Hi. I am trying to activate a little soundie from the 5 volt digital pins on an arduino. My understanding is that the soundie does not tolerate 5v. Is that true? Will 5 volts from the Arduino hurt the soundie?
I tried using voltage dividers to cut the 5 volts to 3.3 going to the soundie. I had the Arduino digital pins going into a 1k resistor, which led to a 2k resistor to ground, and I tapped out in the middle where the two resistor legs touch forming a voltage divider. But when I checked the output voltage with my multimeter it was not steady when the Arduino digital pin turned on – there was a spike over 3 volts, which then dropped to about 1.5 volts, and then to 0. The soundie does not make any noise. My guess is that I need more steady voltage for this thing to work.
And so now my guess is that I should buy something like the Sparkfun logic level converter ( BOB 12009 ROHS) to get steady 3v. Will this work?
I am helping a student with a project, and it is due very soon. I will greatly appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Doug
PS: if possible to talk to someone on the phone, I would love that!
Hi Doug.
Sorry, we don’t have phone support. 
How are you powering the Little Soundie and did you press the power button on the Little Soundie before trying to trigger a sound?
Confirmed; what you have stated so far is correct. The input voltage needs to be stepped down to 3.3v, and these easiest way to accomplish this is with a logic level converter
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14765
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12009
Be sure to go through the hookup guide here https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/li … 1615791300 (of course with the converter wired-between) for more info on its use/operation.
Hope this helps!
Hi and thanks for the reply. Yes, we’re powering the soundie. It plays a sound here and there, but not reliably. This is why I’m guessing that my voltage divider approach to lowering the Arduino 5V pins to 3.3 is not working. I don’t think that it holds 3.3V long enough for the sounds to play. But this is just a guess.
We’ve consulted the hookup guide the entire time, but have found it not helpful beyond basics since it makes no mention of how one might connect to an Arduino.
I of course, working on a teacher’s salary, am planning to use the $3 logic level converter. If there is a compelling reason why the $15 one would be better in this situation, I’d love to learn that.
It’s more configurable; the less expensive one will work for your case 
OK, great. Thanks again.
And I realize that for all kinds of reasons it may not make economic sense for Sparkfun, but having a tutorial that shows how to use the little soundie with an Arduino would be fabulous, since Arduino is the entry-level microcontroller platform that so many artists and students continue to use.
Best wishes,
Doug
Dear Sparkfun folks,
Hi again. My student purchased the 5v-3.3v logic level converter to activate his Little Soundie from his Arduino Uno.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12009
However he still can’t get it to work. We are working together to identify the problem.
in the meantime-- I see that the soundie hookup guide says " A momentary connection to 3.3V will trigger the audio to playback." What we are doing is setting the appropriate Arduino digital out pin HIGH, waiting a bit via an Arduino delay command, & then setting that pin low again. My question is: What is the minimum recommended time for that delay? 20ms?
Many thanks,
Doug
Hi Doug.
I’m not sure what the minimum time would be, you’d need to determine that experimentally. I’d start at 250ms and go down from there to test.
Just to make sure everything is working, you might consider trying the circuit in the hookup guide that uses buttons to connect VIN to each of the inputs. Just apply 3.3 volt power to VIN and then momentarily connect one or more inputs to VIN. If it’s working there, then you can connect the board to the rest of your system. 