Advertisement
Quick Links
Spectacle Audio Board Hookup Guide
Spectacle Audio Board
The Spectacle Audio Board allows you to add sound to your Spectacle
projects. It accepts a microSD card with sounds in .ogg format (more on
this later), and has a 1/8" (3.5mm) audio jack to connect to external
amplifiers.
Spectacle Audio Board
DEV-1403 4
tl;dr (essentials)
1. Audio files for Spectacle should be formatted as .ogg files.
2. Audio files should have names 00.ogg, 01.ogg, 02.ogg, etc.
3. The audio jack on the Audio Board produces output suitable for
amplification only. It is not suited to headphones or unpowered
speakers.
Meet the Spectacle Audio Board
Designed to be a low-cost and easy to use method of adding sound to
projects, the Spectacle Audio Board integrates with the rest of the
Spectacle ecosystem to provide sound effects on demand.
It has three 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks: two for Spectacle control signals and one
for the audio output. Be certain you are plugging cables into the right
jacks! Plugging an audio device into one of the Spectacle jacks could
Page 1 of 19
Advertisement
Related Manuals for sparkfun DEV-14034
Summary of Contents for sparkfun DEV-14034
- Page 1 Page 1 of 19 Spectacle Audio Board Hookup Guide Spectacle Audio Board The Spectacle Audio Board allows you to add sound to your Spectacle projects. It accepts a microSD card with sounds in .ogg format (more on this later), and has a 1/8" (3.5mm) audio jack to connect to external amplifiers.
-
Page 2: Suggested Reading
The audio output is designed for amplified devices only. This means that any attempt to use the Spectacle Audio Board with headphones or unamplified speakers will fail to produce audible output. SparkFun sells a small, amplified, rechargeable speaker which is specifically intended for use with the Spectacle Audio Board. - Page 3 Page 3 of 19 The Spectacle Audio Board only supports one action: Play Sound. As you can see above, there are a number of settings associated with this action. • “Listen to channel number…” - This is the channel number which triggers the audio to start playing.
- Page 4 Page 4 of 19 Audacity is available across all three major operating systems, so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting it installed. When you start Audacity, you’ll see this screen, or one very like it. While at first blush it seems extremely complex, none of this crap is important to us, so don’t panic.
- Page 5 Page 5 of 19 Once you select which file you wish to edit, a rather alarmist message may pop up warning you about editing files without making a copy of them. Just click “OK”. You’ll see, then, something like this show up. This is what your audio file looks like, to the computer.
- Page 6 Page 6 of 19 This one allows you to set metadata about the file. You can ignore everything and just click “OK” to skip past this. Congratulations! You’ve successfully converted a file to OGG Vorbis format. You may now copy that file to the Micro SD card (don’t forget to rename it to a number!) for use with the Spectacle Audio Board.
- Page 7 Page 7 of 19 Now, let’s see what we can do about volume. Under the “Edit” menu, look for the “Select” submenu, and choose “All” to select the entire sound. You can also just use the drag-and-highlight method from above. Now that you’ve got the entire sound selected, click on the “Effect”...
- Page 8 Page 8 of 19 of relatively poor quality, or the sound file itself is, allowing clipping may increase volume significantly without making the sound quality too much worse than it already is. Thirdly, volume intensity may be far more important than sound quality, and allowing clipping lets you push the volume as high as you can.
- Page 9 Page 9 of 19 Audio Cable TRRS - 3ft Spectacle Audio Board CAB-14164 DEV- 14034 You will need two of the TRRS cables. Make sure the speaker is charged before the first time you try to use it! First, plug one end of one of the TRRS cables into the “Direct”...
- Page 10 Page 10 of 19 Connect the speaker to the “Audio Output” port on the Audio Board. Finally, insert the microSD card with the files you prepared on it into the slot on the back side of the Audio Board. Finally, plug the micro-B end of the power adapter into the Director Board, and the other end into the wall.
- Page 11 Page 11 of 19 The very first thing you’ll do is add an Audio Board to the project. To do this, click on the “Add a Board” button, highlighted in the image below. Clicking on that button will bring up a list of available boards. Click anywhere in the “Audio”...
- Page 12 Page 12 of 19 We now need to tell the system what we want this board to do. In the screen that pops up after you click in the “Audio” box, you’ll find this little clapboard icon. Click that icon to add actions to the Audio Board. This will bring up the “Actions”...
- Page 13 Page 13 of 19 Clicking on the “Add an Action” button will pull down this short menu, with only two options on it. Click “Play Sound” to add a sound playback action to the board. This is the “Play Sound” action settings page. We’ve covered the meaning of these fields elsewhere in this tutorial, so I’m just going to tell you what to enter in these fields.
- Page 14 Page 14 of 19 Copy the settings from the image below into the fields. Now click the “Go Back” button at the bottom of the page. The settings you just put in will be automatically saved, and you’ll return to the main page of the project.
- Page 15 Page 15 of 19 Now you’re back to the main page, and you can see that the action set up in the Audio Board configuration we just did shows up in the list of boards as well, as a reminder of what that board is configured to do. Now, click “Add a Board”...
- Page 16 Page 16 of 19 Configure the random input settings as shown in the image below, then click the “Go Back” button to return to the main page. Congratulations! You’ve finished configuring the system. Now it’s time to install the settings onto the Director board.
- Page 17 Page 17 of 19 Uploading Now that you’ve created your Spectacle program it’s time to upload it to the Director Board. If you followed the instructions above, your uploading device is connected to the board and ready to go, so all you need to do is touch the “Install Script”...
-
Page 18: Further Reading
Page 18 of 19 programming is done, you’ll see the light on the Director Board blink 10 times, pause, then repeat. That’s your cue that the program was uploaded successfully. Press the “RST” button again to reset the system and begin the program! If you have any troubles, visit the troubleshooting page for help resolving your issues. -
Page 19: Hookup Guide
Spectacle Button Board Kit Hookup Guide Hookup Guide All the information you need to use All the information you need to use the Spectacle Light and Sound Kit in the Spectacle Button Board in one one place. place. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/spectacle-audio-board-hookup-guide?_ga=2.12802945... 6/12/2017...
Need help?
Do you have a question about the DEV-14034 and is the answer not in the manual?
Questions and answers