* The board will reset and status messages should appear in the Serial Monitor window
The information printed to the window will give you a lot of visibility into what's going on within the
board. NOTE that when using serial debugging in the "Trigger" sketch, triggers 4 and 5 are
deactivated (since those pins are used for serial input and output).
Problems with the SD card:
Did you remember to plug your micro-SD card into the LilyPad MP3 Player? (We do it too.)
If the LilyPad MP3 Player has a problem starting up, it will output blink codes through the
rotary encoder LED. If you don't have the rotary encoder installed, you can temporarily stick a
normal LED into the five-pin row of holes in the middle of the board (use the two end holes,
and put the longer lead towards the SparkFun logo). One blink = SD card problem. More
blinks = MP3 decoder problem. See the comments in the sketch for more information.
If you're using the default "Trigger" sketch, ensure that your filenames have a '1' to '5' as the
first character.
If you're using the "Player" sketch, ensure that your filenames have one of the following
extensions: "MP3", "WAV", "MID", "MP4", "WMA", "FLA", "OGG", "AAC". Note that the
VS1053 itself does not care what the filename is (you can use any of those on any file); the
sketch just checks the extension to avoid sending non-audio data to the chip in case there are
other files on the SD card.
Ensure that your files are supported audio formats and bitrates. See the
If your file format isn't supported, you can often load that file into an audio editor program, and
re-save it as a supported file type.
Problems with the triggers:
Try using an alligator cable or jumper wire to manually bridge the ground-trigger connection.
This will help you determine whether the problem is in the board or in your switch.
If you have serial debugging turned on in the sketch, triggers 4 and 5 will be disabled (these
triggers are also used for the TX and RX lines).
Problems with the speakers:
Plug in headphones and see if you can hear any sound that way.
Note that when you plug in headphones, the speakers will be disabled.
Try using alligator cables to connect directly from the LilyPad MP3 Player to your speakers.
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