Help with building a star wars blaster light/sound circuit.

[Keith_Maniac]

I'm currently stuck in a rut with making a replica Star Wars blaster for a cosplay project. Ideally I'd like to have it set up where the trigger of the gun pushes a small Radio Shack momentary button, which would activate the 555 circuit -- which plays a small 1 or 2 second laser blaster .WAV file, followed by a flashing LED that also glows for the duration of the sound effect (as opposed to only glowing as long as the trigger is held down).

What's vital here is that the circuit must be as small and streamlined as possible to fit inside the gun I'm building. How would I go about rigging up a very simple 555 circuit with a single LED, a small piezo speaker, 12VDC batteries, and a pre-recorded sound effect (akin to the little speakers used in greeting cards)? Otherwise, I have a Radio Shack sound recording module that plays sound clips, and currently I'm hacking it so that I can control it with a pushbutton (that's set off with the gun's trigger) -- but, I'd like to know how to add a 555 circuit to it to make the LED flash during the duration of the sound effect (2 seconds of a laser blasting). I saw your circuit on how to make an LED blink with a ray gun sound, but is it possible to do this with a pre-recorded sound that's programmed via USB or an audio jack?

Thanks!

 

[Justin]

If you want it as small as possible I'd suggest surface mount components but though those can be a pain to work with sometimes.

You'd have to make a completely different circuit alone just to get the pre-recorded sound effect to play. A simple solution to make it last that long is to just push the trigger for the duration of the sound effect and then just let go when it ends. Or you could rig the LED in series with the speaker so that when the speaker receives the power to play the audio the LED does as well. It might burn out though due to improper current. Maybe link it in parallel to solve the issue? That could take some trial and error. The LED also wouldn't flash... hmmmmm

I assume you want this circuit? What if you did something like this? Idk if it would work but it's worth a shot. Just add a switch from the power source to the module.

I don't really know how audio modules work so my suggest might be utter garbage

 

[Spectre]

Based on what you're trying to do, the best option is building a monostable 555 "one-shot" 555 timer circuit.
This will charge and disapate your blaster shot with trigger pull.
For the sound module, yes--use the Radio Shack recording module.
First, find a high quality sound file you wish to use.
Have it loaded up with playback software and paused.
Get your RS module ready by cutting off the microphone from the board. Get a 1/8" male stereo audio jack and cut the wire leads about 12" down from the jack.
Twist those leads onto the corresponding leads of the microphone leads.
Apply battery power to the RS recording module. Connect the 1/8" jack to computer headphone out jack.
Watch your volume level--you want a clean recording!!!
Simultaneously press the RS recording module RECORD button with your computer PLAY button to capture the audio file.
Connect a speaker to the RS board and press PLAY. Test to hear if it sounds good.
Repeat until you get the accurate sound.
Make sure to use the same speaker for testing that will go into your blaster.

As far as lights--thats a diffetent story!
You could go with a 1w Luxeon, a 10mm super bright LED or 5mm super bright LED.
You can power it off the RS board, but you'll need to utilize a switching transistor and diode for accuracy.
Or, wire in parallel to same momentary switch with separate power supplies for ease of use.