So I have some sort of problem either with a battery, wiring, or something else. Last night everything was working fine and today when I get home nothing works. At first I thought maybe the battery had died so I charged it for a couple hours…but to no avail. Here is what I have isolated down.
Here is a pic of me testing a battery for a point of reference.
I can’t figure out why there is a drop when the blue brick is plugged in. Is the battery defective now? I don’t think it’s an issue with the GB fans soundboard (or speaker, lights, etc.) but I don’t know what I should do.
Did you try plugging the 9V (or another battery) into the soundboard and seeing if it will work? It will tell you immediately whether it is a problem with the battery or the soundboard…
I think he knows the board is good, and is trying to find the problem with the battery…
I bought one of those ebay batteries. Mine came in a black plastic case. It’s basically worthless junk. It charges to about 10v instead of the supposedly 12v. Those Chinese ebay batteries are so bad, the seller gave me a refund to keep the battery.
It’s very possible one of the cells inside is bad. Try a different one to see if it still happens. I’m currently using one of the batteries that came with my cordless drill. Best battery I’ve used in my pack so far.
The voltage drop is most likely due to a discharged battery. With no load, the battery may read okay but once the board tries to draw current, there’s not enough to operate. You sure the battery was fully charged? Check all your connections on the charger side.
So I set it to the multimeter to 20V and it’s the same story. Battery fluctuates around 9 1/2 volts before I plug it in to the soundboard and then drops down to 0.8 after I plug it into the soundboard. I tried having the blue brick battery power some other electronic devices and it won’t do that as well.
I tested the small 9 V battery again and it still reading about 7 1/2 V (it may not be a new battery). This battery does power up the electronic devices that the blue brick won’t.
I ordered another blue brick last night before I posted on the thread and saw Phil’s recommendation. However, when I enevitably built a second pack I will go with that one. Thanks for the tip.
I left it on the charger for about an hour or two. I think it was fully charged beforehand but I could be wrong (I may have taken it off the charger when I went on vacation). I’ll leave it on the charger all day while I’m at work and see what happens. I checked all of the connections and they appear to be fine but I’ll look again more thoroughly when I get home.
There’s also a chance you have a bad charger. I’ve worked with several of these blue brick batteries recently and the chargers seem to be hit and miss.
Success! So it seems that the battery is not the problem but something to do with my wiring and switches. Perhaps I need to redo my switches/wiring as maybe I messed up a connection or accidentally cut a wire? I will investigate more.
Last night I bought a new DPDT switch, redid all of the wiring and placement of switches/ports/etc, reduced the amount of excess wire I was using and everything worked great…everything that is except for the new potentiometer.
When the potentiometer is not connected i can only hear a very faint set of sounds coming from the speaker. When it is connected the volume is on full blast and there is no way to turn it down. I tried nearly all possible combinations of connectsion (1-1 2-2 3-3, 1-2 2-3 3-1, etc) but I cannot get the new potentiometer to adjust the volume.
What kind of wires are you using to connect the sound board to the speaker. I have the exact same set up and right now can’t get any sound from my speaker and I’m using speaker wire.
