Did you hear that?

Nope, me either.

Mein MP3 shielden ist gestorben.  (Practicing for CE2 here)

Rough translation, my MP3 shield has done a Death Star on me.  Blown up before the big event.

I have several thoughts as to what could have caused this

1.  I'm powering the Arduino through the barrel connection on 12v.  The arduino should be able to run fine like this, but perhaps there is more current being output into the shield than there should be.

2. The Ground Loop Isolator I'm using is a hunk of junk.  The connections on the PCB inside were touching the casing (which is conductive) so it was essentially doing nothing but adding a bit of weight to R2.

3. I'm rubbish.

4. I'm brilliant, but my wiring is rubbish.


1 and 2 sound like I know what I'm talking about, which leads me to believe it's likely reason 3 or 4.

But either way, I've ordered a new MP3 Shield, a decent GLI and a 5V battery pack :)

So now I plan to run all the arduinos off of 5V's.  This should be a safer current (even though they have built in regulators) and be more power efficient.  It's also adding another layer of safety.  These batteries should out last the drive battery.  Similar to RC cars having a separate battery for the receiver so that they don't lose control.  (Cheers again Brad for the heads up on this :) )

I'm a little nervous about re-wiring so close to CE2!  I've got a week to screw it up and then try and fix it.  It's going to be tighter than Uncle Owens pocket money allowance!