TheAncientOne

Like the end you don't kiss.........?

I've still got a few LED calculator displays in 4 digit modules, if you want to try one of them. You could cheat an use one of the self scan 4 character LED displays that HP or Siemens did. Might look fairly cool

fantastic Sasha. You are now officially "Lord of Recycle". Using the 'piano keys' like that is both elegant and witty . I love it!

I'd be interested too. I could go for something like 50, (Prof's rule: always have some spares). For my sequencer I plan to use two staggered rows of knobs, not as aesthetically pleasing, but more practical for my big fingers. I do like the idea of lighting the panel, but it would have to be green or red. I've got a local guy who can do back engraved plastic, so the aircraft style illumination might be possible, (and thanks again Stryd for the links).

Ah yes - looks like and HP inkjet horizontal positioner strip. The higher end old ones have a precision slotted metal strip instead. Time to head down to the scrapyard! I've done binary linear ones by printing them on acetate with a laser printer. I did a circular cyclic grey code one once too, for a sort of digital compass, (then I discovered fluxgates). Mike

I've had 16x2's from this company, and they're OK. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/20x4-LCD-Module-White-Characters-Blue-Backlight-HD44780_W0QQitemZ230154727711QQihZ013QQcategoryZ26206QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Just a thought. I guess CrystalFontz are doing a better quality display. Mike

Looks a treat, Sasha, and I think there is something quite timeless about the design. I was looking over your panel layout last night, (I'm very even handed, I'll borrow design ideas from anyone), thinking about a CS layout for my Rackmount SID. I think it not only looks good, but should be nice to work with too. I'm still playing jigsaw with bits of card to get a layout I like - I even have knobs stuck to some of them, but it still doesn't feel quite right, yet. Endorphin has certainly made me think harder about it though. Congratulations on a beautiful piece of work. Mike

Did Rubber Ball in 2005, never did Submission, Did a run for Subversion, next London Gig will probably be 'Night of the Senses' in September.

Some stage props need to be B I G I think Greenpeace might be after me if I made things like this out of hardwood: The Tall post is made of 4 sections of 240x44mm and is 2.4m high..... Yes, it's hollow, we have to be able to move it! (for the inquisitive, It's part of a dungeon set. made for a fetish party). Mike

I just had a word with Pactec. They can do the PT-10, without panels, a little cheaper, and if we are getting panels made, then they're redundant anyway. I need to check postage, and comparative pricing from the UK distributors, before any kind of quotation, so the question is: Is anyone interested? Perhaps Smash might like to follow through for the 'states Mike

My guess for the 'Ice' is that the bottom clips on to a push switch actuator, and the side 'spur' is a light pipe to pick up from an LED. I'd risk trying those for a button array, certainly. Just my guess Mike

Yes good old linseed oil - famous for Cricket bats, and making putty. Another good finish is so called 'Danish oil' though this is usually tinted, but again goes with the wood and gives a rich satin finish. For my projects in another world entirely, (Grins at Sasha), we often use water based woodstains, After a lot of trials, I can heartily recommend the 'Sadolin' quick drying range. The ebony black will make pine/redwood dark with one coat, and look quite like black ash with two. It works with the wood, and takes quite a lot of punishment. Black ash, by the way, is another super finish. Ash is a very strong wood, with a tight straight grain, (the body frames of pre-war MG cars were made of it, and before then is was a wood of choice for coachwork). It is naturally oily, and so rot resistant, and with a classic black finish looks wonderful on the ends of a synth or keyboard. I grew up with 70's hi-fi and synths, so am a bit weary of "alloy and teak". Another modern look is lightly sand blasted perspex. I did some about 2 years ago, but haven't got any pictures, but back lit, it looked great. My own stuff tends to be 'get it in a box and play with it', at the moment. Looking at the work of people like Sasha, Wilba and MTE, I think this has to change..... Mike

Because it can make no difference to operation if the output lead is removed, but if the input is still driven the last op amp is driving a short, which may harm it in the long run, and will certainly not help your battery life, I agree that clipping diodes are usually to ground, but the way you have arranged them, there is no limit on current flow from the op amp if the pot is at the end. The op amp is effectively driving a very low resistance about 0.7V above ground. A small resistor will not have much audible effect (unless the op amp overload is part of the sound you want), but again is kinder to the op amp and batteries. I need to get some time and try it out, and I'll post back then. I've done a matched pair of tube screamer clones, (for stereo etc), and have a number of others I need to fit to a rack panel, including a tonebender clone made with 3 of my last real Mullard 0C75's, (I used to make a lot of fuzz/FX boxes for guitarists years ago). I can really recommend PAIA's "Stack in a Box", a real valve with a low voltage supply - dirty but warm. http://www.paia.com/prodimages/siabsch.pdf. I modded it to use a DC regulated heater and had a transformer suitable to get the higher voltage without using the voltage multiplier, so got less background noise, (and it's pertty quiet as is). You can do a lot of tweaking of the tone stages to get a particular 'cabinet' sound if you like. Best wishes Mike

@ FLD Your second picture is definitely a P3 - do you know where it's from? I'm experimenting with panel layouts at the moment for my own, now the boards are up and running, and I'm experimenting with the layout. Going to be interesting A/B testing against the MIDIbox Seq V3.... Mike

Two thoughts: 1) remove the grounding switch from the output jack, or it will short the op-amp to ground when the jack plug is removed. 2) Put an end stop resistor (2K2 or so) in the ground side of R5, to avoid overloading the opamp output stage whe the wiper is at the grounded end. Just a couple of ideas

Just use one shift register chip on a piece of veroboard or vectorboard - no need to waste a whole DIN board at all.

AVRx is an interesting hybrid, though assembling the board is seriously taxing my fading eyesight. The boards are very good quality, though due to a lack of parts buying savvy I ended up spending more than I should have done. I think 32 Euro for the boards is not bad considering the quality. A warning: if you're a soldering newbie don't even think about it - get some practice first. www.avrx.se Code is open source,which may help, though like Monowave the filters are analogue. I think that the design could be fitted into the same PacTec as Wilba's. I'm doing my initial one as a 2U 19" rack module, though I now wish I'd modded the suggested design to give a headphone socket and a left hand 'shift' button.

I think the colours are just for convenience. Vero don;t have separate specs on the site. I can't see a problem with verowiring the DIN/DOUT's though I wouldn't use it for unsupported runs to remote encoders. LED's or switches.

If it's audio or lower speed digital, no problems - I used 10n/100n polycarbs on my SNvoice card, because they fit the board better, and I'm sure there is no audible difference from the one I built for a friend which had ceramics. If I was running 50MHz+ clocks on logic chips, then I would be making sure I fitted them

Not got time to try this, but there is some AVR Moog filter code in the latest version of AVRsynth from http://krue.net/avrsyn/ there are samples on the site. This might be patchable into the SwinSID. I have the AVRsynth board up and running, but I can't do any panel work until some other stuff is clear, so I haven't done more than a functional test. The filter samples are a lot better than the original AVRsynth filter. My long term interest in the AVRsynth is to split it into Master/slaves and make a polysynth.

In most circumstances the above is correct. Ceramics do have just about the highest frequency response of any capacitor though, and for very high speed decoupling, cannot be replaced with anything else, as far as I know. Mike

The trick is to push a little wire down the hole the pin comes through, wind 2/3 turns around the pin, pull away, and then solder. If doing free wire ends, then hold the end with a pair of tweezers. Funny, I've been using the same pen since they came out and I've never had to get the iron that near it! Another trick for main logic is the pin spreader, which kicks all the pins out slightly, allowing a single loop for intermediates. For flat wired loops and patch/repair wiring, use the tweezers. Different styles perhaps. They also make a seriously expensive system called Speedwire, an IDC logic wiring system, though the protoboards were full of sockets and cost over £80 last time I looked. Mike

Here is a page reference for the Verowire system.http://www.verotl.com/products/index.cfm?content_id=7846BCBE-F067-441A-9F53A51D8E4CC6B3 I could sort one out for you if it's a problem stateside. I need some 'Kynar' insulated wire for use with a cut/strip/wrap bit, which is hard to get over here - perhaps we could do a swap? There is a tutorial here too: http://freespace.virgin.net/john.hardaker/Musatek/vero.html I've used it for quite a few high density logic boards and it works fine. I tend to use a 'finger' type protoboard and use heavier wire solder for the power.

Farnell stock them, but I need to check how much the insert pins are: you don't do solder on 3 row D connectors, and you need the pins and possibly a crimp tool.

In most cases, no. Verowire has a special insulation coating that melts and dissolves away when heated with a soldering iron. Some fine wire used in coil winding and electromagnets is the same stuff, but normally the enamel coating does not shift. If you find 'self fluxing' wire - that IS the same stuff. It's often used in the finer guages for coils because of the difficulty of removing the enamel from very fine wire - try rubbing it off and you've no wire left. So if you can find some self fluxing wire, or on a test, you can solder it successfully without stripping it, (and that means doing an Ohm meter test once the joints are done), then you can use it. Otherwise you'll just have to track down somew spools of the real stuff. If I remember correctly, the kit, with the wiring 'pen' in it is quite cheap anyway. Hope this helps Mike