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Author Topic: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board  (Read 91637 times)

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Offline profezzorn

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #390 on: December 23, 2017, 11:04:36 PM »
Another question... say we want different blades ie. with different resistors to identify each blade. Should we change the number or blades or is that only when we want accessories or a dual blade type saber. And how do you identify which preset goes to each blade? Should we change the CONFIGARRAY(presets) to CONFIGARRAY(“bladename”)?

You are correct. Just add one entry per blade to the blades array. Teensysaber will measure the resistance and pick the closest one from the array. It's possible for blades to share presets, or they can have separate preset arrays. See common_config.h for examples.

Offline TTFRAZ

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #391 on: January 04, 2018, 01:52:40 PM »
Is the ground the pin on the edge of the Teensysaber or the dot next to it. Also does it have to be hooked up? Or can it come from the short edge of the Teensy? Also does the - battery never hook up to the board?  I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong. I still can’t get the Teensy to upload. I think it may be a power issue. But I’m at my wits end. Already on my second attempt on the Teensy board.

Offline KanyonKris

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #392 on: January 05, 2018, 11:41:17 AM »
Is the ground the pin on the edge of the Teensysaber or the dot next to it. Also does it have to be hooked up? Or can it come from the short edge of the Teensy? Also does the - battery never hook up to the board?  I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong. I still can’t get the Teensy to upload. I think it may be a power issue. But I’m at my wits end. Already on my second attempt on the Teensy board.
The ground is the "pin" (hole) in the corner of the board.
Yes, it must be hooked up, otherwise the Teensey and saber board will not be powered.
The BAT- on the short edge of the board is only connected to the FETs.
I know this can be confusing, it took us a while to figure it out. The ground pin provides a way to disconnect power from the electronics so you don't run down the battery. This is often called a kill switch. You have 3 options:
1 - The blade is the kill switch. Pins 1 and 2 of the blade (aircraft) connector act like a switch to connect the electronics ground to the negative battery terminal. When the blade is removed the circuit is broken and there is no drain on the battery.
2 - Add a kill switch. Many saber builders use a barrel connector as a kill switch. Wire it between the negative battery terminal and the ground pin.
3 - No kill switch. Just connect the negative terminal of the battery to the ground pin. The electronics will eventually run the battery flat. Removing the battery is essentially the kill switch.

Offline TTFRAZ

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #393 on: January 05, 2018, 06:06:03 PM »
Is the ground the pin on the edge of the Teensysaber or the dot next to it. Also does it have to be hooked up? Or can it come from the short edge of the Teensy? Also does the - battery never hook up to the board?  I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong. I still can’t get the Teensy to upload. I think it may be a power issue. But I’m at my wits end. Already on my second attempt on the Teensy board.
The ground is the "pin" (hole) in the corner of the board.
Yes, it must be hooked up, otherwise the Teensey and saber board will not be powered.
The BAT- on the short edge of the board is only connected to the FETs.
I know this can be confusing, it took us a while to figure it out. The ground pin provides a way to disconnect power from the electronics so you don't run down the battery. This is often called a kill switch. You have 3 options:
1 - The blade is the kill switch. Pins 1 and 2 of the blade (aircraft) connector act like a switch to connect the electronics ground to the negative battery terminal. When the blade is removed the circuit is broken and there is no drain on the battery.
2 - Add a kill switch. Many saber builders use a barrel connector as a kill switch. Wire it between the negative battery terminal and the ground pin.
3 - No kill switch. Just connect the negative terminal of the battery to the ground pin. The electronics will eventually run the battery flat. Removing the battery is essentially the kill switch.

Thanks for the help. thats actually how i have it wired up. And how exactly should i have the BAT - looked up? should it hooked to the GND also or to the LED1,2,3? I have it currently wired so the kill switch is in the aviation connector... but when connected the board gets hot on the FET side so I'm afraid to have it connected for more than a split second. Any ideas why this might be happening? and also the dot next to the GND seems to have flaked off. is that vital to the working of the board?

Offline KanyonKris

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #394 on: January 05, 2018, 08:48:21 PM »
Thanks for the help. thats actually how i have it wired up. And how exactly should i have the BAT - looked up? should it hooked to the GND also or to the LED1,2,3? I have it currently wired so the kill switch is in the aviation connector... but when connected the board gets hot on the FET side so I'm afraid to have it connected for more than a split second. Any ideas why this might be happening? and also the dot next to the GND seems to have flaked off. is that vital to the working of the board?
It should not get hot. Either there's a problem with the board or wiring.
The positive terminal of the battery should connect to BAT+ on the saber board and pins 7 and 8 of the aviation connector.
The negative battery terminal should connect to BAT- on the saber board and pin 2 of the aviation connector.
GND of the saber board should connect to pin 1 of the aviation connector.
This image shows the wiring well
It's OK if the dot flaked off.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2018, 08:54:06 PM by KanyonKris »

Offline TTFRAZ

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #395 on: January 06, 2018, 04:09:56 AM »
It should not get hot. Either there's a problem with the board or wiring.
The positive terminal of the battery should connect to BAT+ on the saber board and pins 7 and 8 of the aviation connector.
The negative battery terminal should connect to BAT- on the saber board and pin 2 of the aviation connector.
GND of the saber board should connect to pin 1 of the aviation connector.
This image shows the wiring well
It's OK if the dot flaked off.

Wow thats a perfect picture of what I’ve been trying to do. Maybe I missed it on profezzorns website. Another question. LED 1,2,3, all eventually get wired together and attach to a single LED blade right? So shouldn’t you be able to wire them together and have them occupy only one pin on the avitation connector? I wanted to leave two pins open so I can wire a usb d+,- so I can build a stand that can charge and also be used to program the saber
« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 04:21:25 AM by TTFRAZ »

Offline TTFRAZ

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #396 on: January 06, 2018, 09:15:33 AM »
So i think i have it wired up right. i plugged it in and was able to finally able to upload the program for the first time! but now when ever the kill switch is plugged in I keep getting "bank open failure" or something of the sort.

then when I enter the serial moniter it says theres a motion chip failure. Im hoping this doesn't mean the accelerometer is bad... I have no more pcbs to try again haha

heres hat the serial moniter says...
Code: [Select]
Sdcard found..
ID: 1023 volts 3.30 resistance= 33758500.00
blade= 0
WS2811 Blade with 54 leds
Scanning sound font: Corellian done
Welcome to TeensySaber, type 'help' for more info.
Motion setup ... failed.
Battery voltage: 4.13
Motion chip timeout, reboot motion chip!
Motion setup ... failed... etc etc etc

any ideas?

Offline KanyonKris

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #397 on: January 06, 2018, 11:10:00 AM »
We had this motion chip error twice. Reflowing the board fixed it both times. We have a hot air rework station and just hit the IMU chip with hot air until the solder melted. Must have had a bad solder joint that reflowing fixed.

We had some of the bank open failures. These were usually hardware problems that we were usually able to find and fix (solder shorts, chips needing to be reflowed, etc.).

For bring up, use a very simple config file with only 1 blade defined (the one you're testing with). You can also disable many features like ENABLE_AUDIO, ENABLE_MOTION and ENABLE_SD in the config file and enable them one by one to narrow in on the problem. Also there is lots of extra debugging features and printouts you can enable in the code.

Offline KanyonKris

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #398 on: January 06, 2018, 02:45:24 PM »
I wanted to leave two pins open so I can wire a usb d+,- so I can build a stand that can charge and also be used to program the saber
That's a good idea, let me know if it works to route USB D+, D- through the blade aviation connector. I would love to be able to reprogram without having to pull the boards out.

Offline profezzorn

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #399 on: January 07, 2018, 09:44:45 AM »
It should not get hot. Either there's a problem with the board or wiring.
The positive terminal of the battery should connect to BAT+ on the saber board and pins 7 and 8 of the aviation connector.
The negative battery terminal should connect to BAT- on the saber board and pin 2 of the aviation connector.
GND of the saber board should connect to pin 1 of the aviation connector.
This image shows the wiring well
It's OK if the dot flaked off.

Wow thats a perfect picture of what I’ve been trying to do. Maybe I missed it on profezzorns website. Another question. LED 1,2,3, all eventually get wired together and attach to a single LED blade right? So shouldn’t you be able to wire them together and have them occupy only one pin on the avitation connector? I wanted to leave two pins open so I can wire a usb d+,- so I can build a stand that can charge and also be used to program the saber

Yes and no. You loose the ability to plug in LED stars that way, but it will probably work. Note that aviation connectors are rated for 5A per pin though, so it's probably better two use at least two pins. One good solution might be to use 9-pin aviation connectors.

Offline profezzorn

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #400 on: January 07, 2018, 09:49:23 AM »
I wanted to leave two pins open so I can wire a usb d+,- so I can build a stand that can charge and also be used to program the saber
That's a good idea, let me know if it works to route USB D+, D- through the blade aviation connector. I would love to be able to reprogram without having to pull the boards out.

Should work fine, just hook up D+/D-/GND to an usb connector.

Offline profezzorn

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #401 on: January 07, 2018, 09:55:11 AM »
So i think i have it wired up right. i plugged it in and was able to finally able to upload the program for the first time! but now when ever the kill switch is plugged in I keep getting "bank open failure" or something of the sort.

then when I enter the serial moniter it says theres a motion chip failure. Im hoping this doesn't mean the accelerometer is bad... I have no more pcbs to try again haha

heres hat the serial moniter says...
Code: [Select]
Sdcard found..
ID: 1023 volts 3.30 resistance= 33758500.00
blade= 0
WS2811 Blade with 54 leds
Scanning sound font: Corellian done
Welcome to TeensySaber, type 'help' for more info.
Motion setup ... failed.
Battery voltage: 4.13
Motion chip timeout, reboot motion chip!
Motion setup ... failed... etc etc etc

any ideas?

"Sound bank failure" means that it can't find a sound found where you told it to look in the config file.
The config generator uses "fontdir", so that's where it would look by default.
The motion chip error can happen if you have the wrong board version on your config file.
If not, it's a bad connection to the motion chip somehow. (Is this a board I made? if it is I can replace it.)

Offline TTFRAZ

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #402 on: January 09, 2018, 07:52:37 PM »

"Sound bank failure" means that it can't find a sound found where you told it to look in the config file.
The config generator uses "fontdir", so that's where it would look by default.
The motion chip error can happen if you have the wrong board version on your config file.
If not, it's a bad connection to the motion chip somehow. (Is this a board I made? if it is I can replace it.)


I ended up disabling the motion since I knew the imu was faulty. Then I disabled the sd and I was finally able to see the blade light up since there were no mor errors.
And no profezzorn. I made this one. I’m new too all this type of work and thought it would be a neat way to build a saber by doing everything and learn a few things along the way. I’m actually in construction by trade but have always been a tinkerer. Just never down to the building of your own pcb level. Definitely a few more bumps that I had thought. I didn’t even see the test rig that you had made. I wish I had. That probably could have made this a bit smoother. Hopefully I can reflow the bad imu and SD card slot a get it working.
A few more quests ions. With a a double 144 ws2811 blade do you have see any dead spots? Along the side seeing as they are stated to have 120° viewing angle. Or does the diffuser do a pretty good job.?

Also how many confit options can you have in the preset array. For example can you have the blade have an on spark then fade to a gradient. But then have the tip color be some other time of effect like a flicker for example. Or does it get to a point where they code starts iterfereing with its self and becomes an error. I haven’t really tested it out nor do I know if I even want to I was just wondering how far can you go with the customization of the blade

Offline profezzorn

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #403 on: January 09, 2018, 08:13:27 PM »

"Sound bank failure" means that it can't find a sound found where you told it to look in the config file.
The config generator uses "fontdir", so that's where it would look by default.
The motion chip error can happen if you have the wrong board version on your config file.
If not, it's a bad connection to the motion chip somehow. (Is this a board I made? if it is I can replace it.)


I ended up disabling the motion since I knew the imu was faulty. Then I disabled the sd and I was finally able to see the blade light up since there were no mor errors.
And no profezzorn. I made this one. I’m new too all this type of work and thought it would be a neat way to build a saber by doing everything and learn a few things along the way. I’m actually in construction by trade but have always been a tinkerer. Just never down to the building of your own pcb level. Definitely a few more bumps that I had thought. I didn’t even see the test rig that you had made. I wish I had. That probably could have made this a bit smoother. Hopefully I can reflow the bad imu and SD card slot a get it working.
A few more quests ions. With a a double 144 ws2811 blade do you have see any dead spots? Along the side seeing as they are stated to have 120° viewing angle. Or does the diffuser do a pretty good job.?

Also how many confit options can you have in the preset array. For example can you have the blade have an on spark then fade to a gradient. But then have the tip color be some other time of effect like a flicker for example. Or does it get to a point where they code starts iterfereing with its self and becomes an error. I haven’t really tested it out nor do I know if I even want to I was just wondering how far can you go with the customization of the blade

I often have to fix my prototypes, which I do with a smd rework station. (A cheap one for about $50)
Just point the hot air at the problem chip, take it off with some tweezers. Then make sure there is is a reasonable amount of solder on it. (If to much, remove some, if too little, add some) then put it back and hit it with the hot air again. It may take more than one try, but it's always possible to fix these kind of things.

In my blades, the diffusers are *almost* perfect, however, I haven't tried the new foam diffusers from TCSS yet, I expect that you would get excellent results with those.

You can have thousands of presets. And each preset can be really really complicated if you want to. You'd need to go *really* crazy before it actually becomes a problem.

Offline spearson

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Re: Announcing the Teensy Saber open source sound board
« Reply #404 on: January 11, 2018, 05:06:15 PM »
I bought a TCSS foam diffuser for neopixel and it was a nightmare getting a strip into it, and a nightmare sliding it into the blade.  I had to slice the foam to put the strip in, and wrap it tight just to get it in the blade.  There was a lot of static cling trying to slide it in.  Was not a fan.  (7/8th blade btw).


 

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