technobreath

Today I etched a few more PCBs. Now the control surface is complete. Or that is - I haven't yet soldered on most of the cables on the new boards, but components are soldered, backlight on the menu encoder is tested, ok (looks good as expected hehe) and I laid it out on the workbench to see how I want the frontpanel to be. I think I'm gonna use this setup here, unless I get any bright ideas or any bright tips :). It has 8 general purpose encoders, 8 general purpose buttons, encoder for left/right navigation, it got the enter button (besides the menu encoder, and it got the snapshot button by itself - on the same pcb as the enter button :). The buttons is just the same as in the mb6582. I have looked around the net (especially on ALBS) and found many very cool tactile switches that I could easily used for this box, but the reason why I used these buttons is that I had them in my drawer NOW, and I had a lot of em, so I figured - simple and fast - no waiting for parts etc etc. so that's why the buttons are rather boring - but I suspect they'll do the job anyway hehe. In addition - its gonna have 4 analog inputs on the back (via mini-xlr) - for expression pedals mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Since I have only one pedal now, I have to have a way to ground the unsused input easily without opening the case - so I have ordered in a bunch of dip-switches. I have thought and thought, and I think this is a cool solution - dips available from the back panel. Makes it easy to "program" when I need it, and hard to accidentally operate :). It got the 16x2 LED - wich has green letters on black background, and green backlight for knobs. Any day now, the Core8, AIN, DIN and a bunch of other goodies are dropping in my mailbox from smashTV, and once I get those, I can wire everything up and actually test it. If everything works in a satisfying way, I'm building the case next - I'm doing it simple - just bending some alu plates and put together. Give it a coat and 10 of cool paint, and we're there. If I come across a case I can use, I'll do that instead of making my own - wich takes long time even if it's simple design. Well, enough talking, lets see the picture :). - yes there is only one today :P.

Thanks! Ok, so I ordered some resistors from canada :o Was the nearest ebay place I could find them - for those dont't know - that's the other side of the planet from norway :P. I'm a little anxious to see how bright the leds are with those resistors. I have a led resistor calculator on my android, and I have been to lazy to calculate on my own. But that calculator says that I should use 130 ohm resistor 5 volt source, 2.5v across diode and 20mA. The ones I ordered in is 180 ohms. Lets see how it works out - somehow I think it's gonna be just as good... But I haven't got too much experience with driving LEDs from 5 volt, so I really can't tell for sure, but now when I tested them on 12 volt I have used 560 ohm resistor, and that is just about the same as 180 ohms 5 volt, so I think it's gonna be fine.

I am a cubase user myself, but I don't know what might be the problem, my thought is that you could try in another forum spesifically for cubase, you might get better answers that way :).

Yo, I have a thought about this. I agree with you that they seem a bit close. Then I studied a bit the way I operate my encoders, wich seems to be just as tight - but only in the horizontal plane. There are more room vertically between them. I tend to grab the encoder with thumb @ six-o-clock (on the knob) and index finger at about 1-o-clock :). So conclusion for my own use of the knobs - I can keep the distance pretty tight horizontally, but the overall feeling when using it would be a lot worse if I had the same short distance vertically (I need space for my entire thumb to fit between the encoders in the vertical plane. :).

How about we set up a new thread then? Yeah!

Hawk, you were absolutely right - the backlit knobs are pretty cool after dark! :D I am gonna do more backlit stuff from now on :D

/me is very interested. Can u provide some pictures of the pcb and the soldering please? :) Don't like to commit to buy something I haven't seen yet.

Hey :). I hope u don't interpret what I wrote as something directed towards you as a negative thing - that was not my intention at all :). I just wanted to emphasize that the "bulk-er" knows how much work it is and that that person is willing to follow through - I am not not trusting anyone until I get really suspicious hehe :). Hope u understand my intention. TB.

Today the nylon spacers arrived, yesterday the smd leds arrived. So I etched the upper board, drilled it, soldered the LEDs sandwitched it all together and tested the leds with some normal resistors. I haven't yet ordered the smd resistors that is going on this board, as I am searching for them on ebay - as soon as I find the right ones, I'll get to them too. But at least I got to test the board. Have a look :). Looks nice yeah? :D I am very pleased with it so far ;) (sorry, can't hide my enthusiasm :P)

Yep, this is also my experience with elfa. I use them for special stuff occasionally that I can't find anywhere else, but otherwise, I keep a safe distance to them and their insane prices. I tried to deal with them at work too, and I laid my cards on the table, letting them know I intended to shop a reasonably high amount of parts / tools from them on a regular basis. I told them if I were to deal with them I expected at least some discount, but the nice lady in the other end told me that they didn't do that stuff. So I told her, then I'm not doing your stuff either. So instead I started a Paypal account for the firm and buy the stuff I need off eBay - most sellers have better costumer support than elfa. Sorry for shouting hehe. It needed to be said!

Yo, cool of u to offer doing the bulk, I can also do it as I said, if people are willing to pay the extra,downside by distributing from outside Germany / EU or whatever, is that I would have to pay customs to receive them for diatribution, and would therefore add the costs. I will gladly pay for international s&h, that is not what costs. I can understand that maybe people think its sour when ordering just 10 or so, but for larger orders, it doesnt matter that much. However, it is important that the one doing the bulk order is solid, and can follow this through. That is an obvious thing of course, but need to be said ;-).

Hei Onkel J :). I recieved mail from ALBS just now: Shipping from albs to the bulk-order organizer and to the reciepients, handling, customs, paypal taxes and all kinds of other taxes will of course come in addition to this. I'm just throwing this out here, I'm not saying I am doing the bulk order, because it may be a bit expensive to organize from Norway, I think it's cheaper in EU. But if nobody else want to do it, I will :).

I'm bumping this! As I said in my status update, I am in for 100 new knobs if there is any interest for a new bulk order. I would like to set up a new bulk order myself in a heartbeat... Too many things I am uncertain about at the moment - like the shipping cost from ALBS to me (in norway) and the shipping cost from norway to abroad again... I can always do some research on this topic though. But I'm not sure it will keep the price nice and low :(. I could probably order the 100 knobs myself - I am knob-hungry now, but it would be a shame to do so without checking the interest for a new big order for everyone! :) Please, shout if u want in on another bulk order, and I'm sure we can make that happen, either I'll do it myself, or someone that is actually in germany or EU can do it if that's cheaper. EDIT: I put out a few "antennas" now to see what the interest is, and also what's available and an indication for pricing @ albs. :).

Yo! Just thought I'd do a small blog entry on the sideproject (I consider the synths my main projects). A midibox 64e. This is a short term project, and all parts have arrived or are on their way. It's gonna have 9 encoders, lcd and some buttons + 4 expression pedal connections. One pedal is soon built - waiting for the last parts to arrive from the states :). Anyway, some of you might have seen my picture of the encoder PCB. Now, here is a couple of pics of the finished built pcb. Also fitted on top is a PCB mockup (thick paper). This is gonna be housing all the smd leds for the knob backlights. This hasn't been etched yet because I discovered I needed to do a couple of layout changes - the leds are a bit too close to the encoder shaft than I'd like it to be... :). As you can see, this is gonna be a encoder control surface sandwitch :D. The cables are rainbow ribbon cable from tim's and I have split them up and put on some nylon stockings :P. Heat shrink tubes holds them in place ;).

Nice Nils. ur wish is my command :D

Hmm. The mechanical aspect of motorizing a normal pot may be a bit more difficult than u initially think, but I guess u have a plan for that... Anyway, I'm not sure how I would attack this one... I know too little about the servo solution u suggest. But I guess they are controlled with pwm, right? U need a pwm controller that provide memory. I don't think a stock midibox firmware will do this, but I'm sure the system is capable. If u want ideas for alternative approach, study the stuff that has to do with motorfaders in the forum, wiki and ucapps.de. Sorry to not being able to help u more, but at least I gave u something to study hehe.