phineus

Just an update to anyone reading this thread from the beginning - the prices quoted at the beginning are long gone. This low price was a one-time deal. Now the price to me is higher (due to some shenanigans on another site) and the final price to the buyer is $16.95 USD each for a 170mm softpot. I wish it was cheaper. :(

http://soundwidgets.com/smf/index.php?topic=18.0 I am also a distributer for the softpots. Get in touch!

Thanks for the great feedback, Prof! I understand the pain of shelling out for Max/MSP. One thing to keep in mind is that the Runtime of Max/MSP is free and you can run existing patches on it, they jsut turn off Edit view. I am working on modifying my main "howto" patch so there's no need to go into Edit view to say, specify the COM port and so on. Changes should be posted this week. I'm also very interested to see if the Max patches will port over to Pd, and to what extent. I've posted .pat versions of the main patch in the Stribe code repository. * Any of you other guys who are building Arduino-less versions make any progress? I'm really excited to see how the Stribe hardware will translate to another uC platform.

14 left...

:) 10 kits and 10 built stribes are now available for pre-order here: http://soundwidgets.com/smf/index.php?topic=18.msg19#msg19 To learn more about the Stribe go here: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/02/18/hands-on-interview-stribe-multi-touch-controller/#comment-402689 Note that this is a development platform, not a finished product. It is of most interest to developers at this point.

Yes you just need to detect when it suddenly goes to zero and that is a release. You can interpret that however you like in firmware or software. Keep track of the cycles and set threshholds.

Check out some video of the stribe working with the monome + mlr: Next round of kits is coming up, and I'm working with SpectraSymbol to design a custom touch-sheet. http://www.stribe.org <- stribe builder's guide in progress

Sold out! ;D Contact me to get on the waiting list for the next round of kits, or if you're interested in a Group Order of Stribe circuit boards.

2 left!

I have used my personal PP account for 8 years to buy and sell stuff on eBay and never had a problem of any kind until this bulk order, so I don't think that's necessarily true.

I now realize I could have potentially avoided the problem with PayPal limiting my account in a few ways: a) by upgrading to a Business account before doing the bulk order. The limits are higher and it doesn't seem as suspicious if you suddenly start getting many payments. It may also be possible to increase your limits with a Personal account but I didn't explore this. b) by using the PayPal "print shipping label" system. I bypassed this because there were various international shipments and I wanted to go to the Post Office and talk to "my guy" and find out the best way to ship to each country - what forms I would need, etc, so I just did everything there. What PayPal saw was that I had accepted a whole series of payments from other countries, but then never generated any mailing labels or tracking #'s within the system - so maybe I was up to something fishy, hence the red flag. (I think also if I had manually entered the shipping information after the fact it still would have helped.) Basically, if I had just done everything through the PayPal system the whole audit trail would have been there for them to check out and they wouldn't have needed proof of anything.

Any players besides Google and PayPal who might be worth investigating?

3 left. (PayPal crisis averted) :)

;D Restored! After finally getting an e-mail address out of one of the phone reps I spoke with today (PayPal provides no place to actually type in an explanation, you can only upload images, or fax them. Literally, there's no place to type anything in.... I wonder why) I sent an impassioned note explaining my situation and some other stuff about integrity, trust, justice blah blah blah. In my e-mail, I mentioned (truthfully) that I am presently involved in evaluating on-line donation solutions for a mega non-profit. I wonder if that explains the sudden-ness of the restoration? FYI if you ever need it the e-mail address you write to is: appeal@paypal.com Now I'm trying to decide if I should switch to Google Checkout. Any thoughts? @Wilba: it's interesting, among the things I read about today was PayPal sucking money out of people's bank accounts for questionable reasons, then tying it all up in red tape. Also, apparently there is a feature you can get turned on (it is un-advertised) that does a "sweep" of your PayPal account each night and moves the cash to your bank account. You have to have your limits set high and get the right person on the phone, apparently. Sheesh, I was really worried. I was thinking I'd have to sell the dog or something to pay everyone back.

:( Well, PayPal "limited" my account, right in the middle of my first round of Stribe kit orders. Apparently something about how I did the group buy for the softpots struck them as "suspicious" and they froze my account, pending... god knows what, they won't tell me. I have uploaded every form of information I can think of and faxed them a bank statement and written a long e-mail explaining of what I'm doing. Apparently they will review my case within the next 3-5 days and let me know if they need more information. In scouring the web I have come across dozens of sites filled with scary stories about people getting screwed out of their money for good, in exactly the way I just described. Apparently PayPal just keeps asking for more information over and over and won't tell you why until you give up or hire a lawyer. They figure no-one will hire a lawyer over a couple grand, so they just keep the money and everyone goes home. A few of these are anonymous testimonials from people who apparently worked for PayPal. If this turns out to be true I will be very very sad. Anyone been through this? Should I start saving up to buy the kit parts out-of-pocket? Just hold tight? The timing couldn't be worse. I really just can't believe it.

5 kits remain to complete this order. If you're interested in one, please contact me by e-mail. Thanks! Since this is a new page here's the order details link again: Stribe Order Details

Hi Michael - no worries - and I hope I don't seem defensive. I wish it was cheaper, too. Maybe with some more heads working on the design it can be made less expensive. Or if it catches on and enough people want one then economies of scale will bring the price down.

Yeah - I'd love to see a Stribe made with parts that actually fit together so you could skip all the IC sockets - it would be 1/4-1/2" thinner, and lighter, though not re-configurable of course. I'm sure a machine could make something with SM leds that would be super light and thin. There are also SM versions of the MAX7221s, etc, so the whole stribe could be designed for a single circuit board and made with surface-mount parts by a robot. Even 2-sided maybe like tenori-on.

What would seem like a more reasonable price? (It has a lot of parts - nearly 16 monomes'-worth of parts) If you prefer you can source the off-the-shelf parts. You could just buy the boards for instance and hunt down the other stuff yourself.

I get the bargraphs from Futurlec.com and the price varies from 30 to 40 cents each (times 112) depending on color. If I make a big enough order (1000+) I can get a slight discount. These are not high-quality name-brand bar-graphs with ceramic bodies like you are used to seeing in fancy audio gear. These have skinny wire legs and the cases are made of plastic and vary in quality. Typical name-brand 10-segment displays go for around $1.25 ea as far as I can tell, though, so the Furulec ones are a great deal, unless you can arrange a quantity discount with a high-end manufacturer. If you have that kind of relationship with someone who makes LED bargraphs please introduce!

The softpots went out yesterday. Most went in shipping tubes, a couple went in multiple padded envelopes with a plastic stiffener. Let me know when you get them! Note, I wrapped batches of 5 strips together with "invisible" scotch tape. It peels right off the strips, don't worry. I actually use this removable tape all the time on my prototypes - it holds things together nicely then comes off easily with no residue. One time I used some packing tape to hold things together and though it was much stickier and held longer it did leave some residue, but that came right off with some alcohol - my point is the strips are super-durable and clean easily. I noticed towards the end of packing them up that a couple had very minor nicks in the surface. I hadn't noticed this before but I held these out from the remaining batches. If you got one of the nicked strips (I'm talking barely noticeable little dents) and it bothers you please let me know and I'll replace it with a perfect one. It think it might be that they put the units into the package before they were entirely cured or something, and the crimped-on ends left little edge dents on a couple of adjacent pots. I only point it out because I was surprised to see it - they are usually flawless. I'm now taking orders on full Stribe Prototype kits as well as sub-kits. Come over to the Stribe Project Forum and check it out: http://www.soundwidgets.com/smf/ Once I get 10 paid kit pre-orders I can go ahead and start ordering boards and parts.

Well that's 4! :) Only 6 more to go and I can make an order (I need a minimum of 10 orders to get good prices). I've added a "uC Hacker" kit option without the Arduinos. I get no break on the Arduino stuff currently so it's actually easier for me if you get them yourself. Or use your own controller w/ your own firmware. You can find out how to order over at the Stribe Project Forum: http://soundwidgets.com/smf/index.php?topic=18.msg19#msg19 I'm currently accepting pre-orders for kits and boards. As soon as I have enough pre-orders I'll order the parts and make the kits. Thanks for your interest and encouragement so far! Should be a fun ride.

http://www.soundwidgets.com/stribe/ <- the Stribe story http://www.soundwidgets.com/smf/ <- the Stribe Project Forum Now available through the Project Forum, parts to build a Stribe Prototype or similar device. The boards could be useful for a number of projects, not just a Stribe. The Driver board alone could be quite useful for midiboxers as it allows you to control 1024 LEDs via a 3-wire interface (16 MAX7221's chained together), plus it runs on 5V 0.5A USB power! The LED board mounts 112 10-segment LED bargraph displays and brings all the wiring out to the edges. The Stribe is Arduino-based (right now) but could use any logic circuit, really. Take a look and let me know what you think, and please join the forum!

The softpots arrived yesterday and they look great. I will be packaging them up over the next week or so as time allows. I'm tempted to wait until after the XMas rush is over to send them out...

>> Maybe a list in the wiki I will check out how this is done...