mikesprops wrote:Ah, I didn't realise. That explains my problem then. I've just wired the power from the packlights terminals on the soundboard to the power connection on my arduino thinking that the soundboard would just switch the power on and off to the packlights when the power up switch is flicked. I need to rethink things. Is there a wiring diagram out there for pack lights that would work with the soundboard? (The shop has been sold out of them for a while)
It's sold out because AJ and I have been working on a new set of pack lights, he's done with the hardware but I'm still trying to wrap up the software (getting close). Ours needs to handle more than just on/off, it has to support video game modes (slime/boson/etc) and venting/overheating. So I spent a bit of time writing code to decipher the signals from the soundboard. It has an IDC ribbon cable with 10 pins, that's what runs from the soundboard to the pack lights. 3 pins are GND, 3 pins are VCC, and the remaining 4 pins in the middle send signals of the current pack state and mode changes.
You could potentially hook into that and read the signals yourself. At a minimum your code would need to understand the off, startup, idle, and shutdown (you could use just off and idle, but then your pack lights wouldn't turn on until the startup sound has finished playing).