Hi all,
I have recently purchased the WAV Trigger and am having some issues.
I am using a 555 timer circuit powered from the WAV Trigger’s regulated 5v output pin. The output of the 555 timer feeds into the base of a transistor which is placed between the WAV Trigger Input trig 1 and ground, so each time the 555 output pulse goes high, the trigger is pulled to ground and triggers the sound. This seemed to be working great for a while, and I was playing around with the 555 circuit resistors to vary the pulse frequency. After a short while I realised the sound had stopped, and I was no longer getting any sound from the WAV Trigger. After restarting the WAV Trigger it would work for a little while (10 seconds or so) and then the LED would flash multiple times and it would go quiet. I decided to disconnect the 555 circuit and test the WAV Trigger on its own, and it still cut out after only a few sound triggers each time, and sometimes wouldn’t even work after power-cycling. After leaving the board for half an hour or so and coming back it seems to be working normally again.
Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on? I am powering it with a 9v battery attached to the barrel connector, and am using headphones plugged into the output jack. I was thinking maybe the regulator is overheating, as I was using the 555 timer to send 14 triggers per second, meaning pretty much constant audio playback. I was also wondering if it was sensible to power my 555 timer circuit from the regulated 5v output of the WAV Trigger?
Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Max
Hi Max.
If you try powering everything with 4 fresh AA sized batteries do the issues go away?
Does the WAV Trigger alone work OK with 4 AA batteries as a power supply? (with your 555 circuit completely disconnected)
Hi Chris,
Yes, the WAV Trigger seems to be working completely fine with 4xAA batteries, with and without the timer circuit. I have switched to using a 6v DC power supply and it seems to be fine even when using for longer periods of time. So it looks like it may have been related to the regulator running hot dealing with a 9v battery?
I also have one other question which I have been looking for an answer to in the documentation and the forum over at Robertsonics. Do you know what the maximum triggering frequency is? For instance, when I use a square wave to periodically pull the transistor on the trigger input to ground (triggering the audio sample), I seem to get erratic triggering when I reach about 14Hz (approx 70ms between ‘ground’ signals on the trigger). I would be interested to know how often the trigger input is internally polled to check for a ground connection, and also how long the connection needs to be made in order for it to trigger. Any suggestions would be great!
Thanks,
Max
Hi Max.
Not sure what the maximum trigger rate is, but it sounds like you found it experimentally at around 14Hz.
The regulator will be warmer at 9V than at 6V, but I don’t think that’s your issue. 9 volt batteries can’t deliver very much current where AA’s can. Your symptoms sound like the 9 volt battery just couldn’t deliver enough current and the WAV Trigger was browning out.