phineus

Sorry, the order went out yesterday. Keep me posted with your interest, though, as there will probably be others. If this one doesn't turn into a big PITA then I'll probably do it again.

I can cover the diff of the slow transfers (there are a few) to get the order out sooner - will ship to you once funds settle.

Hi folks - If you e-mailed me for SoftPots and received an Invoice, please pay it ASAP, or send me another e-mail with your ETA. Or if you did not get an invoice, let me know that, too. They should've all gone out last night. Not trying to rush anyone, but it'd be cool to get the order out before the weekend. No worries if you've changed your mind or funds are slow, just let me know so I can plan. We need to order at least 100 units to get the great discount. Thanks! :)

Oops, I misunderstood.

Yes they will all have the connector in this batch. They can fit in the envelope diagonally if there are not too many - I was also thinking of a cardboard envelope like a CD mailer only a little wider (letter-length) that could work. I have to go to Staples and look/try/see.

I don't know if this is relevant - because I use an Arduino as my interface - but I found that putting a 10k resistor between signal and ground of each sensor eliminates the crosstalk, and keeps the sensor values from "drifting" w/ no input. They now drop to 0V as soon as you let go and the voltages do not affect each other. Again, my circuit is Arduino-based not MB - so it may be a whole different story in your case. HTH http://www.soundwidgets.com/stribe/

For small quantities I could use regular envelopes, maybe with a piece of stiff cardboard to keep it from bending. One of those CD-mailer type envelopes could also work...

Question: I notice some of the other bulk orders specify US or Europe - what is the reason for this and should I be concerned about sending these items overseas? Will overseas buyers have to pay some high tax? I'm in the US.

No, order the # you like. I get the price if the total order's over 100 units. I don't want to turn into a spectrasymbol clearinghouse so thought I would limit this buy to the 100-200 unit range. If it goes over 200 then I'll see if I can get a better price break at 200. (I didn't expect this much interest)

Let's see how this one goes then who knows...

see above for ordering info :)

Okay! Since there appears to be enough interest, I'm going ahead with a 100-unit group order. :) 170mm softpots with crimped-on 3-hole female Crimpflex connectors (for $1 extra), unit cost: $8.67 per strip. Plus shipping to you, plus the PayPal fee, plus a portion of the shipping spectraSymbol charges to send them to me. They are very light so if you order just a few they will fit into a padded envelope. Larger orders may need a small box. HOW TO ORDER: Send me an e-mail w/ "Softpot Order" in the subject, and include your PayPal e-mail address, your Confirmed physical address, and quantity desired. I will send you a PayPal invoice for the costs mentioned above. Once I have reached 100 units worth of PAID invoices I will let everyone know to stop paying, unless I get to 200 orders or something in which case I may or may not get a further discount [tbd]. This is my first time doing this so suggestions/advice appreciated.

One thing I've thought of adding to the "yr circuit here" part of the stribe design (besides a midi interface) is 8 Voltage triggers, like for a modular or analog synth/seq. What kind of circuit would I need and could I power it from bus power? (5V 0.5A). I am already kinda at the edge of power consumption as it is. whoops - I'm hijacking my own group-buy thread ;)

> reserving the bottom few values to mean "don't change" and scaling > the remaining to your output range (7 bit for cc) might cover it... that is a great idea! > for mixer faders, i suspect these might not be very good because > tactile feedback and positional accuracy are more important. with accurately aligned led indicators behind them, though, it's possible to be quite accurate with the _visual_ feeback -> 64-leds of resolution in a ~165mm throw on the stribe design. But the actual resolution of the strips is much much higher (and the leds I'm using are large compared to some I've seen in rotary encoder designs - I think an SMD version could fit tripdouble the leds in the same space). With the 10 bit ADC on the Arduino the input resolution is 0-1023, I scale that down for the display, but can retain the resolution in my audio apps. This resolution could go even higher I think, but I haven't tried the strip with with a different ADC. Tactile feedback can be achieved by putting different textures in the overlay material. The strips are very sensitive, even through a relatively thick piece of plastic, so your translucent overlay could have a graduated texture that changes from top to bottom to indicate relative scale, along with a printed visual scale like a typical fader has. Then swap on a different overlay for something else. :) I like to think that maybe just the right combination of a texture and a light and a sound could fool the brain into feeling a handle that isn't there.

This is my first group-buy so I wanted to keep it simple. I will be doing future buys for MAX7221 led drivers and other parts related to the Stribe project very soon, so stay tuned! As far as led bargraph arrays, I haven't researched a volume discount, yet. For my prototypes I've been using super-cheap arrays from futurlec.com - they aren't made as nicely as the big-brand ones, and have spindly thin (ouchy) legs, but they work and are 1/4 the price of the big-name brands - though sometimes the shape of the array packages don't always exactly match up (slightly different form-factor even if the same color sometimes).

I'm glad there's interest. For 1$ more per unit they can crimp on a Crimpflex 3-hole female housing that accepts a standard square pin .010 header. I think it would be worth it given how much easier to assemble/dis-assemble I've found this.

When you let go the voltage drops to 0 - you will need to account for this in your firmware/software. I like this video better:

spectrasymbol offered me a good deal on softpots if I order more than 100. They would be $7.67 ea. for 170mm softpots - not including shipping. 100 sounds like a lot but @ that price people might be interested in a few for their own projects. http://www.flickr.com/photos/7158996@N05/sets/72157603397361028/ This is a sticker, essentially, that holds a touch sensor (the silver part down the middle). You send in 5V to one pin, ground the other, and read the middle one which outputs a voltage 0-5V to play with in Max or whatever via an Arduino or similar's analog inputs. I'm using these for my Arduino-MINI-based touch-controller project: http://www.soundwidgets.com/stribe/ **** EDIT: This order is now CLOSED - thanks everyone!