#4978887
gpstar wrote: February 15th, 2023, 9:08 am The soldering for the pack begins. The next few days, is to take everything from here:
Image

and then get it onto the 1/2 breadboard and mounted into the pack.
Image

I have the resistors, transistors and diodes on the board already.
Image

After getting everything else soldered onto it, then I need to figure out trying to mod the Neutrik from a 3pin to a 4pin connector for the hose build. There are probably easier solutions but I will attempt this first before other options.
Image
Really impressive work. One thing I brought up in the other Keepalive thread:

Noah Voiding, who's selling Keepalive kits on Instagram, has been doing benchmarking with copies of the pack vibration motor.

He found that one motor overheated in 16 hours. Another overheated in 74. He estimates that some motors of this model may overheat in 6-8 hours.

A problem with Keepalive in general is that the pack normally forces a shutdown when the motor overheats but his Keepalive will force the pack back on and could lead to damage or shorts.

He's advising people not to keep rumble on for long durations.

Have you looked into this with the pack or the wand?

And while we're on the subject, does your replacement microcontroller supply the same power to the motor or run it harder or less intensely?

LEDs shouldn't pose much risk of heat or damage being left on continuously but other features might and it might be ideal to have a kill feature.

Just a thought!

Great work!
#4978897
gpstar wrote: February 15th, 2023, 9:08 am After getting everything else soldered onto it, then I need to figure out trying to mod the Neutrik from a 3pin to a 4pin connector for the hose build. There are probably easier solutions but I will attempt this first before other options.
Image
I was thinking of modding a Neutrik too, and found these, from what I can tell from the technical drawings the insides appear very similar if not identical in structure to the screen used power connectors. So it should simply mean fitting the correct outer shell of the 3 pole over the 4 pole interior and using the matching 4 pole socket.

It should also be suitable for a low voltage solution.

https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nl4fc
https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nl4mp-st

ImageImage
Image
#4978898
dear gpstar,

i'm Luca from Italy, first of all i would like to congratulate you on the amazing job you are doing.
I would like to know if you plan to create a kit or otherwise share everything you've done up to now as for the previous modifications.
I would also like to suggest some changes to you which I outline below:

add a switch that disable video game mode (in my opinion it's completely wrong in this pack/gun)
add 2 red led (explained in the photo)
add a red fire button (explained in the photo)
add a feature that sometimes disables the ribbon cable button when it powers up the gun
add a white led that flasing during fire (to be inserted into the tip of the acrylic tube)
when overheat, the bargraph don't blink but step down from full to completly off
overheat only when fire the red added button
different sound of fire between red and black fire button (some sound in the link below)
different sound of end fire depending on the time of fire (some sound in the link below)
pressing both fire buttons enable cross the streams sound and the fire light become total white (some sound in the link below)
changing the colors of fire dependin on bargraph:
2 steps red and flashing blue
4 steps orange and flasing blue
5 steps yellow and flashing blue
cross the streams total white

at this link, there are some sound
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/e5rybt8g ... w9mhz7ua9j

Image

I hope that the sounds I have shared can be useful to you and to all those who want to modify their equipment

Have a nice day

Luca
#4978902
TobinsGuide wrote: February 15th, 2023, 4:26 pm
gpstar wrote: February 15th, 2023, 9:08 am The soldering for the pack begins. The next few days, is to take everything from here:
Image

and then get it onto the 1/2 breadboard and mounted into the pack.
Image

I have the resistors, transistors and diodes on the board already.
Image

After getting everything else soldered onto it, then I need to figure out trying to mod the Neutrik from a 3pin to a 4pin connector for the hose build. There are probably easier solutions but I will attempt this first before other options.
Image
Really impressive work. One thing I brought up in the other Keepalive thread:

Noah Voiding, who's selling Keepalive kits on Instagram, has been doing benchmarking with copies of the pack vibration motor.

He found that one motor overheated in 16 hours. Another overheated in 74. He estimates that some motors of this model may overheat in 6-8 hours.

A problem with Keepalive in general is that the pack normally forces a shutdown when the motor overheats but his Keepalive will force the pack back on and could lead to damage or shorts.

He's advising people not to keep rumble on for long durations.

Have you looked into this with the pack or the wand?

And while we're on the subject, does your replacement microcontroller supply the same power to the motor or run it harder or less intensely?

LEDs shouldn't pose much risk of heat or damage being left on continuously but other features might and it might be ideal to have a kill feature.

Just a thought!

Great work!
I thought a little about this with vibration motors, they will wear out eventually. I thought about timers etc to prevent them from running too long, but all it takes is for somebody to reboot the pack and the timers are not useful, so no timers. I have however turned the switch which enables the vibration of the pack to also control the wand one, so the wand vibration motor will stay off when the switch on the pack vibration motor is off.

This company did some lifespan tests on vibration motors.
https://www.precisionmicrodrives.com/li ... ion-motors
#4978904
lonerthx wrote: February 16th, 2023, 3:08 am
gpstar wrote: February 15th, 2023, 9:08 am After getting everything else soldered onto it, then I need to figure out trying to mod the Neutrik from a 3pin to a 4pin connector for the hose build. There are probably easier solutions but I will attempt this first before other options.
Image
I was thinking of modding a Neutrik too, and found these, from what I can tell from the technical drawings the insides appear very similar if not identical in structure to the screen used power connectors. So it should simply mean fitting the correct outer shell of the 3 pole over the 4 pole interior and using the matching 4 pole socket.

It should also be suitable for a low voltage solution.

https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nl4fc
https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nl4mp-st

ImageImage
Image
Thanks for the info, I will try it out.
#4978905
Luca Pasin wrote: February 16th, 2023, 3:53 am dear gpstar,

i'm Luca from Italy, first of all i would like to congratulate you on the amazing job you are doing.
I would like to know if you plan to create a kit or otherwise share everything you've done up to now as for the previous modifications.
I would also like to suggest some changes to you which I outline below:

add a switch that disable video game mode (in my opinion it's completely wrong in this pack/gun)
add 2 red led (explained in the photo)
add a red fire button (explained in the photo)
add a feature that sometimes disables the ribbon cable button when it powers up the gun
add a white led that flasing during fire (to be inserted into the tip of the acrylic tube)
when overheat, the bargraph don't blink but step down from full to completly off
overheat only when fire the red added button
different sound of fire between red and black fire button (some sound in the link below)
different sound of end fire depending on the time of fire (some sound in the link below)
pressing both fire buttons enable cross the streams sound and the fire light become total white (some sound in the link below)
changing the colors of fire dependin on bargraph:
2 steps red and flashing blue
4 steps orange and flasing blue
5 steps yellow and flashing blue
cross the streams total white

at this link, there are some sound
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/e5rybt8g ... w9mhz7ua9j

Image

I hope that the sounds I have shared can be useful to you and to all those who want to modify their equipment

Have a nice day

Luca
Hello Luca,

Yes I am going to share everything once I am finished.

Yes these features can be done. I can add another toggle switch into the pack to disable/enable video game modes on the wand.

As for the wand, right now I have a Arduino Nano board in it. It has 22 pins, all 22 are used with the stock lighting kit and switches. 2 more pins would be required for the 2 additional LEDs. The 3rd LED for the wand tip, I should be able to chain it off the existing wand barrel LEDs, but I would have to take apart the barrel to confirm if there is a OUT/5V/GND pin on the last addressable LED.

Otherwise a different board would need to be used (like a Teensy), unless we replace the 5 individual Bargraph LEDs, and put a Barmeter BL28Z in there instead plus a HT16K33 controller in there to drive it. That would free up 5 pins on the Nano, then 2 can be used for the 2 new LEDs you want, then 2 for the HT16K33 controller, leaving 1 extra pin. My plan was to always at one point put the Barmeter 28 LED strip in there. I will get around to modding my second wand to do this.
Image
Last edited by gpstar on February 16th, 2023, 7:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
#4978915
The vast majority of the soldering is completed. I just need to make a few cables to extend out to the cyclotron switch plate lights, wire up a new rotary encoder and the 2 pump motors I am going to use for smoke. I will try to wrap things up on Monday for this. Then I will start building the new hose to the wand next week and 3D print some brackets for the Mega and one for the rotary encoder. After all that, I will take apart my second wand and do the Barmeter bargraph mod + other requests that Luca mentioned.

Image
Image

She fired up the first time plugging everything in.
User avatar
By JodieBroaders
#4978925
gpstar wrote: December 29th, 2022, 1:02 pm No it does not. Though I am curious what the unused SW2 does. The next time I open the pack, I am going to see if it does anything. The key though is going to be the wand. Supposedly if the wand does not time out, then the pack will always stay on.
Hello,

Newbie here in all respects, but I have a question. I successfully changed the battery to a talentcell, and then managed to jump some aux Jack cables off the hasbro speaker to a Bluetooth speaker, but my question is can I just solder the aux Jack + & - leads into the sw2? Then plug it into the speaker? It is a stand alone Anker soundcore with its own internal battery so I’m assuming it will just act as a speaker and not short the board? Asking as I note @gpstar has his speaker to amp connections on sw2 right, so assuming it carries the sound? Hopefully my guess is correct but if someone could confirm I would really appreciate it.
Absolutely love the work u are all doing and especially this threat has been most informative.
Regards
Jodie :cool:
Last edited by Kingpin on February 18th, 2023, 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.Reason: Fixed quote coding
By gpstar
#4978942
JodieBroaders wrote: February 16th, 2023, 3:04 pm
gpstar wrote: December 29th, 2022, 1:02 pm No it does not. Though I am curious what the unused SW2 does. The next time I open the pack, I am going to see if it does anything. The key though is going to be the wand. Supposedly if the wand does not time out, then the pack will always stay on.
Hello,

Newbie here in all respects, but I have a question. I successfully changed the battery to a talentcell, and then managed to jump some aux Jack cables off the hasbro speaker to a Bluetooth speaker, but my question is can I just solder the aux Jack + & - leads into the sw2? Then plug it into the speaker? It is a stand alone Anker soundcore with its own internal battery so I’m assuming it will just act as a speaker and not short the board? Asking as I note @gpstar has his speaker to amp connections on sw2 right, so assuming it carries the sound? Hopefully my guess is correct but if someone could confirm I would really appreciate it.
Absolutely love the work u are all doing and especially this threat has been most informative.
Regards
Jodie :cool:

Yes SPK0 outputs sound. I heard some people adding a aux connector and running it to Bluetooth speakers. I didn’t do that, but maybe someone can chime in on what they used?
Last edited by Kingpin on February 18th, 2023, 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.Reason: Fixed quote coding
JodieBroaders liked this
#4978958
@gpstar thanks for letting me know. Will prob give it a go next week. I'm assuming as it's a small wattage speaker with its own battery and just transferring sound from the pack (not the wand as well) it shouldn't short the board?
Anywho loving all the mods and additions you are doing on the pack man. Wish I had the technical ability to follow everything. Maybe one day 😁
#4978962
From what I've gathered from the bill of materials and prerequisites, this is what I'm up to so far:

1x Arduino Mega 2560 R3 (for Pack)
1x Arduino Nano (for Wand)
2x Robertsonics WavTrigger (for Pack & Wand)
1x 5v FTDI Board (for Programming WT’s)

Before loading the audio files you mentioned needing a newer feature for the WavTrigger boards (mine shipped with 1.28) so they need a firmware update. For that I soldered header pins to the WavTrigger boards for the FTDI connection, and flashed with the latest firmware (v1.34) to support the latest features.

Were there any other additional upgrades (firmware, bootloader) for any of the Arduino's or are they fine as-is and will just need certain libraries for the sketches?
jonogunn liked this
#4978967
JustinDustin wrote: February 18th, 2023, 10:22 am From what I've gathered from the bill of materials and prerequisites, this is what I'm up to so far:

1x Arduino Mega 2560 R3 (for Pack)
1x Arduino Nano (for Wand)
2x Robertsonics WavTrigger (for Pack & Wand)
1x 5v FTDI Board (for Programming WT’s)

Before loading the audio files you mentioned needing a newer feature for the WavTrigger boards (mine shipped with 1.28) so they need a firmware update. For that I soldered header pins to the WavTrigger boards for the FTDI connection, and flashed with the latest firmware (v1.34) to support the latest features.

Were there any other additional upgrades (firmware, bootloader) for any of the Arduino's or are they fine as-is and will just need certain libraries for the sketches?
No other firmware updates required. The Arduino’s will be fine out of the box.
JustinDustin liked this
#4978968
JustinDustin wrote: February 18th, 2023, 10:22 am From what I've gathered from the bill of materials and prerequisites, this is what I'm up to so far:

1x Arduino Mega 2560 R3 (for Pack)
1x Arduino Nano (for Wand)
2x Robertsonics WavTrigger (for Pack & Wand)
1x 5v FTDI Board (for Programming WT’s)

Before loading the audio files you mentioned needing a newer feature for the WavTrigger boards (mine shipped with 1.28) so they need a firmware update. For that I soldered header pins to the WavTrigger boards for the FTDI connection, and flashed with the latest firmware (v1.34) to support the latest features.

Were there any other additional upgrades (firmware, bootloader) for any of the Arduino's or are they fine as-is and will just need certain libraries for the sketches?
You seem to have a lot of the things already, send me a PM if you are interested in beta testing things out.
JustinDustin, Yanks1023 liked this
#4979036
I apologize if I this has been covered. I'm interested in internally mounting my Talentcell battery and curious how others are getting around potentially frying the board while charging the battery. I'm wondering if adding a second switch to interrupt the usb wire would work. I know very little about electronics so this mod terrifies me.
#4979039
Dan Akward wrote: February 20th, 2023, 5:27 am I apologize if I this has been covered. I'm interested in internally mounting my Talentcell battery and curious how others are getting around potentially frying the board while charging the battery. I'm wondering if adding a second switch to interrupt the usb wire would work. I know very little about electronics so this mod terrifies me.
This is why I originally opted to use 4 rechargeable D cell batteries, each one rated at 10,000mAH.
The Talentcell is rated at 6,000mAH.

BTW, the thought of frying the board should terrify anyone.
I doubt Hasbro has extra boards just laying around for worse-case scenarios. :sigh:
kahuna900 liked this
#4979043
Dan Akward wrote: February 20th, 2023, 5:27 am I apologize if I this has been covered. I'm interested in internally mounting my Talentcell battery and curious how others are getting around potentially frying the board while charging the battery. I'm wondering if adding a second switch to interrupt the usb wire would work. I know very little about electronics so this mod terrifies me.
You can wire the TalentCell 5v to the LP16-135 protection breaker that is near the D-Cell battery tray and then unplug from the usb before charging if you do not feel confident in the TalentCell at all.
Yanks1023 liked this
#4979087
Has anyone here identified the type of JST connectors that are used on the Haslab board? I know they're commonly available in both 2mm & 2.54mm pitch. I'm kinda hoping that they're using 2.54 pitch as that works with breadboards/perfboards.

Here are a couple of kits of them-
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4422
JST PH 2.0mm Pitch Connector Kit - 220 Piece Kit

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4423
JST-XH 2.54mm Pitch Connector Kit - 560 Piece Kit

I didn't want to just buy a kit not knowing if it would fit or not, so if anyone already has some to test with, it would be really helpful.
Peeno liked this
#4979089
dankramer1138 wrote: February 21st, 2023, 5:25 am Has anyone here identified the type of JST connectors that are used on the Haslab board? I know they're commonly available in both 2mm & 2.54mm pitch. I'm kinda hoping that they're using 2.54 pitch as that works with breadboards/perfboards.

Here are a couple of kits of them-
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4422
JST PH 2.0mm Pitch Connector Kit - 220 Piece Kit

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4423
JST-XH 2.54mm Pitch Connector Kit - 560 Piece Kit

I didn't want to just buy a kit not knowing if it would fit or not, so if anyone already has some to test with, it would be really helpful.
JST-XH in the Pack.
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