Hasbro Vader board wiring help

[Branmuffin]

I have a hasbro Vader sound board/swing sensor I pulled today to put into my first build. I have it wired up with my buckpuck to provide sound but is it possible to have it make the blade flash on clash/ on/off also?

I have looked at every econo board tutorial I can find and all the boards look different as mine only has a single LED not the 3 led the Obi Board has. Anyways just wanted to see if I could get some advice so I don't fry anything .
If you can't tell by the picture all I have done is soldered the buckpuck to the +\- on the Hasbro board to power my led string which is connected to the buckpuck directly.
I would think since the econo board LED flashes on clash and power up I should be able to utilize this correct?  Do I just need to run some wire from the board led solder pads to my led string or will this cause an issue since the board cannot power the led string? 
Thanks for the help.

[Branmuffin]

Also if you cannot tell I am just using a 3xAAA setup for power.

[Kouri]

I'd poersonally recommend re-reading the economy boa5rd tutorials. The new Saber Buiklder board you're using wires almost exactle the same as the old style boards - you just treat the single LED negative as you would the three negatives on the old boards.

That said, you've got this wired up funny, and you're missing an important piece. I'm taking a few minutes to edit one of the tutorials to mimic my setup and suit your own.



Lose the buckpuck - it's only working now because the batteries put out about 5v fresh. After a little while, the combined voltage will settle to 4.5v and then lower when they start dying. That won't be enough to power the puck.

Also lose the latching switch you have hooked into the battery pack. I assume it's there because you couldn't get the puck powered off the board. We're going to fix that.

The imporant piece you're missing is a TIP42C transistor, which you can pick up at Radio Shack. This lets you read the LED signal from the board, but power the LEDs straight off the battery. As drawn above, left pin goes to board-LED negative, center pin goes to the actual LED positive lines, and right pin goes to battery positive. Your actual LED negatives go back to the battery pack.

The little bubble switch that came with the saber to turn it on and off will still work, but if you want to replace it with something else, you can pick up a momentary switch at Radio Shack.

Without the buckpuck, you'll need a resistor between your transistor and the LEDs (which I assume are wired in parallel). I'm checking your other thread, it looks like you're using 3v, 20mA LEDs. Your options are:

A) (x40-50) 82ohm 1/8W resistors, one per LED
B1) A singular 2.2ohm, 1.4W+ resistor if powering 40 LEDs (3v @ 800mA)
B2) A singular 1.5ohm, 1.5W+ resistor if powering 50 LEDs (3v @ 1000mA)

If you can't find 1.5W resistors at Radio shack, step up to the next value, probably 2-5W. It's fine to go higher here, it just means a physically larger resistor you have to stuff into the hilt. Just be sure to match the ohms.

[Branmuffin]

Thank you for the reply this is perfect, I was under the impression the board would not be able to power my 50 led string and I needed the buckpuck but I was clearly confused.  I am going to run to radio shack and pickup the resistor and transistor. I prommise I did read that tutorial about 40 times this weekend I was just getting confused by all the variations in the setups with recharge ports and multiple LED's. Thank you again and I will update this evening once I get it going again.

[Kouri]

Here's my saber running off one of the older Vader boards, just so you can see the blinking on startup, clash, and shutdown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpn8g1Igig0

By the by, you mentioned wanting to upgrade her pink vader to a single LED later on. While there aren't any pink LEDs available, an RGB LED with red and blue powered together can produce plenty of pinks, magentas, and purples, so just pop back in when you're ready, and we'll offer a hand. (here are a few colors from that LED without fine-tuning, just wiring things together)

[Branmuffin]

Ok I change my setup after reading some of the othe tutorials and thinking on it for a few days. I have decided to go with 4x AAA so I can use my buckpuck and eventually maybe move to li ion batteries. So I added the 5v regulator also.  I also removed the original momentary switch and replaced it with a random momentary I had just to test it out.

The issue I am running into now is when I connect the battery the blade is lit very very dim. When I hit the momentary switch attached to the board it then does the flicker on as it should and get bright.  What do I need to change with my wiring so I can just hit the momentary switch once to turn on and again to turn off?

[Kouri]

I had a similar issue (dim LED when off) when I tried using a diode to limit board voltage while sending full power to the LED through a transistor. Rewire the transistor so the right red wire is getting power from the regulator instead of directly from the battery pack. 5v should still be enough to power the buckpuck.

I think the dim glow if a quirk that occurs when the transistor has a higher input voltage than the board, so you'll want both running off the regulator to keep everything at an even 5v.

[Kouri]

Timed out, so I can't edit, but something else - I'm surprised you got that 5v regulator working in this setup. Last I checked the spec sheet, minimum input voltage was rated at 7v. I mean, if it's working for you on the 6v pack, awesome, keep at it, but that might be something to keep an eye on.

[Branmuffin]

Awesome I did as you suggested and ran the 5v power directly from the 5v regulator to the pnp left pin and the dim light is gone. I am having a hard time understanding why but atleast it it gone. Thank you