/PBSaber

Turn your PropBoard into a full-featured lightsaber sound/light/motion board.

Primary LanguageC++GNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

PBSaber

PBSaber turns your PropBoard into a full-featured lightsaber sound/light/motion board. It allows you to use the PropBoard as a lightsaber soundboard without writing a single line of code, giving you access to the full power of the PropBoard even if you don't know how to program. It requires just minimum soldering skills and editing a configuration file.

Click in the following picture for a demo video.

PropBoard: PBSaber

Features (v1.0.0)

  • No coding skills required: you can create and customize your lightsaber even if you don't know how to program the PropBoard.
  • You can upgrade the software, anytime, with the latest version.
  • Very easy to use and install.
  • Fully configurable through a user-friendly, human-readable configuration file in the SD.
  • Profile-based:
    • the entire lightsaber behavior is controlled by user-defined profiles.
    • in each profile you can customize the colors and modes for the shimmering, clash, blaster, stab and lock-up effects, ignition and retraction type and duration, and the sound font to use.
    • you can select profiles through a button combination.
    • it remembers the last used profile.
    • there are no limits on how many profiles you can define.
  • Audio:
    • supports WAV files, both monophonic and polyphonic fonts.
    • real-time mixing.
    • latency from event detection to audio output: typical ~4.5ms (tested at 22050fs), on both mono and polyphonic fonts, with or without background music.
    • supported sampling frequencies (@ 16 bits per sample): 22050, 32000, 44100, 48000, 96000.
    • mono and stereo.
    • gapless, clickless playback on both mono and poly fonts.
    • it switches fonts on-the-go, from mono to poly and back based on the font the profile it's using.
    • unlimited font banks.
    • unlimited font slots per sound type (for example unlimited swings slots).
    • supports background music.
  • Hardware support:
    • supports 3 high-brightness LEDs up to 1A each.
    • supports addressable LEDs (a.k.a Neopixels): APA102 or APA102C, WS2812 or WS2812B and SK6812RGBW RGBW LED.
    • single or dual momentary button support.
    • Low-power mode.
  • Feedback-driven project: have a feature request? you want something modified? Start a discussion in our forum or open a Github issue.
  • 100% open source.

Firmware installation and updates

  1. Install the Arduino IDE and the PropBoard support by following these instructions.
  2. Grab the latest PBSaber release by clicking on this link.
  3. Unzip the file anywhere in your computer and double-click on the PBSaber.ino file.
  4. Connect your PropBoard to your PC/MAC using an USB cable.
  5. Select the serial port for the PropBoard in the Arduino IDE and click the Upload button.
  6. For software updates, repeat from step 2.

Documentation