Adafruit FX Sound Board 2x2 W 16 MB stops working

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ErikViking
 
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Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:38 pm

Adafruit FX Sound Board 2x2 W 16 MB stops working

Post by ErikViking »

Hi,

I live in Norway and have bought several Adafruit FX sound boards for various sound use on my model train layout. Unfortunately, it seems that all of them have a power or temperature issue: Depending upon the input voltage, the unit stops working (playing the sound) after just some seconds at 5 volts, but may work for 20-40 seconds at around 4 volts. Each unit typically draws around 0.35 Amps at 5 volts and around 0.24 Amps. Removing the speakers makes almost no change to the input current level. To me, as an electronic engineer with many years of experience in the Norwegian Computer Industry, it seems that the power consumption is very high for such a small unit, and the main IC (not the flash) gets very hot quickly. I assume that is why it stops working. In addition to the two speakers, I have only three connecting wires to the board: The Vin and the neighbor ground pin for the input voltage and a wire connected to trigger pin 0 which is being connected to ground for s short moment when I want the unit to play the music. Both speakers are 8 ohms 2 Watts.

Two of the units have died completely (meaning it will never play the sound) although the connection to the flash memory is still ok. The third one is still working sometimes, but as I said only for very short time.
The unit is run from a stabilized power supply, and I control the voltage level and the current with digital multimeters.

I appreciate any suggestions and help you are able to provide.

Best regards

ErikViking

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mikeysklar
 
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Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:10 pm

Re: Adafruit FX Sound Board 2x2 W 16 MB stops working

Post by mikeysklar »

@ErikViking,

Sounds like a cool train setup. I have a big set of Lionel mself.

Would it be possible to post photos of your FX sound board in terms of how you have wired them up? A schematic would also be fine. Just looking for something that might be out of the norm since you have seen this behavior on multiple units.

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ErikViking
 
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Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:38 pm

Re: Adafruit FX Sound Board 2x2 W 16 MB stops working

Post by ErikViking »

Hi,

Today, I have also tested one of the units with another power supply with the exact same results. To reduce heating I only used 4 volts from the supply
Schematics with picture.pdf
Here is the schematics and a picture of the simple setup
(150.59 KiB) Downloaded 3 times
Schematics with picture.pdf
Here is the schematics and a picture of the simple setup
(150.59 KiB) Downloaded 3 times
. The unit played ok for about 20 seconds and then the red light went out and the sound stopped.

Best regards

ErikViking

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