WAV Trigger issue.

i wired up my first wavtrigger today, with arcade controller(light up leds in series with triggers) connected via 50’ serial cable, and when it starts up it blinks 9 or 10 times, and makes no sound. it still has the 3 second heartbeat.

I read in an older post that the 10 blinks is an error message indicating improper formatting of files or sd card.

I formatted the sdcard in gparted on a ubuntu laptop.

I tried it with both the provided sd card as well as a spare 32gb card i had laying around.

Can anyone help?

Does the Wav Trigger work without the arcade controller by just shorting out the trigger connections ?

I don’t know what an arcade controller is or how it is connecting to the Wave Trigger ?

10 Blinks at power up indicates a problem accessing the microSD card, either because it can’t recognize FAT16 or FAT32 formatting or because of a hardware issue. If you’re sure that you’ve tried 2 different cards with either of those formats, then the most likely cause is poor connectivity with the microSD socket. I have seen cases where the solder joints on the socket pins is not adequate.

In any event, if you’ve tried multiple FAT16 or FAT32 cards and continue to get this symptom, I suggest contacting SparkFun tech support.

Hi chemotroph, and thanks for using the forums.

We would like you to try formatting your card on a Windows PC or Mac with the SD Card Associations card formatting utility that can be found at the link below.

  • [SD Memory Card Formatter
  • [/list]

    Once you’ve done that, unzip the file below and place the 001Track.wav file on your card. Then eject / safely remove the card from your PC or Mac and place it into your WAV Trigger.


  • Test WAV file.zip (53.4 KB)
  • Now, apply power to the board and with a speaker or headphones connected press the T1 button and see if you hear a voice saying the number ‘one.’

    Let us know what happens when you try this.](SD Memory Card Formatter for Windows/Mac | SD Association)

    I have tried it with two cards, using gparted for formatting, an the test samples. I will give this formatting tool a try, but i have a feeling it wont help. How can i go about RMA if it does not work?

    If you’re still having trouble after using the SD Card Association’s formatting utility, please fill out the form on [this page for a RMA and we will help with that.](Return Policy - SparkFun Electronics)

    I had this same issue and formatted using the recommended SD Card Association Utility mentioned above and it finally worked. I struggled with it for weeks and finally broke down and wrote to sparkfun, I wish they had mentioned it anywhere in the documentation as I wasted countless hours before receiving a link to download this specific card formatting tool and getting functionality on the WAV trigger.

    FYI, I use the Windows Explorer format function routinely and have never had an issue. I’ve also used many, many microSD cards right out of the box and have also never had either the WAV Trigger or Tsunami reject the formatting, so I’m at a loss to explain this observation. All that’s required is that the card be formatted either FAT16 or FAT32. XFAT will definitely not work. Cards larger than 32GB will likely come formatted as XFAT and will need to be reformatted as FAT32.

    This is probably a good place to also point out that it’s important to make sure that whatever the format, the file allocation size should be at least 32K. Anything less than this will affect audio performance when playing lots of voices simultaneously and you may get clicks or pops. One thing I like about the Windows format utility is that it displays what the file allocation size is, and allows you to change it.