TOPIC: DIY Sound Board Breakdown

Vyk wrote:
Haven't had an excuse to wire my own up to verify. I know the NB uses the same motion sensors as Crystal Shard, PRIZM, and Petit Crouton. The NB Config even has settings for soft swing, hard swing, and clash. That said, it might very well be the case that firmware is programmed to only play a standard set of swings for both soft and hard.

It's really an in-between on the list. The board itself can identify between soft and hard swings, but it apparently doesn't play different sounds for each.


Ah, for clarification, the list above doesn't take sensitivity into account, since that's dependent on the motion sensors, but only on what *type* of motions the board can track. For instance while Economy boards have pretty poor tracking out-of-the-box, it's pretty simple to remove the stock swing/clash sensors and wire in a daughter board with more sensitive motion and clash sensors.

I haven't had the pleasure of opening up an Emerald hilt, but I'd wager it's a standalone LED driver that's compatible with other Direct-Drive boards. Since Obsidian boards are covered in epoxy, the only data Emerald can receive is from the board pins - meaning it probably only reads the LED- and FoC- contacts. Because of this, Emerald probably requires a board configured for either-or FoC (as in main blade LEDs or FoC LEDs can be lit, but never both mixed). When Obsidian powers Main LED, Emerald switches to Main-color-config. When Obsidian powers the FoC LED, Emerald switches to the FoC config.

Emerald might very well be compatible with Obsidian Lite, so long the the Lite board and Emerald driver have compatible power requirements. I can't personally confirm since Obsidian/Emerald documentation is limited, and Lite reference is nearly non-existant.

US soundboards and drivers are wired up to a 7.4v battery pack. I think I've heard of folks using a single lithium-ion, but the on-board audio amp will probably lose some volume with a battery source under 5V. Might be similar to the audio drop when performing the single-cell hack on a PC or CF board. The board itself is rated 3.6-9v, according to the manufacturer:

RSX - Obsidian soundboard

Emerald has similar power ranges, but no mention of how much higher the voltage has to be compared to the LED being driven. I've seen other LED drivers with a buffer of anything between 0.5-2.5v. (For example, while a Buck Puck has a stand-alone 5v minimum, the actual minimum is 2.5v higher than the LED forward drive. So a 2.5v Photo Red LED needs 5v, a 2.65v Amber LED needs at least 5.15v, and a 3.7v Green LED would need a minimum 6.3v to light up properly.)

RSX - Obsidian LED driver

Reading through the NBV3 configuration settings, I believe you are referring to ls (low swing) hs (high swing) and lc (clash)
ls is the motion value that determines what *might* be a gesture.
hs is the motion value that a gesture must surpass in order to play a swing sound.
lc is the motion value that a gesture must surpass in order to play a clash sound.

There appears to be only one instance where a swing is played, when motion surpasses hs but does not surpass lc. So only one level of swing is used on the Nano Biscotte. But I suppose that ls could be considered a silent swing, so... You've got this down.

Ryan, you sparked a re-read on my end.

Basically, motion needs to be between the two swing parameters for a swing, and above the clash for a clash.

I'm personally a bit disappointed in that. NB has the hardware for multiple swing sensitivity, but yeah, firmware's coded to only recognize the one swing.

I'll update that little list.

Kouri wrote: I'm quite sure that Emerald is just reading the LED- and FoC- contacts. I didn't really mean the question in the sense of "can Emerald work with other boards" (I don't see a reason it couldn't); merely in the sense of "are there other drivers designed to add four-color mixing to a sound board that doesn't have it".

At least in Obsidian Lite's usual installation, I don't think Emerald would work well--there's no way you're running a four-die LED properly off of four alkaline or NiMH AAAs. Maybe Obsidian Lite can take the full voltage range that full Obsidians can take, though. Alternatively, you could put a 5V regulator on Obsidian Lite and run the Emerald off of a 7.4V pack. I think you're solidly into "why bother?" territory here, though.

So I'm clear, by "NB has the hardware" you mean what it uses for a swing sensor?


Thanks for finding the RSX links; I'd found one of those before, but then I completely forgot about it.

Vyk wrote:
Not just swing, but for motion in general. These hobby boards don't rely on physical sensors in the same way Economy and the old Force FX boards did.

NB, CS, PC, Prizm, and probably the Pico Crumble all use an accelerometer (and supposedly the *same* accelerometer) to detect hilt motion. At low speed play a swing. At high speed play a clash. Difference being that every one of those boards, other than NB, will check two different "low" ranges to trigger soft and hard swing sounds.

CF7- and the NEC boards use a gyroscopic sensor for orientation and swinging, hence the advanced things like twisting and alternate-boot-when-pointed-down. Still use an accelerometer for clash detection.

CF8 apparently has some new sensors to make things even fancier, but I don't have much research on this. Only thing that really stands out is the magnetic sensor for button-free startup.

Right, I knew it wasn't an old-school mechanical swing sensor; I just couldn't remember if it was an accelerometer, gyro, or something else, so I went with the most generic term I could think of. Sorry if it was too generic. Maybe I should've said "what it uses to sense motion"...

More or less certain now that I want to get 1 CF8 and one SC2, both wired for drop in. I hope it turns out to be manageable.

One new question: How many swing/clash sounds do the NEC boards support? I know NBv3 is 8/8 and CF is 16/16, but can't find any details for the NEC ones.

NEC boards allow up to 99 variants of a sound per font.

Awesome. Does anyone make fonts with more than 16 swing/clash sounds? XD

Borommakot wrote:
If you get fonts from saberfont.com, it's really hard to tell how much of each sound you'll be getting. Each listing has a short description, and maybe a preview video with a couple of each sound type, but that's it. The one I got from there by Lord Blako had exactly 16 swings/clashes, but the one I got from Shameem had like 22.

Though if you get a Crystal Focus, make sure to use fonts by Madcow, as he's redone most of his to accommodate the features added with the newer versions of the board (like spins and combo sounds).

Need to make some updates for the new Prizm 4.0 and some other details.

Something I'll touch on that I just learned about that may sway some people from Spark to Spark Color - upgradeable firmware.

Turns out the Spark Color 2 and Ignitor 2 have firmwares that can be downloaded and installed by the user. Last Januray, an update went out for Spark 2 and Spark Color 2 that enabled single-button mode and crossguard support. Spark 2 users wanting those features on their board had to buy a replacement board. Spark Color 2 users were able to download the new firmware and update their existing boards.

Not sure how important that is to some of you, especially since there aren't very many, if any, new feature updates planned for the Spark 2, but figured I'd keep you guys posted.

$35--a 44% price increase--seems like an awfully steep cost for the uncertain possibility of upgradability. I suppose if you routinely move a sound board from one saber to another, that could be worth it. I find it hard to believe they'd roll out an update that would be a must-have on a saber when you were fine building that saber without it in the first place, though.

HI Guys,

Noob question, but what is the difference between Tri-Cree & the 12w LED's? Is Tri-Cree simply 3x 4w LEDs to get it up to 12w? which would be brighter?

And could you use a 12w LED on a NB v3?

Darth Nelo Angelo wrote:
A tri Cree is a tri LED star made by Cree; it has 3 3w dies (the actual little lights) for a total of 9w. SF's 12w LEDs are quad Crees, with 4 3w dies.

You can use a 12w with a NBv3, but due to the amp limit in the board's main channel, you would have to resistor it down more, which would significantly lower the brightness. So unless you want a specific color mix you can only get with a quad (rb/rb/rb/r for indigo or SF's b/w/w/w frost white), stick with a tri LED with that board, and only use two for the main blade color and one for FoC.

Jaden Korr wrote:
Thanks Jaden.

So Tri-Cree is only 9w?

I won’t be colour mixing, but want a really bright green/red blade with white FoC.

Based on Kouri's original post (which is very informative by the way), the Spark & Igniter boards would be the way to go to get a bright blade using 12w LEDs?

Darth Nelo Angelo wrote: If you didn't want SF's Sabercore 2.0 board, then yes. They are also working on a 3.0 with added features, but there isn't an ETA on it at the moment.

That's going to be an issue if you want to use a stock quad LED from SF, as all 4 dies are wired in parallel to be on all the time. In order to have FoC, you need one or more dies dedicated to it, and only turn on when a clash is initiated. If you wanted to use SF's LEDs for this you'd have to re-wire it. Also, in order to have white FoC with red or green, you'd have to order a custom g/g/g/w or r/r/r/w LED (and the custom shop currently isn't taking commissions). There are quad LEDs available from LED manufacturers, but the only center mounted ones are for color mixing (RGBA). What you could do is order a SF lime green LED (green/green/green/amber), wire the greens for the main blade, and the Amber for FoC (making the lime color during the clash).

Otherwise, it may just be easier to stick with a g/g/w or r/r/w tri Cree or tri rebel.

Tri's are plenty bright. Your blade choice can make a large impact on how bright your saber seems. Thicker combat blades will always seem dimmer.

In re: 12w on NEC, Kouri said this earlier:

So doable? Absolutely. Just another factor since you're DIY

The individual LEDs in the Tri-Crees are brighter than the ones used in the 12W+ LEDs, so going off the power consumption of the two's not the way to go about it.

I've not had the pleasure of comparing a 12W+ to a Tri-Cree in house yet, but I did get a 6W+ in the other day, and while it was brighter than my one-up Cree, it wasn't twice as bright.

I'd wager the brightness between a Tri-Cree and a 12W+ to be pretty close to each other, actually.

As for FoC LEDs, there are other shops online that sell pre-made tri-Cree LEDs, but none that come in a pre-wired heatsink.

On the flip side, last time I asked Customer Service, apparently there's no issue ordering FoC 12W LEDs from the main site. Just order a 12W LED, and mention you want a Green/White or Red/White Hero LED in the comments, and the order should go through without having to go through the custom shop.

There was a comparison somewhere, and a 9w Tri-Cree LED outshined a 12w+, not 12w, LED. So Tri-Crees of the TCSS variety are actually brighter than Quad-Crees of the SF variety, provided you have a normal emitter. Though SF LEDs are easier to wire up, and are the only thing with >1 LED that work well with their thin-necks (I think).