I followed this wiring diagram. I think. I could not find any information about the charge board to know for sure if i did that part correct. This is my first time doing anything like this. I believe that the board is programed correctly arduino compiled and said that the upload was complete. When I plugg charger in the battery eventually gets warm, not hot, like it’s charging. But when I unplug nothing will work. One time I pulled the battery out (forgetting to unplug first) and noticed that the light around the button turned on and the LED on the board started pulsing. When I push and hold button it makes an ignition sound and says clearly smooth Jedi. The lights on the neopixel have flashed on on occasion but do not turn on or stay on. I have no idea what to do. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Kevin
The wire paths don’t look bad per se, but there’s a few things I’ll mention right off the bat:
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Those power wires are dangerously thin. You should use 22 AWG or larger (smaller number is larger wire) for power (that includes power to blade), everything else can be thin but battery power and blade power needs to be beefy
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The LGT recharge port is non-switching and not recommended to be used due to safety concerns, though the way you have it wired up seems correct.
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You need more solder, more heat, and/or more flux on your joints. The solder should freely flow and cover the whole pad, being smooth and shiny once you’re done
It sounds to me like it’s mostly there, but there’s some iffy wiring and the controls are foreign.
I’d recommend using my proffie tool to handle your config, that should make a lot of the options more clear and you can get a clean printout of what all the button things do depending on how you have it configured.
You can also import whatever config you have as a starting point.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll work on the wiring. I was working with what I had. I bought my son a saber from DX sabers. Which I came to realize was an horrendous mistake (I’m lucky to have received the hilt).
I plugged a regular charger in to it not knowing that 12v was bad. So long story short I bought a proffieboard and started down the road of rebuilding the saber. I feel like I’m close but missing something important. I’ll buy some wire and start over.
Do you have a multimeter?
Have you measured the voltage from the battery?
Have you measured if the 3.3v pad has 3.3 volts on it? (when on)
If you don’t have one, I highly recommend getting one, like maybe this one:
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I gotcha, it happens.
As prof said a multimeter can help you find issues. I talked about wiring/soldering because of that intermittent behavior you described and from looking at some of the pads looked a bit “dry”
Thanks for the help. I’ll see if I can get a multi meter and see what the battery is putting out.
Ok, so I checked battery and it’s showing 0v. So I guess I have a bad battery.
When I plugg in the charger there’s 5v showing at all connections from the charge port all the way to and including the blades in the battery bay. But once I put battery in it drops to .29v at the battery blade posts and to .4v at the charge port its self. I do not know much about electronics so I have no idea if this is normal or because battery is bad.
I will order a new battery. And am going to work on rewiring some of the thin wire with 22awg. We’ll see what happens when I get the new battery. Any other ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks Kevin
5v is problematic. A lithium ion charger should output 4.2v max, smart chargers will sometimes vary and be less then that depending on how full the battery is.
The charge port cannot be used the same as up used it with the stock saber, you need a real battery charger, not just a phone charger.
The Custom Saber Shop (US) and The Saber Armory (UK) sell good 3.7v (nominal) li ion chargers, that’s what you want
What you’re seeing is almost certainly the battery protection kicking in (cutting the power) preventing what we call “fireworks”
This is bad/weird.
A li-ion battery should be 2.6 to 4.2, any voltage out of that range will damage the battery.
The protection circuit should kick in as soon as the voltage is outside of that range though, so maybe that’s what you’re seeing.
This is also bad/weird.
A li-ion charger should provide 4.2v, not 5v.
Using 5v can potentially damage the battery.
(All the proffieboard circuitry should tolerate 5 volts though.)