Hello. I've been gone for a while, life pulled me a certain way. However, things have lined back up. I'm currently working on a Predator costume, and I'm hoping to have it presentable by Halloween. How many people are using electronics for sounds and flashing lights? Do they stand up, or is it a hassle when things stop working halfway through a walk around?
Sound effects
- Thread starter merkzylla
- Start date
StewYZF750
Well-Known Member
I use sounds with a few of my costumes, my predator has sounds but has not realy been tested thoroughly as it was built during lockdown. I can't see there being any major problems though, as I use the same set-up for other costumes that have been worn 10s (if not 100s) of times.
I use an Adafruit soundFX board with sounds uploaded and connected to an Aker Amplifier MR1505. The sounds are tiggered from three finger mounted buttons which tigger sounds from three main sound groups: clicks, roars, and vision effects. I have between 7-10 different sounds in each group so sounds do not repeat too often.
I use an Adafruit soundFX board with sounds uploaded and connected to an Aker Amplifier MR1505. The sounds are tiggered from three finger mounted buttons which tigger sounds from three main sound groups: clicks, roars, and vision effects. I have between 7-10 different sounds in each group so sounds do not repeat too often.
I haven't done a Predator electronics, but have worked in electronics for 20+ making harsh evironment electronics. The advice I would give is secure all your wires so they don't flop around. Hot glue is your friend. Most failures I see are broken wires that weren't secured properly, were pinched and shorted out, or bad solder connections. The important thing is to know how long your batteries last, make sure they're easy to replace, and have spares available.
ksj
Well-Known Member
All very great points.
Another thing to think upon. Screw terminal connections versus soldered connections in the off chance you may want to recycle things later.
For most all pi and adfruit things it is a 0.1" pitch on terminal connectors.
For batteries one thing I use is a dewalt charger adapter the batteries are rechargeable and the 9ah units will last a good while outputting either 12 or 5VDC. The other option is to use 18650 batteries or airsoft batteries. Just bear in mind the airsoft batteries put out high amperage so you will need to to have appropriate converter boards that do not fry with th NIMH, LION, or other battery types.
And on batteries make sure you have access to reflash your Arduino code. If voltage gets low and wonky it can currupt things and odd results occur until you reflash.
I have also seen it corrupt sound files forcing a reformat and recopy of an adafruit fx sound board. keep copies of and backup everything to multiple locations.
And make sure you adequately and identifiably name your backup folders and files and include dates. I am guilty of this but it is a lesson you will learn at least once at a con with your dev laptop on hand. Also ensure file names do not exceed 8 or 25 characters in length. The older Arduino stuff only supports 8.3 conventions and some of the newer stuff 25 or 125 characters. In file copy operations recursive named folders in excess of 25 each will cause failures due to a file location patch length limitation.
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