Hey GBFans,
I’m currently having a go at building my first Proton Pack, I’ve made some Arduino based packlights that I’ve connected to a GBFans soundboard, everything’s working great except for the fact that my packlights stay on after the powerdown audio sequence plays.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance,
Mike
How do you have your arduino connected to the soundboard? There’s a very specific set of commands which come from the soundboard so your code needs to read them in order to know whether the pack is on or off. But that’s if you’re using the pack connector (which normally goes to a ribbon cable). If you’re using another method let us know.
Ah, I didn’t realise. That explains my problem then. I’ve just wired the power from the packlights terminals on the soundboard to the power connection on my arduino thinking that the soundboard would just switch the power on and off to the packlights when the power up switch is flicked. I need to rethink things. Is there a wiring diagram out there for pack lights that would work with the soundboard? (The shop has been sold out of them for a while)
It’s sold out because AJ and I have been working on a new set of pack lights, he’s done with the hardware but I’m still trying to wrap up the software (getting close). Ours needs to handle more than just on/off, it has to support video game modes (slime/boson/etc) and venting/overheating. So I spent a bit of time writing code to decipher the signals from the soundboard. It has an IDC ribbon cable with 10 pins, that’s what runs from the soundboard to the pack lights. 3 pins are GND, 3 pins are VCC, and the remaining 4 pins in the middle send signals of the current pack state and mode changes.
You could potentially hook into that and read the signals yourself. At a minimum your code would need to understand the off, startup, idle, and shutdown (you could use just off and idle, but then your pack lights wouldn’t turn on until the startup sound has finished playing).
Awesome thanks for the in-depth reply. I’ll definitely be buying a set or three of your new lights when they come out, but I’m on a bit of a time limit with the pack I’m building at the minute (as it’s for someone else). This is my first time holding a soldering iron and my first go at anything Arduino based so I’ll see if I can do what you’ve suggested but it may be a bit beyond my skill set.
Is this issue common with using all 3rd party pack lights with a GBfans soundboard? or is there some other set up / layout I could perhaps employ to achieve what I’m looking for?
Thanks again for all your help.
MIke
To be honest I’m not sure, I don’t have one of the soundboards.
The documentation PDF has this, so maybe it’s supposed to cut the power to the pack lights when turned off? I have no way to check unfortunately.
Yup that’s what I’ve managed so far, when the soundboard turns on the pack lights gain power and so the startup sequence works, it’s just when the power down switch is then pressed the pack lights stay on, when the power off switch is pressed the soundboard powers down and so do the lights, so that’s a reasonable workaround, I was just hoping I could get the whole power down sequence to active.
What I may end up doing is wiring the power up / down switch to shut off the lights at the same time, not perfect but it’ll do.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions, they are much appreciated.
Mike
The newer (been around for years) sound boards have a set of switched battery screw termals that may be exactly what you are looking for. One terminal is common (“GND” “ground”, “-”, black) and the other supplies the battery voltage (assumed to be 12V) only when the sound board thinks the pack lights should be on. The older sound boards had “wand” and “pack” connections that were just directly connected to the battery terminals. Really there just to make wiring easier.
I’ve got mine wired up like this. (See attached) as per the instructions PDF. But the power to the lights dosen’t change after the power down switch is pressed.
So happy to hear that 
I assume it’s also gonna have an led ring with afterlife mode ?
A TVG/Afterlife mode compatibility would be amazing !