TOPIC: DIY Sound Board Breakdown

^I would agree with that. I still really like the B/B/W LED in my Graflex, but if I had to do it over again I'd go with rB/B/W for a better TFA color.

Ok thx guys just ordered one...

Uncertain if the following helps, went BBW with ESB Graflex (left) and RbBW with OWK ROTS (right). Graflex is a 7/8" Blade and the other, 1".

Hi. I have searched and have not been able to find any post related to what I am looking for, and part of m decision is based on the fixed info on this thread regarding various soundboards, and further research.

I am wiring a SF Exhalted hilt. I will only be using One momentary switch, and removable 3.7v battery.

My question has to do with resistors. My first choice of board is NEC Spark 2. My LED is a 12W Arctic Blue from SF. As per NEC manual, I do not need a resistor to my LED. But have seen other sites say to always wire a resistor, specifically the .47ohm 3W resistor. How true is this?

Second choice for sound board is the Nano Biscotte V3 (since it seems Spark 2 are not available at this time). This board will not run SF 12W LED at full. So, does this mean I can connect it directly with no resistor?

Any help is appreciated.

ColdHit wrote:
Regarding the SF Arctic Blue and Spark 2, there are plenty of folks here who will know more than I do, but I have always heard that since SF resistors their own LEDs, you should have what you need when you order the LED assuming you're running a 3.7v battery (which you are). I know you can use the V = I * R equation to help determine what is needed.

ColdHit wrote:
There are basically three schools of thought:

1) MAXIMUM BRIGHTNESS - Basically, if the LED forward voltage is close enough to battery nominal voltage, folks will skip the resistor and let the LED overdrive at the battery's discretion. This largely works (SF Blues and Greens are wired without resistors), though since every LED is unique, you wind up with the odd highly-efficient and/or poorly-overdriving LED that burns out under the stress.

2) MAXIMUM SAFETY - Basically, you calculate resistor calcs with the battery's maximum voltage (4-4.2v) and the LED's forward voltage at 1000mA. The LED runs at its max rated brightness on a fresh battery but dims fairly quickly as battery voltage drops.

3) The Middle Road - My preferred approach - run resistor calcs at the battery's nominal 3.6-3.7v. The LED will slightly overdrive (1200mA) on a fresh battery, sit at 1000mA for the large part of the battery's charge, and then start dimming as voltage drops below ~3.5v.


No, it means a 12W LED can damage the Nano Biscotte unless you:

A ) Use a big resistor to bring the LED down to 2A/6W
B ) Modify the NB with a secondary transistor to bring its main channel specs up to 4A/12W.
C ) Wire the 12W LED so that two diodes go to the LED Main channel (NB V2 or V3) and one of (v3) or the remaining two (v2 w/ PEX) goes to FoC

Hi Kouri, good info. Thanks.

Kouri, thank you so much for the clarification. It is greatly appreciated.

ColdHit, please accept my apology if my information was not accurate. It was not my intent to mislead you. I am still learning as well my intent was to help. I'm glad you asked the question and Kouri was able to clarify. He is definitely the expert here.

Thanks, guys!

HotRod, in any way your info was misleading. Its about gathering enough information in order to make a decision that fits me. In no way I would make any forum member, or other forum member responsible for a decision that at the end will be mine alone.

I really appreciate all comments on all boards. It makes me learn and research further on options that I would normally would not think about.

ColdHit wrote:
Thank you for your grace here, ColdHit! I greatly appreciate it! We're all learning here.

Yeah, HotRod's info isn't wrong, and is in-fact the info I give for folks wanting the simple answer - just hook the SF LED up to the board with whatever resistors it does-or-doesn't come with.

I just dropped the long-winded answer to cover the question of why some folks say no-resistor on blue/green and other folks say resistor everything.

Hey Kouri, could I get some clarification on this advice you gave for using a G/G/G/W LED with a Spark 2 for a green blade with white FoC because I'm dense?
Basically, I'd like to apply this to my A/A/A/G LED, since I'd like main blade options for amber, green and a yellow where i can control just the amount of green used, as opposed to a a 6w amber/6w lime green/12w yellow setup (where in order to lower the amount of green used I'd also end up lowering one of the amber dies).

Is this what you meant?

The wiring's right, and makes sense for re-using an existing LED.

For a new project, I might recommend a Spark Color 2 with an Amber/Amber/Green/RoyalBlue with both Amber at full-blast, Green tuned to the desired shade of Yellow, and the last LED in Royal Blue or Cool White for FoC.

A/A/G/Rb would also have the benefit of providing an additonal Arctic Blue (G/Rb) blade with Amber (A/A) or White (A/Rb) FoC.

I've been pondering over a PCAmber/Green/RoyalBlue Tri-Cree for one of my own builds, but haven't gotten around to it.

Thanks for the confirmation. The original plan was conceived back when we all thought SF yellow was still equal parts green and amber. With the news it was 3 to 1 amber and green, I knew I would rather have a pure green blade option with the ability for lime instead of being locked into it.

Though when my yellow LED's wires broke at the resistors recently, I did take the heat shrink off to fix it and saw SF used a 1Ω for the pc ambers and a 3.9Ω for the green. So I figure if I take it off and connect the green straight to the board, dial it down for the main blade color, then crank it to full (perhaps in conjunction with turning down one of the ambers slightly) during the effects, I could still get a noticable clash/blaster/lockup color.

I had considered using the SC2 just for the ability to adjust the color mix in hilt, as well as a A/A/G/Red Orange LED for a yellow blade, an orange blaster block (since most blaster bolts seem to be red), and a greener clash/lockup (I wasn't initially a fan, but the green clash effect from the Ahsoka/Vader fight in the season 2 finale of Rebels has grown on me).

You *could* keep it simple on a Spark 2 with a Red/Red/Green/Green LED and configure the color mixes for everything you mentioned above. Green, Lime, Yellow, Amber, Orange, Red. The NEC config tool even offers a virtual blade preview once you've got the LED colors configured in the tool. This is my personal plan for a Quinlan Vos build that'll offer both a Red and Green main blade with Yellow FoC (though I'll be experimenting with PhotoRed/PhotoRed/Green/Green - not sure how the yellow will look).

In my personal experience, yellows made from Red-Green mixes look fine in-person but don't photograph very well. I've mixed some nice golden yellows that wind up photographing as brown/peach.

Kouri wrote:
Yeah that's been my dilemma. I know I could get more options with the red/green mix, but I haven't seen that shade of yellow in person (and you're right in that it doesn't photograph well), and I know I like how the 3 PC amber and a bit of green mixes together.

Now that the Sabercore can be bought standalone, does anyone know if it comes with any documentation? I know the board only has the main 8 terminals for the power, LED, switch and speaker but it would be good to know the limitations/caveats of the board.

I'm assuming the black chip by the SW contacts is the transistor for the LEDs. If someone could read the part number off their board, we could at least get the safe current limit for the board.

Snakeeyz99 wrote:
No I bought one and got no documentation with it. It's not tough to look at the plug & play kit and figure out the wiring. You are right no one knows what the limits are.

Kouri wrote:
Here you go!


Looks like the number is AG5AD FDS 4465