Voice alerts test build

If you have loaded the MP3 files onto the SD card, then you should be able to hear the files sequentially if you briefly short pin 9 to ground. If you hold that short a bit longer it should make the volume go up, although the volume should be set to the highest level by default. If you can't hear the files manually, then the problem may be the SD card.

It sounds like you're connected to the trainer cord right.

Just read trough this thread and made an order for a DFPlayer, great thing to add to deviation, thank you Mike.

Hope you get well soon!

Btw, I had the opportunity to buy a Devo6s, it was on sale at my LHS for 120€ , deviation flashed and two rx601, couldn't let it pass. I was finally convinced by your blog article on it.

I stand corrected, now that I tried it myself you were 100% right, I'll be selling my heavily modified 7E, and for the color screen sunlight readability issue, I'll by cutting an anti-glare screen protector.

Deal57 wrote: If you have loaded the MP3 files onto the SD card, then you should be able to hear the files sequentially if you briefly short pin 9 to ground. If you hold that short a bit longer it should make the volume go up, although the volume should be set to the highest level by default. If you can't hear the files manually, then the problem may be the SD card.

It sounds like you're connected to the trainer cord right.

Yes i get the player to play the sound file by grounding the pins you mentioned and it plays good i just can't have any luck getting it to play hooked up to a transmitter...it does still play by grounding the pins while it is hooked to the tx just not through the trainer cord..

My first test didn't get any sound on my dfplayer either. I guess I need to read the notes! I have a salea I'll hook up next.

Good news: the Devo is actually sending the serial commands on the correct line coming out of the DSC port. I can see the first command on my Salea:
"0x7E, 0xFF, 0x06, 0x12, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0xFE, 0xE9, 0xEF"

So the command is being sent, but the DFPlayer doesn't seem to respond. I'll see if I can track down any ideas.

Seeing that the Salea captured some good data, I set up an FTDI interface at 9600bps to just watch what was going through. No changes to any Devo software. The ascii came across consistently but the codes being sent were wrong. I tried this with a 3.3v signal and (inadvertantly) at 5v but the results were the same, and it only works at 9600bps, as expected. However I did not get the characters I expected to see; here's what I see. Is this a problem with my FTDI terminal settings (flipped bits or something) or is it possible that's what is going out over TX?

Startup (powerup to a model):
I was expecting more like
then I let the countdown timer run out, and every 10 seconds get this, so I know the packet is all together:
That's all I can do tonight. It's sending, but not what I want it to send!

The rest of the build works great, thank you so much!!!

Hopefully it gets sorted out as with all test builds there are bugs to squash out...
As for a possible future user interface perhaps adding another page to the tx setting menu and listing the switches/timers/warnings ect...And add a drop box to them to allow user to select which sound file to be associated with the switch ect...I know this is probably a long way away but just thinking out loud i guess..

Looking forward to your results ...Thanks a bunch..

An update on my status: the surgery went fine, and they tell me my recovery is going very well. But I probably won't be OK to sit at a desk for a while, so no work on this. I can keep on reading & posting of my tablet, though.

If you use the PPM lines for anything - either as the output protocol or configured as extra inputs, it will fall back to beeping. If you have a DEBUG or emulator build, it will not play music or beep but print out "playing alert #" for the alert number instead of playing music. Haven't really tested all of that recently, though.

This did work for me on my 6s, though I skipped my usual last step of rebuilding after the cmmit that worked. That shouldn't be a problem, but if building with uncommitted changes gets a DEBUG build, maybe not. My hardware connection is to the ground, tx & rx lines as per the labels inside the tx.

As for the UI, the plan is to have a tool for getting the list of audio files and beeps in media.ini, and then any place a sound is triggered, you get to pick from that list. I still need to figure out how to do a sound on two different switch positions in the mixer. And the config stuff is part of a larger config UI change that I'll be researching while convalescing.

Good to hear your doing well, get plenty of rest and you'll be back 100% in no time..

This weekend i am going to open up my 12 and try hooking the rx/tx from the mini to the rx/tx pins on the pcb next to the tms 3.3v pins and see how if works out..if it works i will then try to figure out how or if there is a way to mount the pololu speaker where the stock beeper is located...Might be some dremel tooling to get it to fit...or source a smaller speaker.

MWM, it looks like my trouble is that I'm not connecting to the RX line, it's wired stock. So the tip of the ppm line is TX and the shield is ground.

I'm traveling for another week or so, so no way to fix that... But I already built a test cable mod for the Devo DSC port which actually uses the RX line, and I'll try that as soon as I get back.

Have some success to report ..I opened up my 12 and hooked directly to the board on the 3.3v GND and the TX and RX then the mini player works as should..It doesn't play anything when powering on while hooked to the 3.3v on the board but powering the mini player with a external battery it plays a voice alert powering on...all the timers voice alerts works as should and powering down it says "Goodbye" ...Also it announces when model is bound using a protocol that counts down the binding sequence ,all while hooked to the 3.3v on the tx board...here is a pic of the pins i hooked it to...as of now i have no need for external power source or a 5v step up it seems to be working fine other then announcing "Welcome to deviation" during power up..
EDIT: I also pulled up the board to see what kind of buzzer it has and it is a small peizo buzzer i measured it with calipers and it is 11.79mm so i am pretty sure finding a speaker that small is pretty much not going to happen so i will have to figure out some other way to mount a speaker , perhaps in the bottom of the tx vented out the base...I am really looking forward to future developments in the voice build and excited to see just how far it will progress..
Going to find one of those talking birthday cards and remove the speaker to see how it does soon as i find one..

Glad to see your results! That is really good to see. I placed an order for some small speakers (one 15 x 11 and one 12mm round) to see how they sound...specs seem good. I like the idea of seeing what's in the greeting card!

I have been tinkering with this circuit drawing for the DSC port. It allows you to use it for TX (tip) and RX (ring) with a ground (shield) when you use a stereo cable. With a standard mono cable you can use PPM out. I don't know if this is working yet, and it'll be tested next week.




I love this idea, so I don't wanna be a downer, but my very minor issue is that if we go with this implementation using the DSC (trainer) port it removes PPM capability when the voice functions are enabled. I suppose we might instead see about using other unused pins, but our choices are limited.

The actual implementation is the other way around: it the protocol is PPM or a PPM input is on, it falls back to beeps.

The other two USARTs pins on the 7e are used for power control and USB. The other txs have two more serial ports whose pins are tied to switches.

The power control I think we'd best leave alone. The switches maybe, but I'd rather not. Using the USB port instead of the trainer port might be a win if someone wants to look into how to do the wiring.

Thanks! That seems like a good approach. If the USB UART can be used as a serial port, it would be great. I can't tell if the USB on the DFPlayer will work like the serial port... It does allow access to the SD chip from the PC as a flash drive, but the docs don't say anything about using USB for commands.

Something more to learn every day.

That would be great to use the USB then loading new voice files would not require removing the SD card just hook the tx to the pc as usual...
I found one of those gift cards and opened it up and the speaker works but it is not as loud as the pololu speaker and it is larger 40mm x 4mm 0.5w at 16ohms ...nice and thin tho..I have a tiny audio amplifier i have not tried hooking up to the speakers to see how they sound perhaps i will give it a test to see how it does the mini player has hook ups for earphone/amplifier pins 4 and 5 ..

EDIT: I hooked up the little amplifier and it made a big difference nearly doubled the volume on all the speakers i tried, but it wouldn't work hooking it to the headphone pins on the mini player i had to hook it to the SPK_1 and SPK_2 before it worked..With it hooked to the headphone pins i could barely hear sound from the speaker..also it requires 5v and will not work on 3.3v it actually shut down my devo12 when i tried it on the 3.3v so if i use it and i probably will I'll have to use a pololu 5v step up to get the 3.3 up to 5v and hopefully it wont shut off the tx..The gift card speaker sounds good when hooked to the amplifier so i might try to figure out a way to use it cause it is so thin but i have not removed the pololu speaker from the case to see how thin it might be..

I tried two additional speakers, both of which are extremely small. These are available from Digikey: Donau, p/n 423-1171-ND (the rectangular one, 15mm x 11mm, 8ohm, 500mw, max about 73dB) or CUI, p/n 102-2494-ND (CDM12008. 12mm round, 8ohms at 500mw, max about 90dB). CUI has a 16mm round one that handles about 93dB that I did not order. For reference I've been using a Radio Shack 273-092 8ohm, .1w, which is about 25mm round.





The two I have both work pretty well if you attach (or simply hold) them to the back of the transmitter, but they are not very loud. I measured up to about 68dB (pretty much the un-amplified spec), which would only really be heard in a quiet room. I added a small 5v amp and was able to get up to about 85-90dB. I'm pretty sure that's about enough to be heard in a not-too-loud outdoor environment. Both approaches require mounting the speakers correctly so that the transmitter provides resonance. I first connected them originally to the SPK1 and SPK2 without the amp. With the amp, they both work ok connected to either the SPK1/2 or the headphone out. The Radio Shack speaker is larger but performs roughly the same.

They're really small, and definitely good for indoor use. I'll see if I can get some outdoor testing in the next few days.

Wondering if there has been any further progress with the voice build or not enough interest in it to take it any further?

MWM, do we have a test build from a more recent nightly for the 6s? I've been otherwise distracted from this and I'd like to get it back together. Seeing that the test build has been downloaded 40+ times, it seems we have an audience!

I think it is safe to say we know:
- the software works in a basic sort of way. We need to be sure it fully integrates with everything else. This is somewhat dependent on the way we spec the hardware. Will the software fit the 7e?
- the hardware works in principle, and we need to define the ideal configuration. Today it works if you connect directly to the Trainer port TX and RX; does it work without modifying the DSC port, by just plugging in a 1/8" cable? We need to agree on a usable cable hookup, on what speaker to recommend, and on how to power the sound board.

This is the first thing on my list of things to get back to. I've been distracted by recovering from major surgery and family matters and then the possibility of a fork. Some other things need to get settled before I start on it again, but none of them are coding.

No newer builds, and I don't expect one in the near future. I've figured out how I want to proceed, and will be posting a note for discussion at the end of the series on suggested changes. But the general idea is to extend the "Telemetry" config page to let users configure the sound to play and to make channels available to alert against as well.

No worries, you've got a lot on your plate! I can get the hardware in order with the build we have, because we know it works. I have a new DFPlayer and a soldering iron!