Proffieboard V3

I see. Then I guess we’ll know later.

I have tried to find the disributors again and i wasnt able to. I will keep looking and let yall know

What specifically does the V3 deep sleep mode do over the current standby mode? I was under the impression that it just cut off power to the SD card… how much power does that really save, and is there more to it than that?

Will V3 support voltages higher than 4.5V on the batt+ pad?

The V3 sleep mode actually shuts the chip down completely, rather than just slowing it down.
If it works properly (which is still unknown) it could take the power draw down below 0.1 uA, which is small enough that it’s hard to tell the difference between disconnecting the battery and not disconnecting the battery.

Yes, it does. (Up to about 5v) The charge circuit disables itself as it thinks the battery is full in this case.

Ok, not ready for 7.4v batteries, or series setups yet then?

Correct. Although, as with all proffieboards, the FETs can tolerate higher voltages than what the rest of the board can, so you could hook up the negative side of a 12v lightbulb to the FETs, as long as you still provide 4/5 volts to BATT+.

That last bit is very interesting and leads to more potential. We do this in the r/c world and run protection and volt/amp drop in between. It’s great when isolating what goes where and reducing static etc.

Would it be safe to assume that the v3 boards are still more than a month out from being available? I’m about to buy stuff for my first build, and thought I should check…

I really wish I could say no to that, but even if components showed up tomorrow, it’s still realistically a month or more away.

I figured, thanks for confirming. I’ll just have to bite the bullet and settle for the 2.2 version. No rule saying I can’t build another saber later. :smiley:

IF there was a rule, it would probably say that you must build another saber later. :slight_smile:

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If my experience is anything to go by… you will build another saber later.

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Why would you need 7.4V battery in your saber?

I had seen that 7.4V batteries were available on TCSS, and that got me thinking about it. I had been thinking that starting from a higher voltage would allow more usable range before you’re out of juice, but after some discussion with Profezzorn and others in another thread, they have disabused me on that notion.

7.4V batteries have absolutely no advantage for neopixel sabers use. They were used only with 1 sound board at old times: Crystal Focus v9 and older and only with Tri-Cree leds, because it had an onboard voltage regulator to maintain constant current and brightness for the led. Neopixel strips work at voltage range from 3 to 5 Volts. Your saber runtime depends on the capacity of the battery, not voltage.

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Hey just getting back into installations after a long break so catching up on all the news like the alpha and the new boards. I’m curious, is there a way to somehow create a secondary positive pad? 3.3V seems generally used for resistored led switches but I’m usually too afraid to put anything else on it for fear of frying something and for tight builds, resistors aren’t ideal. I usually use a lot of neopixel accents and it’s a tad bit cumbersome to lump and splice all the wires together to fit onto one pad. With v3 coming, wondering if there’s a way to program one of those free pads to operate as another positive power pad at least for lower power functions like accent leds?

KR Sabers just posted some updates on Facebook last night. One of those was that good news about Proffie v3 are coming…

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The short answer is no.

The board doesn’t need a lot of power from the positive pad. Most of the current is expected to go directly to the LEDs and pixels. While it would be convenient to have several pads dedicated to power distribution, having the power go through the board would be a waste of power and space.

Sometimes it’s possible to solve this neatly by doing the splice on the other end. Like, if you have a power jack, you can solder two or three cables to it, and then you’re done. Most of the time though, you end up having to actually splice the cables, which is a bit bulky and awkward.

One of my favorite tricks for splicing wires is to take a single strand from a stranded cable, and wrap it around the two cables before soldering. This method makes holds the cables still and together while soldering, making for a very solid joint.

Another way to avoid some splicing would be to use some component of the hilt or chassis itself to carry the power. In the original graflex design (the flash, not the lightsaber) the tube carries the negative power from the batteries. This is also true in most flashlights. There is no real reason why sabers couldn’t do the same thing.

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