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The S.A.B.E.R. GUILD: Saber Manufacturers => Plecter Labs => Topic started by: Falcon79 on March 08, 2019, 01:04:20 PM
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Hi!
I'm new here, but have several sabers. I have 4 of them with Plecter boards: 2x CS3.0, 1x CS4.5 and 1x CF8.0.
The CF8.0 was installed by a reputable sabersmith, and it's hacked to 3.7V. Everything seems to be working fine except for some peculiarities with the RED LED:
1. After some interrupted playtime with all 12 fonts (2+ hr), the fonts where I use the red LED start crackling, and the noise gets worse as time passes. If I switch to a color (within the same font) which doesn't use the red LED, the crackling disappears. The opposite happens with fonts where I start with blue or green LEDs. That is, if I switch to red, the crackling appears. When I charge the battery, the crackling is gone!
2. The flickering and shimmering effects are really beautiful in the blue and green LEDs. Not so much in the red LED, even though I use the same config parameters. The effect are still there, btw.
3. When I turn off the saber using a red-LED color, the green, blue LEDs shut off at the same time. The red LED stays on for a fraction of a second. It's not even a second, but you can see it. You can quickly and clearly see it in an orange or purple color, for example.
Finally, there's another odd thing. When going into the Audio Menu to select which font you want to use, there are some crackling or click noises when playing some of the names of the font. It doesn't happen in all of them. However, once selected, and the exact same sound is played to boot that font, the crackling and click noises don't show up at all!!! Furthermore, those soundfonts don't have clicks when playing any sounds. They will have crackling after a while when they fall in case 1 of my previous points. One clear example of all of this is the Treason font by Fourzze.
I will appreciate if somebody can shed some light onto this.
Regards.
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What channel is each die wired to?
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I don't know but I can find out. Will post when I get the info.
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I found out the CF8.0 was installed as pseudo color mixing.
In the CF8.0 user's manual page 41, it states that the "simplified dice driving will however not perfectly synchronize the 3 channels during ramping or pulse effect. The color shade might also change and/or fluctuate as the battery pack is depleted as the current isn't regulated for the 2 auxiliary channels."
I believe that explains what I'm seeing, doesn't it?
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That's correct! Also the cracking in the speaker when the battery is depleted is the voltage ripple you hear when it's pulling too much current at the end of life. Reds have lower Vf hence are still pulling current even when the voltage is around 3.2v, below the nominal V of the cell.
A better battery with an improved discharge rate could help.
For the menu cracking, you might just need a faster sd card, since the menu uses multitrack playback.
Sorry for the answer lag i'm still on the road and out of town
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Hi erv,
Thanks for your reply. I will try to get a faster SD card. When you have a chance, could you suggest a battery? I'm using a Trustfire 18650 (3.7V).
Best regards.
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Trust fire is a very limited choice. Panasonic 15A or keep power i would advise these days
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Hi erv,
Thanks for the suggestions.
I find over the internet the 3.7V KeepPower and Panasonic batteries. However, there are different currents: 2900mAh, 3100mAh and 3400mAh for KeepPower, and 3400mAh for Panasonic.
Which one should I use? I didn't find any info about the current in the user's manual.
Regards.
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There's no info in the manual as it solely depends on the current you use with your LEDs. The highest discharge rate, the better.
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Hi erv,
Ok. I will digest this info. Thanks for your time.
Regards.
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Hi erv,
I had Kingston micro SD cards. I got rid of them. Now, I'm using the class-4 SanDisk card which came with the CF8.0 board, but I still hear the crackling or click noises in the menu audio. Do you recommend a specific class for the micro SD card? I always follow the protocol of formatting the micro SD card, and edit-copy-paste the font folders and files. I don't drag and drop!
Regards.
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would you mind sending me your SD card package by drop box for instance, I'll see if I can do something. The vocal menu got updated and optimized on the CFv9 but I don't recall any huge crackling like you describe.
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Hi erv,
PM Sent.
Regards.
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I checked the package and some of the font.wav sound might just have a too high volume. The multi track mixer does a 50-50 mix with the audio background but you could just be at the limit with some of the sounds. Check which fonts (descriptors) you're having issues with and normalize their volume to something closer to 50% (some reach 100% of the max volume)
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Hi erv,
I will contact the fontmakers to see if they can do something about it.
Regards.
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And thanks a lot for taking the time to address this :smiley:
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I checked your font.wav files in fonts 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 and indeed they have a large volume. You could also just alter those by normalizing the volume to 50% using audacity or soundforge.
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Hi erv,
I will see what I can do.
Thanks.
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Hi erv,
I followed your suggestion of using Audacity and googled how to decrease the volume. I did so, and the clicks are pretty much gone while in the vocal menu. Thanks for the advice :smiley:
Regards.
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NP happy to see that it was a "logical" issue, nothing weird. CFv9 got some menu volume adjustments, V8 just expects 50% volume so that the mix doesn't clip.
so glad you got it to work, and bonus for DIY audio editing !