Proffieboard 2.2 ignition with no light then nothing

Proffieboards
1

Hello, this is my first time posting and my first time building a saber.

My problem is this: I turn on the board with a kill switch, I hear the boot sound, I press the activation button and hear the ignition sound but no lights from the emitter, then nothing. No hum or light or anything. No sounds when I press the button either.

When I first assembled it , I used a configuration from a premade saber I have, it worked as expected.

The issue started happening after trying to fit everything into my custom chassis.
My wring the first time around was pretty awful so I have since rewired it and it’s still having the issue.

I have everything wired together as shown in the proffieboard v2 user manual. After examining my premade saber I see the wiring is slightly different.

The only clue I have to the cause is when I was first testing the wiring I accidentally shorted 19/18 and I think it had the same effect.

I would appreciate any help, thank you.

2

The most likely cause is a short between LED2/3 and GND or BATT- somehow.
In most cases, this would result in the battery protection circuit kicking in when you turn try to ignite the saber.

3

It looks like there is a short between LED2/3 and the BATT- on the RESET button side but not the other. The short goes through the board.

Does this mean I fried the proffieboard? I did have difficulty soldering to the BATT - on the BOOT button side.

4

I’m confused. All the solder pads goes through the board, so there should be no difference if you measure from one side or the other.

5

After retesting the continuity there is a short to both. I didn’t test it right.

6

You know, I must apologize, because I had a brain fart above…
The problem is most likely a short between LED2/3 and BATT+ (not BATT- !)
A short to BATT- would simply make the blade stay powered all the time, and you might not even notice it if that was the the case.

LED2/3-to-GND may test as a short because there is a diode in the FET that connects them. It might depend on the type of tester you use and which direction you measure though.

7

I appreciate all the help regardless of the brain fart.

I’m using a Klein multimeter.

I do get continuity when testing LED2/3 to BATT+ with positive on BATT+ and negative on LED2/3, but not reversed. There seems to be a diode there aswell.

8

So there are some reverse protection diodes in the FETs that might yield this result. Obviously if there was a regular short, it would measure as a short both ways.

Also, now that I re-read your description, it sounds less like a short.
So let’s start digging a bit.

  1. Do you think you could take a video of the problem, upload it to youtube and post a link here?
  2. after the problem occurs, what is the voltage between GND and BATT+ (what about LED2 to BATT+ ?)
9

I did a less traditional approach and added pins to the board so I could insert it into a socket and move it into different chassis’ in the future.

I’m using the engine grip sound font from Greyscale fonts.

  1. Proffieboard ignition error - YouTube

  2. I got 4.17v before and after.

10

That’s a good idea, assuming it can fit.

I see you have two buttons, but I don’t see how they are hooked up.
Are they latching? Does one of them cut the power?
Can you post your config file?
Does the serial monitor say anything interesting?

That seems good then.

11

I modeled the chassis to allow for the board and socket. I’ll probably post it here once I have the whole thing sorted out.

There’s one latching button I’m using as a kill switch. The other is the activation button.

I only know a little about arduinos and programming so I’m not sure if anything is interesting or not, so I put the output below.

Config:
CosmosLGT1_usb_up.h (22.4 KB)

Serial monitor output (I think):
serial output.txt (2.5 KB)

12

I figured out what the serial monitor was, this is what it says.

Blockquote
Activating polyphonic font.
Activating SmoothSwing V2
Accent Swings Enabled.
Polyphonic swings: 8
Monophonic swings: 0
Accent Slashes NOT Detected:
unit = 0 vol = 0.50, Playing Enginegrip/boot.wav
channels: 1 rate: 44100 bits: 16
I2C init…
MotioWelcome to ProffieOS v6.7. Type ‘help’ for more info.
Booster off.
Battery voltage: 4.08
EVENT: Power-Pressed#1 millis=112590
EVENT: Power-Pressed millis=112590
EVENT: Power-Released#1 millis=112811
EVENT: Power-Released millis=112811
EVENT: Power-Shortclick#1 millis=112811
EVENT: Power-Shortclick millis=112811
EVENT: Power-SavedShortclick#1 millis=112895
Ignition.
unit = 0 vol = 0.50, Playing Enginegrip/preon/preon1.wav
channels: 1 rate: 44100 bits: 16
Playing Enginegrip/out/out1.wav
channels: 1 rate: 44100 bits: 16

13

I was adding new soundfonts and styles to my old saber and now I’m having the same issue with it. I don’t think anything, besides the list of styles, has changed since the last time I uploaded it.

14

It kind of looks like it’s not able to initialize the motion chip.
This would explain why it’s not playing the hum.
Do you see “motion chip …” anywhere in the serial monitor output?

If you remove DISABLE_DIAGNOSTIC_COMMANDS from your config file, we can use the “monitor clash” command command to see if the motion chip is working or not.

15

I saw a “Motion chip … 106 found.”

This is the result of the “monitor clash” command including the motion chip 106 thing:

I2C init…
Motion chip … 106 found.
Unmounting SD Card.
Amplifier off.
Welcome to ProffieOS v6.7. Type ‘help’ for more info.
Booster off.
EVENT: Clash millis=13537
EVENT: Clash millis=14271
Battery voltage: 4.08
Battery voltage: 4.08
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.05, 1.05}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.04, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.04, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.04, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.04, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.03, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.04, -0.04, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.03, 1.04}
Battery voltage: 4.08
ACCEL: {0.02, -0.04, 1.02}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.04, 1.08}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.05, 1.03}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.06, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.03, 1.04}
ACCEL: {0.03, -0.05, 1.08}
ACCEL: {0.04, -0.04, 1.05}
ACCEL: {0.02, -0.01, 1.01}

16

Ok, so the motion chip seems to be working then.
So why isn’t it playing the hum?

Two more commands to try: effects and monitor gyro
The first one will tell us if it even found a hum sound on the SD card.
The second one will show us the gyroscope data from the motion chip.

17

I went to bed after my last reply and a few minutes later the lightsaber turned on by itself and the sounds worked as it should but the lights didn’t turn on. When I reset it, it went back to the same issue.

Here’s the results of the commands:

effects:

Found clrlst files: 1-27 using 2 digits in subdirs in common
Found mnum files: 1-20 in subdirs in common
Found volmax files: one unnumbered file in common
Found volmin files: one unnumbered file in common
Found voldown files: one unnumbered file in common
Found volup files: one unnumbered file in common
Found vmend files: one unnumbered file in common
Found vmbegin files: one unnumbered file in common
Found battery files: one unnumbered file in common
Found drag files: 1-1 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found swingh files: 1-4 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found swingl files: 1-4 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found swng files: 1-8 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found lock files: 1-1 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found out files: 1-1 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found in files: 1-2 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found clsh files: 1-8 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found blst files: 1-4 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found endlock files: 1-1 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found bgnlock files: 1-1 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Found font files: one unnumbered file in Enginegrip
Found hum files: one unnumbered file in Enginegrip
Found boot files: one unnumbered file in Enginegrip
Found preon files: 1-1 in subdirs in Enginegrip
Done listing effects.

monitor gyro (tilted 90 degrees):

GYRO: -0.55, 0.75, 0.93
GYRO: -0.51, 0.84, 1.04
GYRO: -0.53, 0.93, 0.92
GYRO: 5.50, -1.44, 1.94
GYRO: 25.34, -9.07, 10.08
GYRO: -0.01, -122.91, 15.43
GYRO: -6.74, -106.03, 14.12
GYRO: 12.09, -64.85, 17.86
GYRO: 9.00, -34.76, 19.61
GYRO: 1.45, -34.34, 5.93
GYRO: -14.41, 18.37, 8.68
GYRO: -4.67, 20.63, -11.71
GYRO: 8.99, 146.17, -12.42
GYRO: 4.64, 137.05, -7.92
GYRO: -69.30, 73.79, -12.60
GYRO: -19.08, 28.75, 1.03
GYRO: -21.34, 7.53, -2.75
GYRO: 16.69, 0.69, -0.41
GYRO: 12.03, 6.22, 1.59
GYRO: 1.18, 1.02, 0.71
GYRO: 35.99, -1.53, -3.79
GYRO: -0.80, 0.98, 1.21
GYRO: -0.48, 1.12, 1.28
GYRO: -0.53, 1.07, 1.26
GYRO: -0.79, 1.10, 1.17
GYRO: -0.71, 1.06, 1.10
GYRO: -1.65, 1.08, 1.01
GYRO: -0.89, 1.22, 1.14

18

This, and also the GYRO values all look quite reasonable.

My guess is that the THRUST_ON is what caused it to turn on by itself, but I don’t know why it would work sometimes but not others.

I see you have ENABLE_SERIAL in your config file. Do you need that? Do you have a BLE chip in your build? I don’t think it should make a difference, but maybe try taking that out?

19

The THRUST_ON can turn it on when it’s just sitting on a table?

I disabled the ENABLE_SERIAL line in the config and there’s no difference.

Edit 1: I started tinkering with the commands in the serial monitor and the “blade on” command causes the board to be non responsive like it is after activating it.

Edit 2: I was able to replicate the delayed ignition. I could hear the hum sound and the serial monitor showed that it was playing the hum sound too. I then deactivated it with the “off” command. I was then able to turn it on it off normally except no lights.

Reseting the board returns the issue.

20

It shouldn’t but thrust is one of the least “reliable” events, so yes, that could happen.

That’s a good find. That basically rules out the problem being caused by anything sound related.

Can you repeat this, or did it just happen one more time?