TOPIC: Spark 2 Soundboard with Saberforge LED

Hi All!

I am taking my first crack at wiring up my own soundboard. I will definitely be the first to admit 1) I am learning as I go and have a lot to learn 2) my solder work needs work (ha) and 3) this could be something totally obvious so I apologize in advance if that is the case.

I have a Spark 2 board that I have wired up. The sound, motion, switches, and kill key work perfectly. The LED, however, is putting up fight. I get no light.

What I've done:
- I have 2 AV switches (no LEDs) wired to the 2 sets of switch pads (both with Mini Dean's Connectors)
- I have 2W bass speaker wired to the 2 speaker pads
- I have the negative and positive for the battery on the board wired to a Dean's Connector
- I have the positive tab of the recharge port having 2 wires...one to the positive on the board and one to the positive of the battery (I should note that the instructions show wiring both the positive of the battery and positive of the recharge port to the positive pad on the board. I did this on the recharge port instead to accommodate the dean's plugs)
- One negative tab on the recharge port goes to the battery
- The other negative tab on the recharge port goes to the negative battery on the board
- The Negative LED is wired to the C1 negative pad on the end of the board and the positive is wired to the positive LED pad next to the positive battery pad with deans plugs in between
- My LED has a resistor from Saberforge


As I said before, the kill key, boot up and sound work great, so I would think this means my battery and recharge port wiring are okay, but I will defer to the experts here.

What I did to test
- I made sure my LED works...i tested multiple LED's and they all work in my other hilt, but not with this board.
- I Made sure I'm using a 3.7 battery from TCSS (which came pre-wired with a connector that I am using)
- I removed and resoldered a new connector to the positive and negatives for the LED to make sure it wasn't just a bad wiring job.
- I made sure that C1Color=255 on the USB card
- I tried putting the negative on C2 instead of C1 and making sure the C2Color=255

Here is my wiring:





Here is my board:



I just realized I did not show the battery, but it connects to the plug under the recharge port. I really went out of my way to make sure I didn't have to cut the battery leads.

My hope is to get all of this situated and put this into one of Saberforge's Beautiful Redeemer hilts that I ordered with a Deep Blue LED. I know I will need to change one of the AV switches to a tactile switch of some kind, but I figured I would cross that bridge when I got this to work.

If anyone sees anything that smells or looks off that would cause the LED not to fire up, please feel free to let me know. I am always up for learning. Thank you so much in advance for your help!!!

Is it ok to remove the battery from the charger even if it's not done charging?

Eesh, that's gotta be annoying. This'll be a big help to all the other aspiring self-installers. Good luck, Hot Rod!

DarthDrevic wrote:
Generally I would say it is okay but I would unplug the charger first, then pull the battery. Also, what kind of battery are we talking about?
Borommakot wrote:
Thanks, it is my hope that people can learn from this as well. I'm really hoping this is a setup issue in the SD Card and not a wiring problem at all. I'm a little more worried that maybe the board can't push the LED, but I am pretty sure the Spark 2 should be able to handle a 12W led...or if it was a problem it would just less bright instead of not lighting up at all.

HotRod wrote:
Yeah, it's my understanding as well that the Spark 2 shouldn't have any problem powering the 12W LED.

It looks like the LED connect pads aren't connected from the main board to the TruDrive section (Those 10 gold pads in the middle of the board in 2 rows of 5). Look at the blue and yellow lines in the board on page 8 of the manual. These are needed to tell the LED what it's doing, or that it's supposed to be on.

Though I think I read somewhere recommended to split the SF 12w+ or 12w LED over two channels of the Tru-Drive, by connecting the #1 LED connect pad on the board to #1 & #2 on the Tru-drive, and then run both those wires to the SF LED, I'm not sure I understand that correctly. That would be something Kouri could straighten out with me whenever he comes around here next.

Keeping an eye on this thread as I too have interest in doing a custom install in the future. Good luck, HotRod!

RyanRising wrote:
Ryan, you beautiful human being! I bet that is EXACTLY what it is! I completely missed this in the diagram. I will try to take a stab at this as soon as I get done working today (hoping to be done early) and I'll solder and post pics if it works. That has to be it. I totally missed that.

I also saw where it wanted me to split over two channels but I was afraid I would have to rewire the LED. Also, I know I won't get flash on clash this way. I just wanted to see if I could get one working before I started doing the more complicated stuff. I THINK (meaning don't know) that one channel with drive all 12W. We'll see.

Ryan, if I ever get to meet you, I owe you a steak dinner. BTW, I'm a Ryan too.

This did the trick.

Let there be LIGHT!





And Here is the board.




Again, thanks all for helping me get my first board off of the ground! Very cool! Woohooo!

- Ryan

RyanRising...Steely-Eyed Missile Man!

Aw, shucks.
HotRod (fellow Ryan), I'm glad I could be of service. Seeing everything work is all the thanks I need, no steak dinner necessary. Hopefully you could provide some pics of the finished product when you get it all put together, whenever that happens. And thank you for thanking me.

Brax, I'd hardly compare myself to John Aaron or Rich Purnell, but I appreciate it anyway.

Congrats Hotrod!!! That has to be really intimidating the first time?! I was considering trying something similar( I really lack the marbles to try), but had to have a friend one of the more favored meme/custom builder do it! Next time a Crystal Focus?


And if I can I'll get a video of saying Gorgeous and Beautiful to him as your reward! lmao.
Really am happy for you/jealous. It's a step to doing much bigger things!

Brax wrote:
Wow, Ryan, I think this is the single best compliment a guy can get! HAHA

I'm putting this in a Redeemer. As soon as the hilt gets here, I'll post some pics! Thanks ALL!!!

And SuUpberSith, I was nervous too, but if you take your time and be willing to mess up, it can very rewarding. Honestly, this really wasn't as hard as I expected. My wife was even excited when it fired up.

Next I'm going to try a Flash on clash, then a color changing saber!

It seems most of the 12W already come with two negative leads (and I'm a bit confused, since I think I see two in your initial post with only one in the more recent). All you need to do is put one negative on C1 and the other on C2. Helps with heat distribution and enables color-changing blades on mixed-colored LEDs.

That said, so long as your board's not getting too hot, you can keep it running as-is. Same-color FoC might be doable with the current setup by running C1 at about 75% for idle and 100% for clash, but keep an eye on things, since the board will probably be dissipating the extra power to keep the LED at 75%.

Kouri wrote:
Thanks for the info! You are correct in that the first LED is Blood Orange and the second is Deep Blue. Sometimes I get 2 negative leads and sometime I do not. I was planning on running the deep blue with my Redeemer hilt but it does apparently only have one negative lead. I guess it depends on the color? I will play with the flash on clash at 75% and see how the board does. Thank you!

Kouri, I tried adjusting the settings as you suggested and that definitely works. Thanks! I have not seen a lot of heat from the board yet, but I'm running at 90% so I guess that is a good setting.

I am still a bit unsure as to why some of my Saberforge 12w LEDs have 2 negative leads and others only have one. The Deep Blue did not come with a resistor but the Blood Orange did. My Frost White did as well. Interesting.

HotRod, credit to you with what you have achieved so far with wiring your own board. IIRC, (could be completely wrong) it has something to do with 'true single colour' versus 'mixed colours'. i.e. Deep Blue=only Royal Blue where Blood Orange=Red+Amber. The resistor (where applicable) has the limit in place to ensure effective colour output.

OvrcAHst wrote:
Thanks so much! I am pretty excited. Now all I need is a hilt.

So this is not so much an issue of the board overheating (which is something I personally read into it and not something that anyone told me directly) and more of an issue of just "limiting" the power to a certain die to get the right color? That makes sense to me. Thanks, OvrcAHst!

So I had some confusion with how this was done and I have a similar project. If I had a Spark2 and an SF 12W+ Green LED unit, how would I wire this if I didn't want FoC, no aux switch, no accent LEDs and a recharge port?

I've seen people say that you can run the negative lead of all four dies to channel one (C1 in the diagram for Spark2), but that you run the risk of running the whole setup a little hot. Would you then solder two dies each to channels 1 & 2 and then run them to the TruDrive 1? TruDrive 2 is for FoC, is it not? Any help would be great!

MasterCurtis wrote:
I am still learning myself here, so I can't provide any expert advice, but what I can tell you is I've not been running hot has I am wired above. How many leads do you have coming out of your SF LED?

As to how you would wire it for 2 Channels, you may be able to wire it as if you were doing flash on clash (meaning 1 to true drive 1 and 2 to true drive 2) and then editing the settings on the SD card, but I'd really have to defer to an expert here.