Nano Biscotte (a.k.a. NB) v2.0
Entry Range Illuminated Saber Sound Board - User’s manual
© Erv’ - Plecter Labs – v 1.01 – February 2014
erv@plecterlabs.com
http://www.plecterlabs.com
"Size does matter. Small is beautiful and comes in nice packages"
"This thing actually fits into
a 1inch blade !"
We spent a lot of time writing this manual to ensure all the important
information is provided for proper use of that board. If you are new to
saber building, to the use of Plecter Labs boards, or simply to electronics in
general, we highly recommend you print a copy of that document and keep
it with you during the whole process of installing NB in your hilt.
Modification, copies or distribution of that document is strictly prohibited
© Plecter Labs / Erv’ Plecter 2005-2014
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
1
Table of contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1
INTRODUCTION--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2
SOUND SECTION-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2
NANO BISCOTTE FEATURES & MAXIMUM RATINGS----------------------------------------------------------- 4
TOOLS AND PARTS REQUIRED TO INSTALL/OPERATE THE MODULE ----------------------------------4
SD CARD CONTENTS, SOUND BANKS AND SLOTS---------------------------------------------------------------- 5
BOARD OVERVIEW ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6
U
SER’S NOTES
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6
WIRING AND OPERATING THE MODULE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
GENERAL POWER SWITCH & RECHARGE PORT----------------------------------------------------------------- 7
GENERAL WIRING ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9
U
SUAL WIRING USING A
18650
LI-ION CELL
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------9
U
SER’S NOTES
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9
A
LTERNATE WIRING USING 4XAA NI
-MH
BATTERIES OR ALKALINES
--------------------------------------------------- 10
HIGH POWER LED RESISTOR CALCULATIONS------------------------------------------------------------------11
S
TUNT UPGRADE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
R
ESISTOR CALCULATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
W
ATTAGE CALCULATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
R
ESISTOR BARGAIN
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12
POWER INDICATOR --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12
P
OWER INDICATOR WIRING
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12
P
OWER INDICATOR RESISTOR
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13
P
OWER INDICATOR WIRING (OFF DURING DEEP SLEEP
) -------------------------------------------------------------------- 13
ADVANCED WIRING USING FLASH ON CLASH AND TRI-REBEL ------------------------------------------14
BOARD µSD CARD CONFIGURATION --------------------------------------------------------------------------------15
C
ONFIGURATION FILE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15
P
ARAMETERS AND FINE TUNING THE SABER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15
Motion & Gesture detection parameters :-----------------------------------------------------------------------------16
Gesture flows & priorities : ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------16
Sound / Interaction Parameters-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18
High-power LED parameters :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19
Clashes & Swings Selection Modes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19
INSTALLING A SOUND FONT ON THE SD CARD------------------------------------------------------------------20
DRIVE (AND FDRIVE) ADJUSTMENTS--------------------------------------------------------------------------------21
DEEP SLEEP MODE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------21
TROUBLESHOOTING & FAQ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------22
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
2
Introduction
The Nano Biscotte is another little brother of our Crystal Focus Board. It keeps the
same spirit while using some more modest parts, making it a perfect entry range
sound fx board. It was designed as the perfect match to upgrade stunt sabers at low
cost. Its small size allows also to install it in the smallest hilts. The Nano Biscotte is
actually so small that it fits inside a 1" blade !
Warning : You’ve just acquired an electronic board containing parts
sensitive to ESD. Final wiring & assembly is under responsibility of the user
with the appropriate tools and ESD protection.
If you’re not familiar with ESD, please visit :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrostatic_discharge
Plecter Labs can not be held responsible for improper use or assembly of
the Nano Biscotte board.
Warning : High-power LEDs (such as the Luxeon brand LED, which is
mentioned in this document) are
extremely bright
. They are considered
"class 2 lasers"! You should neither look directly at the beam nor point
someone with it when the blade is not attached to the hilt, just like a
powerfull lamp or flashlight. Plecter Labs could not be held responsible for
any bad use of high-power LEDs.
To avoid injuries and retina damage due to the high brightness of highpower LEDs, simple “emitter plugs” can be built using a piece of blade
tubing finished with some decorative greeblies.
Sound section
The Plecter Labs sound board is unique. It has been developed in the purpose of
improving the quality of DIY sabers sound FX in a significant way. For too many years,
sound modules were obtained from sacrificed toys and remained low quality. Master
Replica FX sabers broke the line with better sounds and good dynamics. However, the
low resolution motion sensors used as well as closed electronics made those boards
impossible to adjust in term of sensitivity or sound contents.
We have monitored several attempts for building an embedded sound module playing
custom & changeable sounds, often based on chipcorders. Using bulky parts, those
were often unreliable and hard to fit in a hilt.
Not to add those chipcorders were designed for
digital answering machines, and therefore
feature a bad restitution quality (voice sample
rate – 8 KHz).
Plecter Labs decided to process the internal
motion sensors and the sound generation on
the same board which requires some nonvolatile memory. We also needed a simple way
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
3
to upload or download sound contents or configuration of the saber through a simple
and standard way.
To avoid any plugging problem with a small connector and an easy-to-loose cable, we
opted for a high-end flash memory card in the SD format (now microSD).
Inserted in a USB card reader like the one we sell, the card is seen as a USB storage
key and it takes a few seconds only to transfer files to or from the card, on Mac or PC,
without the need of any custom piece of software. Installing a Nano Biscotte sound
font on the card takes about 1.5 second (10 seconds including the formatting of the
card).
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
4
Nano Biscotte Features & Maximum Ratings
- Dimensions : 28.5 x 18.5 x 5 mm
- Power supply : 3.4 to 5.5v / 2A (with the High-power LED). SINGLE li-ion cells
(18650 or 14500) or 4xAA rechargeable NiMH batteries recommended.
- Idle current consumption : < 0.1 mA (deep sleep mode)
- 7+ months of shelf time with a fully charged 18650 li-ion cell
- 2A high-power LED direct drive (no current regulator)
- Speaker: 4 to 8 ohm.
- Audio output Power : 2W max
- Exported 3.3V pad
- No Accent LED
- Flash on Clash™ output pad
- Handles only momentary switches for blade activation
- Blade Flickering Fx
- Blade Shimmering on Clash
- Anti Power Off technology (A-POP™)
- WAV file support
- 10 bit, 22.050 ksample/sec audio
- 2 sound banks
- SD card support: up to 16GB, FAT16 or FAT32 (beta). Sandisk brands
preferred.
Tools and Parts required to install/operate the module
- an ESD safe soldering station & soldering wire (60/40, 1mm OD or eq.)
- pliers (flat and cutting)
- a Digital Multimeter / DMM (strongly advised, so useful)
- a momentary switch for the blade ignition
- wire & heat shrink (we suggest to use flexible stranded 28 AWG wire, not
bigger)
- An external power resistor to limit the LED current
- rechargeable batteries
- recharge port like canon 2.1mm socket (optional)
- A power extender (PEx) to operate flash on clash (optional)
- appropriate Battery charger
- a USB SD card reader accepting micro SD card or a regular SD card reader with
a micro to regular SD card adapter.
- a computer
- a digital audio editor software handling WAV files if you wish to create your
own sound fonts.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
5
SD card contents, Sound Banks and Slots
Sounds are stored in the WAV format (16 bits, 22050 samples per second). Despite
the fact that the module uses a 10 bit sound output, we kept the 16 bit format of the
sound font, therefore ensuring immediate compatibility with CF sound fonts.
WAV sound files must comply with the format above or they will be skipped
during the boot, leading to sound gaps or board failure.
Nano Biscotte has two sound banks, with all the files (including configuration files)
stored in the root directory of the SD card. The sound content of a bank is called a
Sound Font.
A sound bank has 20 sound slots split as below:
a boot sound (boot.wav)
a power on sound (poweron.wav)
a power off sound (poweroff.wav)
continuous humming (hum.wav)
8 clash sounds (clash1.wav to clash8.wav)
8 swing sounds (swing1.wav to swing8.wav)
When the power supply voltage is applied to the board, our board “boots” and plays a
little logo sound to notify the user, just like a digital camera. This little logo makes
sure the Nano Biscotte started properly and it gives a special identity to the saber and
to the loaded sound font. This sound can be of course customized. If the boot sound
boot.wav is not on the SD card, a little beep is played instead. If you don’t want any
sound when powering the module, create a WAV sound file with 100 ms of silence.
The sounds must be all there on the SD card and be named properly (lower case) to
have the module operating properly. Same thing for the configuration files (.txt).
We advice the user to keep all its sound and configuration files in specific folders on
the hard disk on the computer so that changing the saber’s contents remains easy
(unlocked board). Use some explicit naming of the folders so that you can easily
remember what the sound font and configuration files are doing, for instance
[very_sensitive_dark_lord_saber].
The Nano Biscotte is 100% compatible with both Crystal Focus and Petit Crouton
sound fonts. Extra sound files from those boards are simply ignored during the board
booting operation.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
6
Board Overview
User’s Notes
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
7
Wiring and Operating the Module
The board must be powered with an appropriate battery pack. We highly recommend
the use of good quality li-ion battery packs made of a single 14500 or 18650 cell
and including protection PCBs. The AW brand makes superior quality batteries
while the Ultrafire/Trustfire remains a cost effective solution.
The Nano Biscotte has been highly optimized so that both a wired battery pack and
removable cells could be used with the board. The minimal current used in deep sleep
mode allows the saber to stay unused on the shelf for 7 months with a fully charged
18650. Of course, the use of the recharge port and the kill key is possible too !
Ni-MH battery packs are simply not recommended since they have a bigger energy
storage/volume ratio and cost of li-ion cells isn’t an issue anymore. However, many
stunt sabers were made with 3x or 4xAA NiMH rechargeable cells and the Nano
Biscotte board can be powered with such pack, leading to minimal modification of the
upgraded stunt saber.
When power is applied to the board, it will play the boot.wav sound. To start the
sound board, simply press the activation switch. The poweron.wav sound will be
played and the high-power LED will ramp up in brightness in synchronization with the
sound. From there the sound board will play the hum.wav sound in loop, interrupted
by motion fx sounds. To stop the sound board, press the activation switch again
(eventually for a certain time, if the power off delay A-POP feature is used). The
poweroff.wav sound will be then played.
After a configurable duration (refer to the configuration section of this manual) the
board will move into deep sleep mode. Pressing then the activation switch will make
the saber booting again with the boot.wav sound to get it out of the sleep mode.
Another press on the activation switch will ignite the blade.
General Power Switch & Recharge Port
Despite the NB board has a very low idle current use (< 0.1 mA) when it enters deep
sleep mode, the user might prefer a battery solution for which he doesn't have to
remove the cell.
A pin 2.1 mm “Canon” socket is a popular choice.
Two of those pins are connected when nothing is
inserted in the socket. Contact is disrupted when a
plug is inserted.
Along the years, the “kill key” technique has been
developed: a fake plastic plug is decorated to look
like an actual part of the hilt. When inserted, it cuts
the power supply to the board in the recharge port.
Of course, the port recharges the internal battery
pack when an actual charger plug is inserted.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
8
The Kill Key must be made out of a non-conductive material (PVC, Nylon etc). The left
picture above shows a kill key made out of a sacrificed male plug (metal) but it’s
provided only as a reference picture and plastic should be used as a rule of the thumb.
Here’s the usual wiring of the recharge port. Please note that not all recharge ports
have the exact same pinout. User must understand the principle of wiring a recharge
port and must be able to identify the different pins of a socket.
The idea is fairly simple: the positive of the battery pack goes to the recharge port
central pin (referred as tip) and to the positive of the board. It’s not affected by the
kill key. The negative of the battery pack goes to the pin of the recharge port that is
connected to the outer sleeve of the socket. The last pin, referred as switched
negative pin and goes to the negative of the board.
When nothing is inserted in the port, the negative of the battery pack is internally
connected to the switched negative tab, hence powering the board. When a Kill Key is
inserted in the port, the negative of the board is no longer connected to the negative
of the battery pack: the board is fully powered down. When a charger plug is inserted
in the recharge port, the charging voltage is reaching both leads of the battery pack
while the negative of the board is still unconnected from the circuit, preventing
damages to the electronics and ensuring only the battery pack is connected to the
charger for proper charge.
In the previous picture the green-black drawn switched doesn’t need to be wired per
say, it only illustrates the recharge socket internal switch.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
9
General wiring
Usual Wiring using a 18650 li-ion cell
The board doesn’t need many connections to be operated. Aside from the recharge
port / power supply detailed above (optional), only a switch, the high power LED
negative and the speaker are required to be soldered to get all the features the Nano
Biscotte board proposes.
The Nano Biscotte wiring is compatible with 2.54 mm headers meant to accept a
wiring harness or individual pairs of female headers for the power supply, the
activation switch and the speaker, which allows the wiring to be versatile and scalable.
The board doesn't use a current regulator to drive the high-power LED, therefore
current limitation must occur outside of the board, like on regular stunt wiring, using a
power resistor. The positive of the LED goes to the power resistor and to the positive
of the battery, the LED negative goes to the L- pad of the board.
User’s Notes
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
10
Alternate wiring using 4xAA Ni-MH batteries or alkalines
Alkaline batteries aren’t recommended as their efficiency is not as good as li-ion for
the same volume but they remain an alternative solution for powering the saber. Four
Ni-MH batteries fully charged will generate about 5.6v which could exceed the
maximum ratings of the board, and four alkaline batteries reach 6V. A simple hack can
overcome this issue using a diode. Any diode from the 1N400x will work. Note that
when using 4xAA, the input voltage is higher, hence the power resistor wattage will
increase, as well as the dissipated heat.
With 4 x alkaline batteries, I recommend to use TWO diodes to ensure the board’s
voltage is really below its max ratings.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
11
High Power LED resistor calculations
There are many online resistor calculators but here are the calculations for both
resistor and wattage. They aren't difficult and it's important for the user to understand
and memorize them.
Stunt Upgrade
If the user is adding sound to an existing saber and is already using a resistor, it can
be used as it is. Beware though, this applies only if the battery solution is already
Nano Biscotte compliant (single cell, < 5.5v). If the saber was made with a 2 cell
pack, the resistor needs to be changed, see calculations below.
Resistor calculation
The Ohm's Law gives us R = U / I. R is the resistor we're looking for, U is the voltage
across the resistor (unknown for now) and I is the current at which you want to drive
the LED.
The Voltage across the resistor is simply the difference between the supply voltage
(the cell voltage) and the LED voltage (also called forward voltage or Vf):
R = (Vsupply – Vled) / LedCurrent
The LED voltage is often mentioned in the datasheet or in the product page. The LED
current is chosen by the user, depending on the battery solution and the LED ratings.
For instance, even if a LED can take up to 1.5A, a regular 14500 cell will not be able to
deliver such a current due to its limited maximum discharge current. A 18650 cell will
be able to deliver such a current.
Let's take for instance a red LED with a 2.9V forward voltage, driven at 1.5A with a
18650 cell (3.7V)
R = (3.7 - 2.9) / 1.5 = 0.53 ohm (the closest resistor might be 0.56 ohm)
Wattage calculation
The Ohm's Law gives us P = U . I with again U being the voltage across the resistor
and I the current in the circuit, and we now know both of them.
P = (Vsupply – Vled) * LedCurrent
In the example above:
P = (3.7 - 2.9) * 1.5 = 1.2 W
Ideally a 1.5 to 2 W resistor is recommended in this case.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
12
Resistor bargain
As seen in the example above, a 0.56 ohm resistor might not be easy to find. Also, the
user should not focus on the absolute precision of the resistor value if he is still within
the LED specifications and ratings. Instead of looking for an expensive source of a rare
resistor, the user can craft his own using 2 (or more) resistors.
Without going too much into boring details, there's a simple rule of the thumb saying
that wiring 2 identical resistors in parallel divides the resistor value by 2 and multiplies
the wattage by 2.
In our previous example, a 2W, 0.5 ohm (ish) resistor could be obtained with 2 x 1 W,
1 ohm resistor.
Use either ceramic or thick carbon film
resistors only as your high-power LED
resistor (NO metal film). When combining
them in parallel, ceramic resistors can be
directly wired directly. In the case of
carbon film resistor, I recommend
individually wrapping them in heatshrinking tube to avoid shorts if their paint
chips (which sometimes happens if they
are touching each others)
If the resistor calculation ends up providing either a very small resistor value or a
negative value (!), you might skip the use of a resistor and adjust the LED drive
instead. Refer to the Drive (and fdrive) adjustments section for more details.
Power indicator
Power Indicator Wiring
The Nano Biscotte has a 3.3V pad that can power a small accent LED when it's
powered. This feature is recommended only if the saber is equipped with a main
power switch (more likely a recharge port with a killkey) otherwise the LED will
deplete the battery much quicker than expected despite the deep sleep mode of the
sound board.
Depending on your
wiring the LED negative
can return either to the
main negative of the
board as illustrated on
the left, but it can also
return to the switch pad
labeled "Gnd".
2 x 1W 1Ω
= 0.5 Ω 2W
R1
R2
+
-
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
13
Power Indicator Resistor
The calculation is fairly identical to the power resistor of the main LED.
R = (Vsupply – Vled) / LedCurrent
In our case, Vsupply is the voltage the board provides to power the accent LEDs, ie
3.3V. The Vled is the forward voltage of the accent LED, usually referred as Vf in the
datasheet. The led current has to be decided by the user, depending on the brightness
and the maximum rating of the used LED. 5 to15 mA are fairly common for most
accent LEDs.
As an example, let’s consider a 1.6 volt LED (red) at 10 mA
R = (3.3 – 1.6) / 0.01 = 170 ohm ( 150 ohm in the classic E12 resistor serie)
Be sure not to drive too much current in the LED (20 mA max). If you wish a good
brightness with a low current, use a high efficiency LED (generally coming in a
transparent “crystal” coating).
Power Indicator Wiring (off during deep sleep)
The same kind of power-on indicator can be wired in such a way that the accent LED
will go off during deep-sleep. The positive to the LED (via a resistor) is this time
grabbed the large ceramic capacitor pad as illustrated below. The spot outputs a 3.3V
voltage like the regular power indicator of the previous paragraph.
+
-
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
14
Advanced wiring using Flash on Clash and Tri-rebel
The example below shows the wiring of a tri-rebel styled LED with 2 identical dice
wired in parallel and the extra third die used for the Flash on Clash, using a Power
Extender (PEx). As a great way to save space, the PEx can host a 2W 2520 SMD
resistor to limit the current to the FoC die (if needed, otherwise, it can be bridged, and
fdrive adapted, if necessary).
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
15
Board µSD Card Configuration
Configuration File
The Nano Biscotte board comes with a single config.txt configuration file which is
a simple text file that can be edited with windows notepad.
It is composed of 22 parameters that must all be present in the file. Otherwise, the
module will use default parameters.
The text file accepts comments on a stand alone line (not mixed with a parameter
line). The comment symbol is the C language double slash ‘//’ as the very first
characters of the line. Comments can be used for leaving notes in the configuration
file or for disabling a configuration line. Note that just like our other saber boards (CF,
PC), syntax also accepts the script style comment ##. Our convention is to use the
double slash (//) comment at the top of the configuration file to name it. ##
comments are used for parameter lines disabling. For example :
// My Nano Biscotte 1138 config file
## i=65 - no this is way too high
i=55
All parameters of the Nano Biscotte are integers. To modify the file, insert the µSD
card in the USB card reader, and then browse the contents with windows file explorer
(on E: for instance). Double-click on file config.txt : the notepad opens. You can
directly save the file on the SD card. Once the configuration is finalized and saved,
simply remove the card from the reader after having it “ejected” (right click on the
reader device in windows explorer, contextual menu, eject). This step isn't mandatory
anymore and can be skipped with modern operating systems like Windows XP or
Seven.
Put the card back in the saber and test you new setup!
The configuration file MUST BE LESS than 512 bytes. If the size is bigger, the file
will be skipped without further analysis and default parameters will be used. The basic
configuration file of Nano Biscotte is about 190 bytes, with a few comment lines for an
easier reading. Make sure not to add too many comments in the file. If you are not
sure of the file size, check it in Windows file Explorer, with a right click on the file,
then “properties” in the contextual menu.
Make sure you have no space characters at the beginning of the line, or
between the ‘=’ sign and the value of a parameter.
Parameters and fine tuning the saber
The configuration file includes a set of parameters dedicated to the sound section of
the controller and the gestural / motion detection (both being linked). A second set of
parameters handles the behavior of the high-power LED. Some parameters influence
both categories, since visual and sound effects are in tight relationship intrinsically. All
parameters are lowercase.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
16
Certain parameters involve time / duration / delay. We tried to normalize
those parameters to a single unit: a multiple of 2ms. Unless otherwise
indicated, that’s what is used to define those timing parameters and it
matches the internal clock of NB.
Motion & Gesture detection parameters :
Motion recognition is processed using complex low latency DSP algorithms, however,
most of the parameters used for those are internally computed so the user only has to
setup a few thresholds & sensitivity level as high-level parameters.
The overall sensitivity of the board is controlled by the “i” parameter. If you want a
more “verbose” saber while you’re satisfied of the swing / clash discrimination, just
increase that parameter a little bit, turning it to 57 instead of the default 53 value.
On the NB board, swings and clashes processed with the same sensor. A swing motion
must exceed ls (low swing) to be considered as a potential gesture and then stay
under hs (high swing) to trigger a swing sound. A clash is detected if motion goes
above lc.
The general sensitivity of the motion engine i belongs to the {0;99} range with
usable and standard values in the {50;80} range. Parameters ls, hs and lc belong to
the {0;1023} range.
Make sure you keep a good gap between hs and lc. Default parameters have been
setup for you and usually, only the “i” parameter has to be touched up.
If the saber is not sensitive enough to the swing: decrease parameter ls by a
few points. Don’t decrease ls too much or undesired swing sounds will be
triggered.
If a harder clash is required, just increase lc.
Gesture flows & priorities :
Our gesture analysis are so fast that sounds could be chained one after the other at
light speed! We therefore have to slow down the module because too many swing
sounds played in a short time are not so realistic. For that reason we implement
gesture flow limiters for swing and clash sounds.
Clash sounds have the priority over all other sounds
A clash sound can interrupt a swing sound even if the swing flow limiter is engaged
(just after a swing was triggered).
A clash sound cannot interrupt a previously triggered clash sound if the clash flow
limiter is still engaged (delay for triggering another one hasn’t expired).
A swing sound cannot interrupt a previously triggered swing sound if the swing flow
limiter is still engaged (delay for triggering another one hasn’t expired).
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
17
A swing sound can never interrupt a clash sound if the clash flow limiter is still
engaged, and whether or not the swing rate limiter is engaged.
If the clash flow limiter has expired, and even if the clash sound is still playing, a
swing sound can interrupt it. However note that we designed a special gesture filter
called AntiBounce™ to avoid a swing to be triggered after hard impact of the blade
which could echo enough energy back to the hilt (especially when using thick-walled
blades).
swing [0-500]: swing rate flow limiter. Delay during which swings cannot be
furthermore triggered.
clash [0-500]: clash rate flow limiter. Delay during which clashes cannot be
furthermore triggered.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
18
Sound / Interaction Parameters
vol [0-4] : digital volume setup. 0 mutes the sound output, 4 is the
maximum volume.
shmrd [10-500]: duration of the shimmering effect of the high-power LED
during a clash. Make sure this duration is not too much longer than the
associated sound to keep a nice result.
shmrp [5-25]: periodicity of the light bursts during the clash effect. A slow
period will produce tight bursts.
shmrr [0-25]: random value applied to the periodicity of the light burst
during a clash effect. Allows having bursts that are not regularly spaced in time
which increases the realism. For instance, a period shmrp of 20 and a random
value shmrr of 10 will produce a period between two bursts varying between
20 and 30 (ie 40 and 60 ms).
focd [10-500]: duration of the Flash on Clash effect. Make sure this
duration is not too much longer than the associated sound to keep a nice
result.
focp [5-25]: periodicity of the light bursts during the Flash on Clash effect.
A slow period will produce tight bursts.
focr [0-25]: random value applied to the periodicity of the light burst during
a clash effect. Allows having bursts that are not regularly spaced in time which
increases the realism. For instance, a period focp of 20 and a random value
focr of 10 will produce a period between two bursts varying between 20 and
30 (ie 40 and 60 ms).
offd [0-10000]: Part of the Anti power off protection (A-POP™) using the
power off delay. To avoid accidentally powering off the saber, especially when
using a momentary button for activation, we added another power off
protection that isn't using an auxiliary switch (which doesn't exist on the NB
board). This parameter defines how long the user must press on the activation
switch to turn the saber off. Default is 200 which equates to 400 ms.
qon [0-3000]: “quick-on”. Allows having the blade ignited in a specific
amount of time rather than matching the duration of the power on sound. This
parameter is specified in milliseconds (ms), and should not exceed the
duration of any power on sounds.
qoff [0-3000]: same thing as above, but for the blade retraction. Also in
ms.
resume [0-1]: hum resume. Defines if sound comes back to where the hum
has been interrupted or not. Interesting for certain hums. Not sample accurate
but resumes the hum in a ballpark of 11ms from where it's been interrupted by
a fx sound (swing / clash).
deep [0-18446744073709551615]: defines the time after which the sound
board will move into deep sleep mode for saving power (<0.1 mA). Parameter
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and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
19
expressed in multiples of 20 ms. Default is 15000 which equates 300
seconds or 5 minutes. 360,000 equates 2 hours. 0 disables the feature. The
max value leads to 11,861,332,351 years (11.8 Tera-year). This parameter is a
good example that enlarging a parameter range to a stupid point just because
you can doesn't make the feature better.
High-power LED parameters :
drive [0-1023]: defines the maximum drive of the high-power LED. Leave it
to the maximum unless you understand how to use it. See the Drive
Adjustment section for more details.
fdrive[0-1023]: defines the maximum drive of the high-power die use for
the Flash on Clash (FoC) effect
flks [0-20]: speed of the energy variation / flickering effect of the blade. A
high value produces a damaged saber effect while a small value generates
subtile energy changes. The value 0 disables the effect (static blade).
flkd [0-100]: depth (in %) of the energy fluctuation effect, i.e. the the
range over which the LED brightness will be affected during the effect. A low
value does not modify the energy very much while a high value « digs » big
steps of light intensity. To be used with the parameter flks.
Clashes & Swings Selection Modes
The Nano Biscotte has a single random method for selecting the clash and swing
sounds. It’s the same as mode 3 on a CF board: this a improved random mode
refered as RandomX mode or “Bubble Sort” random. The idea is to avoid triggering
twice the same sound in a sequence. This new algorithm will make sure a sequence (8
swings / 8 clashes) does not have any duplicate, but you might still get a double
between 2 consecutive sequences of 8 sounds, in rare cases.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
20
Installing a Sound Font on the SD card
Although editing the configuration files (text files) can be done directly onto
your microSD card, changing the SOUND FILES (.wav of ANY kind) requires
you to format the microSD card! This is not a recommendation, it is A
REQUIREMENT: YOU MUST FORMAT THE SD CARD prior to changing any
sound files!
1. First thing: backup the SD card on the hard disk. Easy to do, however most
people don’t bother doing so and end loosing
their initial configuration.
2. Unzip the sound font archive in a directory of
your hard disc.
3. Take all the WAV sounds. If the sound font zip
archive comes configuration files that are
supposed to match the theme of the sound font,
you can take it as well, but make sure the
settings won’t harm anything (especially the
high-power LED current).
4. Copy the files in desired sound bank and
overwrite the files
5. Copy the whole µSD card (Ctrl+a, Ctrl+c) to a
temporary folder of the hard drive.
6. Format the µSD card in FAT (FAT16 or FAT32)
7. Select the whole content of the temporary
directory on the hard drive and copy it in one run to the µSD card (Ctrl+a,
Ctrl+c, Ctrl+v on the µSD drive). Do not use drag-and-drop.
Don't forget to visit www.saberfont.com to get the most recent and the most
exciting sound fonts for your Nano Biscotte board. As indicated in the introduction of
this manual, CF/PC sound fonts are directly compatible with the Nano Biscotte. Just
make sure you keep your NB configuration file and copy all the files from the CF/PC
sound font. Audio files unused by the Nano Biscotte will just be skipped but they can
remain on the µSD card.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
21
Drive (and fdrive) adjustments
There are always special cases and exceptions. One is to end with a resistor value
calculation that gives an extremely small value (<0.5 ohm).
You can always wire several resistor in parallel to reach the right value but the Nano
Biscotte is designed to take care of that thanks to the drive parameter in the
configuration file.
The drive parameter defines the max drive that is applied to the high-power LED. By
default (1023) it applies the battery voltage.
Let's take a green LED that has a forward voltage of 3.45V @1A. It is really close to
the battery voltage. The resistor calculation remains the same
R = (Vcell – Vled) / LedCurrent
R = (3.7 - 3.45) / 1 = 0.15 ohm
On the one hand, such a small resistor is unpractical to source and tolerance will not
lead to an accurate current limitation. On the other hand, not using a resistor will
overdrive the LED which might fry. The board driver can act as a linear, configurable
resistor, using the drive parameter. When getting such a small resistor value (below
0.5 ohm, AND Vled < Vcell), the drive can be calculated as follows:
drive = 1023 * (Vled / Vcell)
in our case, drive = 1023 * (3.45 / 3.7) = 954
The drive parameters can be also fine tuned using an amp-meter in the high-power
LED circuit: adjust the drive until you reach the exact average current required for
your LED. Never set the drive under 80% of the maximum value.
Deep sleep mode
The sound board has the ability to go in a power saving mode called deep sleep
mode. Once it has entered that mode, the next press on the activator switch will not
power up the blade but will make the board reboot first to get out of the deep sleep
mode. Another press on the activator switch will ignite the saber normally.
The deep sleep mode delay (deep parameter in the configuration file) is configurable
as each use might want a specific power saving scheme. For young kids sabers, the
deep setting might be very low such as 5 minutes to ensure the saber will move
quickly in power saving mode after being abandoned. Conversely, a sound upgraded
stunt saber used for stage choreography cannot take the risk to be in deep sleep
mode just before a performance, so the setting might be increased to 1 day.
When the blade is off, the sound board is in idle mode and it uses 7.5mA (before
entering deep sleep mode). This idle current is low enough to still allows a huge
runtime even if the saber remains in that state for a while ; the saber will still be
working after staying 1 week to 10 days in idle mode when using a fully charged
18650 li-ion cell.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
22
Troubleshooting & FAQ
Q : I’ve updated the sounds on the µSD card and now the module does not work
anymore. It generates some beeps when it starts.
A : You must format the µSD card (in FAT16 / FAT32) before updating the sounds,
while it’s not necessary to do so for the configuration files that can be edited in place
on the µSD card. To simplify the update process, put the new sounds on the µSD,
overwrite the old ones. Then select the whole contents of the µSD card, and copy it in
a temporary directory/folder on the hard disk. Format then the card, and next copy
the files back to the µSD card in one run.
Q : what’s the meaning of the beeps when the module starts.
A : it means that a file is missing or hasn’t been found. It can be the boot sound, or
the configuration files. Three beeps generally mean that many important files haven’t
been found (boot.wav, config.txt)
Q : can I rename the sounds on the SD card to swap them ?
A : NO. Change the sound organization on the HD prior copying them to the µSD card.
Q : I wired a rumbling motor in my hilt and now I have swings triggered while the hilt
rests on a flat surface.
A : The motor makes the board vibrating enough so that it’s interpreted as a swing.
Reduce the speed of the motor and/or mechanically isolate the board from the motor.
Increasing ls can also help, but it will make swings more difficult to execute.
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
23
Plecter Labs would like to thank its affiliates for their useful input on the Nano Biscotte
Board specs, new features ideas, constructive criticism as well as proof reading of the
user’s manual.
I also would like to deeply thank the CF/PC/NB users, customers and the illuminated
saber hobby community for the trust, support and input in my work throughout the
years, pushing the design of our favorite props toward perpetual improvement.
“Custom Electronics for Props that WORK!”
Plecter Labs is in no way affiliated, associated, licensed or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light
and Magic or any of their associates.All brands and trademarks listed are the exclusive property of their respective
Owners.
24
Non exhaustive list of trademarks owned by Plecter Labs
Blaster Move ™
Wake on Move™
Power on Move™
Power on Force™
FoC™ / Flash On Clash™
Vocal Menu™
Mute on the go™
Anti Power On/Off Protection - APOP™
R.I.C.E. - Real time Internal Configuration Editor™
Crystal Pulse™
Crystal Focus™ and Crystal Focus Saber Core™
Petit Crouton™
Nano Biscotte™
Power On Angular Selection™
SD config™
Force Clash™
Force Swing™
Buttered Toast™
S.S.B.T.™
Secret Society of the Buttered Toast™
Power Extender™
Power Xtender™
Saber Audio Player™ (SAP™) aka iSaber.
AccuBolt™
FlexiBlend™
The use of Plecter Labs trademarked terms is prohibited for use in advertisement or
sales of a product not made by Plecter Labs or for a product not containing a Plecter
Labs electronic device.
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