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Adafruit Audio FX User Manual

Adafruit Audio FX
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Powering it
You won't be able to play audio while the board is connected to USB, so to actually trigger audio you'll need to unplug
the USB cable and power it another way. There's many ways to power the Sound Board, you'll have to go with
whatever it easiest for you.
USB power pack
This is by far the simplest way to power and doesn't even require any soldering! Simply connect the board micro USB
to a USB power pack. Since there's no data lines on a battery pack, it wont try to start up as a USB key. Just connect
with any microUSB cable. These are large but it will power the Sound board + amplifier for a looooong time
The down-side of using these is that some power packs automatically turn off when they don't detect a lot of current
draw immediately. Its impossible to tell ahead of time whether your power pack will work without testing, but if your
project doesn't make music sounds almost immediately, it can be an issue
Powering with Amplifer
The 2x2W amplifier version of the Sound Board is a pretty beefy 2x2W amplifier. If you are using 2 x 4 ohm speakers,
that means you could be seeing as much as 2 Amp spikes of current. (In reality, assume spikes of 1A since audio isn't a
DC load). Power with good charged batteries like AA's or even AAA's. For lipoly batteries, a 500mAh battery is
minimal! Go for 1200mAh or more if you plan on playing it loud
Wiring a battery pack to the Vin + GND pins
You can use a AA or AAA battery pack and wire it up directly to the Vin an GND pins. We recommend 3xAA or 3xAAA
alkaline or rechargeable as ideal. You can use 4xAA or 4xAAA but in that case, make sure you've got rechargeable
batteries, as the higher voltage alkalines may be a bit much for the board.
© Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-audio-fx-sound-board Page 18 of 45

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Adafruit Audio FX Specifications

General IconGeneral
BrandAdafruit
ModelAudio FX
CategoryRecording Equipment
LanguageEnglish