Wiring the FX soundboard

[adafruit_support_bill]

If you use a single battery pack, you would need a separate buck converter for the laser. The buck converter would need to be rated for at least 2A.

Your battery pack would also need to be rated for a discharge rate of 3A or more to handle both the Fx and the laser. Most RC battery packs are designed for high discharge rates, so that should not be a problem.

The remaining question will be what kind of run-time do you require from a full charge.

[Bluesapphire]

Thanks I’ve got some research to do. I would like it to have a run time of a couple hours. Obviously this a laser sci fi type prop so it will just be used in short bursts ie firing a laser don’t know if that matters

[adafruit_support_bill]

Short bursts is good because it means that your average current draw should be considerably less than 3A.
But you still need to make sure that all of the components can handle that peak load without going up in smoke.

To estimate run-time, take your battery capacity in mAh and divide that by your average current draw in mA. The result will be the number of hours of run-time you can expect.

For example:

Assuming that your laser blasts are accompanied by a burst of sound from the Fx and that the combined current draw of that is 3A, that would be your peak load.

Now assume that you fire one 3 second blast every 30 seconds on average. That would be a 10% duty cycle. So your average current draw would be 10% of 3A or 300mA.

So if you have a battery pack rated for 1000mAh, you should get about 1000mAh / 300mA = 3.33 hours of run-time.

[Bluesapphire]

Thanks for that explanation!
I was looking at this one mainly because of size

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07578M819?re ... VS8WVN1RBH

[Bluesapphire]

Here is a buck converter
https://www.amazon.com/ShareGoo-Convert ... 7656&psc=1

[adafruit_support_bill]

Those look like good choices.

[Bluesapphire]

Thanks!

A couple questions
When the led lights and the audio triggers there is that slight 120 ms delay
Is there a way to delay the led from lighting for the same amount of time?

For the laser I intend to wire it the same as the led so it triggers off the momentary switch. If possible I would want to delay it by the 120ms as well.
Was wondering if there was some type of mini delay I could add to the circuit

[adafruit_support_bill]

Need to back up just a bit first: How were you planning on switching the laser?

[Bluesapphire]

It would get power from the toggle switch the same one the led gets power from and then the ground would connect to the momentary switch the same as the led. Is that possible? I can update my circuit diagram with the proposed wiring of the laser

[adafruit_support_bill]

An updated diagram would be helpful. Also, is your switch rated for 3A DC?

[Bluesapphire]

Thanks for pointing that out
I don’t know so I will replace it with one that is at least 3amp rated

[Bluesapphire]

Here is the updated design

[adafruit_support_bill]

To get a delay, you can add a delay circuit like the one shown here:
http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com ... ircuit.php
We stock the timer chips he: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5222

Instead of connecting the LED and laser to your switch, you would have your switch control power to the delay circuit.

Then you would take the output of the delay circuit and use it to drive a MOSFET to switch the current. This one can easily handle the laser:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/355

[Bluesapphire]

Wow!
So the delay circuit should have a little pcb board is that correct?

Also would I need one that is configurable to 120 milliseconds?

[adafruit_support_bill]

Yes, you would need a little circuit board. The delay can be adjusted by changing the resistor and/or capacitor values. There are several on-line calculators for the 555 timer chip:
https://www.easycalculation.com/enginee ... ulator.php