poweron sound (which plays to the end), but it mixes in the smooth swing nicely with it in a very realistic sounding way (to me). However with hybrid (accent swing) fonts unfortunately the accent swings halt the poweron sound. This sounds wrong to me (although is completely in line with the poweron interrupt setting!) Unfortunately I can only do movement flowing powerons with smooth swing only fonts. Would it be possible to have a setting where accent swings as well as smooth swings are mixed in with the poweron?

Any / all of these might just be my errors/misunderstandings - apologies if that's the case.

thanks a lot for testing all those things ! (and glad you like the new stuff)

question 1):
noted, I need a better cleanup of the blade state at the end of the ramp. I didn't notice on the bench board cause it's hooked to small leds currently. Easy fix (the cleanup exist on the ledstrip I think).

question 2): make sure you use the latest fw. I noticed the issue of profile selection and it would remain stuck due to some side effects and upgrade to 32 profiles. I picked up soon after releasing yesterday, and the version online is supposed to be fixed. I just tested on my dev board with spectrum_mode=1 and it selects the profiles correctly in real time. Please double check the version date and time, fixed version has been released under the same name

question 3) : yes, that's the aftermath of the orientation war. Someone picked that up very early as well and I corrected it right away. Next release will fix that. I won't wait until 10.004 for the little things, the goal is to fix those minor issues and put a stable tag on that version.

question 4) : not addressed yet but on my list. I haven't allocating more players and there will be one for the power on so that it better plays with the other fx during ignition. It easy

[MikeyX]

Thanks for the quick reply 

Also thanks for looking at the issues.

Regarding 2 - I re-downloaded fw and noticed that it has a timestamp of a few hrs later (I must have just checked the site right after you uploaded the first version by chance!). I've loaded the new one on the LED saber with no other changes at all and spectrum mode 1 works fine 

Regarding 3 - I will wait for a fw fix then rather than switching sounds around - thanks for letting me know,.

Looking forward to further updates - it just keeps getting better 

[erv]

thanks a lot for confirming, I indeed grasped the bug a few minutes after releasing, then it took sometime to figure out correct, and build another signed fw and push it.
relief that it's working on your side as well, thank you for taking the time to (re)install.
Yes, some tangible progress in some short time and I have more to bring to the party !

[RavenXp]

the PEX will work like before, fading/pulsing included

Thank you for the reply, that's good news actually.

What about my second question, the 4 PWM pads on the bottom of the board tied to channels 1-4, are those still usable for a crystal chamber LED when the blade is set up for neopixel?

yes, if you use strippower config. However, I would rather suggest to use the accent pads, which are more flexible for a crystal chamber. They can be both sequenced or mirror the blade

Actually, I think it should work just fine. The actual crystal chamber I'm designing will use neopixels, but I wanted an RGB led near the buttons as an accent but also have 6 accent LEDs for various other parts of the build. The RGB is more for general color that matches the blade color profile.

[erv]

pixel chamber = perfect in this situation and preserves your other accents use => win

[RavenXp]

Also saves me from having to add in a PEX or three into the hilt. Thanks for the quick responses