[Hoot]

Just one of them random Chinese jobbies?
Sounds good to me. I'll check it out this week. My electronics are coming this week so tomorrow will be spent working on both the motherboard (drilling speaker vents....or...grille patterns...or whatever the f*** they are) and getting the appropriate things needed to be done (light shelf for Power Cell, fabricate a bracket for the inside the cyclotron for eitther the electronics or the other speaker).

[bromie]

Yeah i've got one of those blue 12V batteries as well. If you look for 'CCTV battery' on eBay you should find plenty to choose from.

What are you going to be using the pack for? I've only got a 6800mAh 'cos mine's really just going to be a prop on the wall, but if you're going to be taking it round conventions, etc. you'll be better with the 9800mAh like Eric.

They're really easy to set up, especially with the GBFans sound board. I used this thread http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... ics+wiring to design the wiring for my pack. It's not exactly the same, but i based it off this:


I'll have a main switch on the pack that i can either switch to 'On' or 'Off/Charge'. The switch on the battery itself stays on all the time inside the pack, but the master switch completely kills the power if i want to turn the pack off. When it's 'Off' it also connects a circuit between the battery and a power socket (2.1 mm DC power socket, it should be the same for yours if you get one of those blue batteries), so i can charge the pack without having to take it apart.

The Activate switch in the thrower acts as a master ON for the pack and thrower lights and the sound board. I'll have the Intensify switch wired up to the firing sound obviously, and the vent switch (upper toggle) is wired to turn on the vent light and the power up sound. I won't have anything else wired up as i'm going for a pure GB1 movie set up.

If you want i can post the pic of the wiring diagram i made so i could see where everything would go.

Oh, and those speakers you got seem fine. They're at least 10 Watts, and because they're 4 Ohm make sure you wire them in series with the sound board.

Pack's coming along great, by the way! I'm literally days away from my ALICE frame being delivered, and my pack should only be a few days after that. I'm so close to finally being able to finish my pack that i might shit myself. Hopefully i won't though.

[Hoot]

That'd b great if I can see your diagram friend

[bromie]

No probs Hoot, here ya go:



I've tried to clean it up as best i can, but hopefully you can see what i've done here. I've Frankensteined this thing from a few sources on this site...and made a few of my own changes...so hopefully it makes sense


Basically, the negative side of the battery is connected to the thrower light board/pack sound board and power socket through a SPDT (On-On) switch. The switch is either 'On' or 'Off/Charging'.

When it's ON the power can travel to the thrower board. However, the positive side of the battery goes: to the thrower - through the ACTIVATE switch - into the thrower board - and back to the sound board in the pack. This means that even when the master switch is ON the ACTIVATE switch controls the lights and power to the sound board.

When the switch is OFF the light and sound boards are effectively disconnected. The active connection is now through the charging port, so when it's plugged in i am ONLY charging the battery and the power isn't going anywhere else.

The VENT and INTENSIFY switches are wired up to the 'PowerUp' and 'Fire' connectors (respectively). This is another one of those reasons why i love the GBFans sound board. All you have to do here is connect a wire to a side of the switch in the thrower. I don't understand electronics enough to understand why, but it only works with a particular side of the switch. I had to cut the wire from the light board to the switch, attach my new wire from the sound board, and see if it works. If it doesn't just resolder it back the way it was and try again with the other wire from the switch.

I actually didn't decide to use the 'Song' switch, but that's just a simple connection from the board and through a switch (i was thinking of the spare thrower toggle).

By connecting the pack lights through the 'PACK' connectors means that they come on at the same time as the thrower lights.

Oh, and i'm using two 4 Ohm speakers. This just goes: SP- to 1st speaker negative, 1st speaker positive to second speaker negative, second speaker positive to SP+.


Hopefully this helps Hoot, just give me a shout if you want me to clarify anything

[Hoot]

Yep. Its japanese.
I'm using a GBFans system so it will be less complicated ....at least to me

So shouldn't the wand lights with the full system from GBFans just need the plug and plays to the Sound board? Prior to that, battery to toggle for master power switch. Switch to sound board/light controller?

[bromie]

Haha! I know it seems confusing but if you follow each wire one by one you can hopefully see how it works.

Trust me, i haven't done electronics since secondary ('high' ) school, but once i got my head round it it didn't seem as confusing as i first thought (i'm using Jupiter Electronics thrower and pack light kits)

And yeah, as far as i know the GBFans kit is plug and play. If you want a master switch (and a charging port) you can use the top left part of that diagram. Except i think you'll need a DPDT switch (the connections are still basically the same).

*Now hopefully someone else will chime in here because i may be wrong. I know that the connections will be right, it's just i'm not sure if you could just use a SPDT switch like i did because only the negative side needs to be switched*

So if you have a DPDT switch like this:



Your connections will be like so:

- Battery negative to C
- A to BATTERY GND on the sound board
- E to negative on the charging port

- Battery positive to D
- B to BATTERY POS on the sound board
- F to positive on the charging port

(If you only need a SPDT switch then just use the 'negative' instructions)


Hopefully i've helped with this, and not made it worse...

[Hoot]

Yup. That makes more sense. Question is that how are you able to determine the pos and neg off the charging lead and the powering leads (yes I know they look different, I just mean inside the wire jacketing)

[Hoot]

I picked up my sound kit and my wand light kit.

I immediately hooked onto a 9v source for testing (I had a single 8ohm speaker from an old shitty surround sound that I used) and...

Well is it wrong to have an erection whilst playing with it? I mean...just saying guys lol

The sound and light kit I mean....not...well....you know...

I am back to work for some bullshit shifts for the weekend. I will be doing more progress on monday (fabricating a bracket and using spacers to allow for cyclotron and ribbon cable connections to the sound board. I will also actually start the drilling on the motherboard for the one speaker grille.

(HUGE shout out to Alan Hawkins for the beautiful 6" template he posted. I got 'er printed and will be HANDDRILLING this grill; found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanbadger ... 69/sizes/o) I hope he is ok with me sharing his link.

Might take some time but I have a full day. should only take an hour or so LOL.
On top of that, I will need to drill a pair of holes in the motherboard to allow for the master power switch (terminate power between the battery and the sound/light controller board) as well as a hole for the M type power plug. I think mine was a DC (which makes sense).

Anywho, thanks for listening and there will be more pack porn next week guys. I know I have been slacking but I have been pounding away at this pack dedicated for almost 2 weeks. I'm stunned that I was able to get this much done.

Cheers!

[AJ Quick]

With the soundboard you actually don't need to supply power to anything BUT the soundboard. The power is carried through the ribbon cables to the boards, as well as the switches to activate sounds and lights and what not.

[Hoot]

Oh I know. I just want to have power to a recharge port and a master kill switch foe power to protect the board while recharging. If that makes sense

[AJ Quick]

Yeah. Just simple double throw switch is all you need for that.

[Hoot]

Spdt or dpdt AJ?

[Larzl995]

Your pack is looking sweet!

[Hoot]

Your pack is looking sweet!

Its not perfect. There have been a few f*** ups so to say. This has been a learning process for me and really I probably shoulda started with a semi-hero. But I am where I am and it will help with my next build. Thus far two friends wanna commission me. I told em "holdafuckon...wait till I'm done mine and we can talk" lol

Wait till next week when I learn basic speaker wiring and electronics wiring AND aluminum bending!!!

[bromie]

I know what you mean about the first time you get the sound card hooked up! It was the first 'Whoah! That's a proton pack...' moment. And i know there are going to be plenty more (like today, when i got my ALICE frame through the post ).

You'll need a SPDT switch for your electronics Hoot. Just had another look at the sound card manual and it's the positive side that the switch should be on (http://www.gbfans.com/images/shop/packs ... ctions.pdf, page 4).

As far as i know i think this is how you want your setup:



Battery + to B
A to Soundboard +
C to recharge port +

Battery - to Soundboard Gndandrecharge port -

Hopefully AJ will confirm it but i think that's the simplest way of setting it up the way you want.

[AJ Quick]

Correct.

You can also use a DPDT switch to isolate both the positive and negative (which would be the safest).

That would put positive on one side of the switch, and negative on the other.

EDIT: The first diagram Bromie posted seems to be correct in that regard.

I'll copy it here:



A: Positive on Soundboard
B: Negative on Soundboard

C: Positive on Battery
D: Negative on Battery

E: Positive Charge Port
F: Negative Charge Port

If its a 2 position switch, the charge port will be the off position. If its a 3 position switch, the center location and Charge port will act as off.

[Hoot]

So that sounds easy enough.
I will take pics of the items I've purchased and we can make amendements lol

[Hoot]

I also wanna stop and say thank everyone for their assistance and patience. I've been a member here a long damn time and been lurking in the shadows minus the last two years and most recently the last 2 months. Its this build that reminds me that I am in the presence of awesomeness.

I know I am asking a ton of questions but then again, this whole build thread could be the one thread someone could take and go...Jesus, I can't possibly be worse than THIS GUY
Thanks again; you guys are all awesome.

[Hoot]

I pissed off outta work early tonight.
Came home and crushed a few 24oz Rolling Rocks. Then pounded out the speaker grille in my motherboard.

Its looking pretty damn good. As promised tomorrow I will be tackling mounting speakers and electronics shelves....eses... damn I might be drunk.

Also, keep in mind my American counterparts who still stay on the job whilst not getting paid. Even though House or Senate or whatever the f*** has passed a backpay bill, some may be on tight budgets to whatever happenstance and will NOT be paid until the asshat politicos can unfuck themselves.

Good luck friends

[Hoot]

Today I fabricated a bastardized power cell bracket for my lighting. I say bastardized because of a few reasons.
1) I'm an idiot
2) I had no clue what I was doing
3) It's too damn tall.
4) Too late, its on the motherboard...riveted lol

Its actually too short, I was too stupid to buy shorter spacers LOL
So I will be doing that and getting the appropriate DPDT switch for the master power on the motherboard.
I mounted all my speakers today, and gave them an appropriate test in series (LOOK AT ME ALL LEARNING).
I will post some pictures later on.

Can anyone give me a better idea than epoxying the lenses into the power cell. I cocked it all up doing it.
Just made one shitter of a mess.

[Hoot]

Ok so I installed some more shit today. Switch and plug are mounted to the mobo for now. Waiting on the battery but couldn't resist doing...>THIS:
[Youtube]http://youtu.be/zc6LCQFBBbU[/Youtube]

Anyone recommend a diffuser material for my powercell?

[Vincenzo330]

You can use wax paper or just scuff up the inside of the acrylic with some fine grit sand paper.

[Hoot]

Wax paper eh. Thats quite ingenious....
I'll try that (less likely to Fark that up lol)

[Hoot]

Can someone help me with a tutorial to install my lenses and reflectors? I superglued the reflectors to the cyclotron lights and they whited out the damn lenses.
All lenses removed soaking in hot soapy water to break down the glue and epoxy. Any ideas welcome at this point.

[Vincenzo330]

All you need is hot glue, bud

[Hoot]

.....f*** balls.
Ok so how do I clean these f****g THINGS TO GET THE EPOXY OFF IT......
LMAO

Thanks for that though Vincenzo, you're a life saver. Off to the dolla sto.....
I'll be spending the evening cleaning the ever living shit out of these now :S

[Vincenzo330]

You might be out of luck on cleaning them. Although you could just use fine grit paper to diffuse them if you like the way that looks. If it were me I'd just replace the acrylic.

When you glue the lenses in, use hot glue around the edges and then glue the cones on after that.

[Hoot]

Im going to try acetone on them tonight to see if that will break the majority of the epoxy down. Thankfully it hadn't fully cured as yet.
They may be salvagable

[Vincenzo330]

I have a feeling that acetone is gong to eat the lenses. Try rubbing alcohol first.

[Hoot]

...Noted. Im glad I havent gone anywhere to get anything...yet. Gotta pick up the wife soon so that should allow me to buy some hot sticky glue