Hi,
Just building my first pack at the mo, i want to install some kind of sound board or something. I’ve seen the hyperdyne labs kit and it looks very impressive but just too pricey for me. I have the sounds i want to use as mp3 files and i have seen someone use a voice recorder out of a toy which seems like a good idea but a bit limited.
Has anybody got any other ideas on how i could make my own sound kit on a budget?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
an arduino with the wav shield should work. i should have something done later this week.
I like the looks of that, reminds me of something we used at school 
I I’m an utter newbie here…Just joined today. I’m just getting started on this project myself. My idea was using a dirt cheap MP3 player and wiring the headphone lead straight to a reasonably large speaker hidden in the pack…now I have no knowledge of electronics, so maybe someone could let me know if this kind of thing has ever been attempted succesfully…?
Yes.
You just need to run it through an amplified speaker.
I did this with a pair of $20 computer speakers I got from Staples which I hooked up to my iphone. They seemed really loud in the store and when I borught them home, but in real situations like at a con, or outdoors, other people couldn’t hear it. If you want to go that route though, you’ll need a set of speakers which can be powered off 9 volts, and a battery pack which can hold 6 C cell batteries.
One other thing of note is I didn’t put any holes in my motherboard for the sound to come out of becuase they seeemed just as loud without it as they did when they were in the speaker enclosures. It’s possible that would make a difference but even so, someone would surely need to be standing right next to you in a noisy setting to hear it.
Oh, and another possibility would be a portable radio of some kind. I was going to use an old boom box I had, but there was this screw that was too far inside for any of my screwdrivers to reach, so I couldn’t open it up. You might wan tto try finding one of those on ebay with a mic port. Their speakers are probably more like 4", so they should be plenty loud enough.
What I did was use some cheap PC speakers and fited them inside the ALICE frame (behind the kidney pad) they fit right in there nicely and obviously the sound wasnt distorted because of the pack. I wired all of the electronics to be inside and the battery pack at the bottom so it could be changed easily.
Lawrence
I did exactly the same thing as law,
but as im ■■■■ at wireing and i destroyed 2 sets of speekers,
i decided to just use the speeker and the houseings and spray them black and just stick them in the corners,
link it up to a mp3 player, and hey presto.
I take it using an mp3 player you can’t have it linked to the lights then?
probably not.
i worked on my arduino last night and got 16 leds lit from one pin that i could control individually. the sound shield should be in today. once that is built i should have something to show for my work. if you can wait a few days (weeks??) then I will have a better idea about this route.
sounds good to me i all that stuff pretty easy to use then? i may have to rack your brains at some point about it all.
I will be posting a schematic along with the code for it. dont worry. it will be easy. you will have to build the thing out of components or i can do it for a nominal fee i guess. getting it to that point will take me a bit of time. tonight i am going to try to get the powercell and cyclotron lights functioning at the same time. it does not have time sharing/time slicing so i need to code that. i should have some more leds coming in soon as well (so that the powercell can be all one colour along with the graph for the wand).
Edit: forgot to mention all of this will be freely available under gnu. props to mark at hacktronics for helping. got fast shipping from them (same day even when i ordered at 8pm my time) and free samples of leds to see which I thought would work better for the pack. great people over there.
its going to take me a while to get to the fitting stage anyway so no problem there
Still getting parts together at the mo, just got my HGA make at work out of stainless steel. It looks pretty good, plenty more for them to do yet though.
Have you done the powercell and cyclotron lights yourself?
they are on bread board right now. the code for them should be done. i have yet to test it though. if they do work, i will be making a video of it and uploading it. if youtube decides to work this time…
I do not have enough leds to fill out the powercell lights, but they are coming. I ordered more of the chips that I used to drive the leds as well. I only have 3 right now, so that is enough for 24 lights, not enough. I ordered 4 more which should be more than I need. I cant really do any more led work than the powercell, cyclotron, and gun lights till more chips come in (not the graph, but the rest of them).
-Frank
You really dont need 2 speakers.. You get one good speaker and a good amp and your good to go.. Here is the tutorial I used for when I did the sound for my pack.. and let me tell you.. its LOUD.. indoors and outdoors.
This is for if you just want to hook an MP3 player up to your pack.
http://www.instructables.com/id/S9BMLDRFE2ZZV6G/
I’ll have to keep my eyes open then to see the end product. Well it sounds like you know what your doing with all this stuff. Was it trial and error or past experience with this kind of thing?
Thanks for the link, i think that will come in very handy.
Certainly not trial and error. I got some help from mark at hacktronics (that si where I got my arduino) and then just coded it. Anyways, I got the cyclotron and powercell done (powercell loks goofy because I dont have enough leds, so it just sits there for a little because the code is there for all of them). There is a bug somewhere with sound that makes it really quiet. I need to figure out what that is.
Ahh i see.
Well when the other LED’s arrive it’ll look the part. As for the sound bug i’m sure you’ll find it.
Roughly how much do you think its cost you to get the lights and sound bits together if you don’t mind me asking.
Well an arduino is $30. The waveshield is $22 but needs put together. You need to replace the atmega168 with an atmega328, which is $6. The IC’s that I am using are about $2.50 each, you need 6 of them. All that is left then is the leds, resistors, solder, wire, boards.
With the supplies listed above, it is 73.00 so far. That doesnt include shipping and such. LEDs can be gotten pretty cheap, like $1.50 each, even less when bough in bulk.
The end result should be around $100-120, which isnt bad for lighting a pack, gun, and adding sound.
I will try to give a better estimate as things progress. Like I said, I will be providing the pcb files for this so you can print it and iron it onto a board then etch and drill it yourself, or get them printed. If there is enough interest then I could do a run of the pcbs. I found somewhere that can probably do the pcbs for about $10-$15 each, depending on how small I can keep it.
Anyways, the waveshield isnt working right for me. I am hoping it just needs a different speaker but doubt it. I am going to go home today and check every point on that thing to make sure I didnt bridge any and didnt miss any as well.
I can still develop the code while I wait for a fix since the sound does play, just really really low.
edit: my ICs just shipped. Should get them in next tuesday. Now just waiting on the leds to get here. Those should be in today or tomorrow I hope…