TK. Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 The next giant matrix controller with a lot of X :thumbsup: Created by Ander aka. ALEXander aka. Wackazong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nILS Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 Lost for words. :drool: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaleaf Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 :frantics: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nasrudin Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 pure madness :w00t: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkex Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 Jaw-dropping! Congratulations Ander! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latigid on Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 Wow!! One vote for MIDIBox of the Summer(/Winter) :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilba Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 INSANE... :drool: I love it. Please share your secret of how the switch "cap" works! You're pressing a fairly large translucent rectangle. What is it made of? How is it supported? Maybe something like this would be a great alternative construction for the BLM and other MIDIbox control surfaces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackazong Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 Hi, regarding the buttons: Its an acrylic button I had made for me, 6mm of opaque acrylic plastic. It fits directly into the case and is secured by a small notch so it cannot fall out. One side is supported by a small piece of elastic foam, the other side has the pushbutton below it, so that the led can sit in the middle. Quite simplistic, actually, but it works very well so far. Next time I would put notches on both sides and tink MUCH more about the mechanics before building them, but as long as it works now I am happy :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackazong Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 While I am at it: Many thanks to you for supporting me during this project. I could not have done it without the help of you and the great MBHP. I will try to post some photos, source and docs here in due course. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithy Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 (edited) This is how Spock would compose music on the Starship Enterprise! :thumbsup: Absolutely beautiful and futuristic looking, i love it. Edited June 4, 2010 by Smithy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackazong Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 Thanks Wilba for posting the pictures. BTW, this was all hand-soldered by me.... Very meditative. I have made a quick drawing of the button mechanism. It works quite well, you can push on it everywhere on the surface and it activates the button. I selected a pushbutton with only 150g of force. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clem! Posted June 4, 2010 Report Share Posted June 4, 2010 what a horny part!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altitude Posted June 5, 2010 Report Share Posted June 5, 2010 (edited) Who's afraid of the big bad SMD parts? Gorgeous. Bravo!! *edit Ok, after watching the video, I quit. I am taking up wood working, anyone that needs an ash tray or cutting board, hit me up. Edited June 5, 2010 by Altitude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilba Posted June 5, 2010 Report Share Posted June 5, 2010 Thanks Ander for the diagram... it is definitely something I am interested in trying... It might be possible to use Ponoko to laser cut 3mm acrylic and glue two pieces together to make parts with notches. I hope eventually you will show us what is on the PCB, and how they are all connected. It looks like you made a multipurpose PCB that can be either a Core32 or some kind of integrated DIN/DOUT/control surface. This should be MIDIbox of the Year :thumbsup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seppoman Posted June 5, 2010 Report Share Posted June 5, 2010 WOW, very impressive :thumbsup: is there a place where we can learn more details about this fantastic box? Is it based on MIOS8/MIOS32, what software is it running, schematics, what PC software are you using it with, what's the UI concept, what are all these beautiful buttons there for etc? Questions questions questions :drool: S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latigid on Posted June 5, 2010 Report Share Posted June 5, 2010 Holy $hit, look at all those parts! How many colours can you make :) And what a great idea keeping the same PCB footprint for the encoder and switch boards. I bet that saved a bit of $$$ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twin-X Posted June 6, 2010 Report Share Posted June 6, 2010 Fantastic machine you built Alex. Definitaly midibox of the century!! Do you use it to drive ableton or is it other software? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackazong Posted June 6, 2010 Report Share Posted June 6, 2010 (edited) It looks like you made a multipurpose PCB that can be either a Core32 or some kind of integrated DIN/DOUT/control surface. Well spotted ;) Your are right, the PCB is the same for all modules. It can hold either one encoder or two pushbuttons in the same area, or any kind of sensor with analog output. One PCB can hold 16 pushbuttons or 8 encoders/sensors, or any combination. Actually, one module consists of all the necessary PCB stuff for - one STM32 core - 2 DINs (in a SMD version) - one step down converter (24V to 5V) - three driver chips to drive 16 RGB LEDs (PCA9635). This is a design of my own, I do not use DOUT modules The core parts are of course not soldered in on every module, but of course this one PCB design made developing and producing the PCB much cheaper. Its actually 4 Layers, 16 RGB LEDs need quite a lot of routing... Edited June 6, 2010 by wackazong 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackazong Posted June 6, 2010 Report Share Posted June 6, 2010 Do you use it to drive ableton or is it other software? Yes, I use Ableton Live for music production. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilba Posted June 6, 2010 Report Share Posted June 6, 2010 PCA9635 looks like an interesting chip... certainly a lot easier than doing PWM in firmware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Echopraxia Posted June 7, 2010 Report Share Posted June 7, 2010 (edited) Definitaly midibox of the century!! +1 Awesome and totally inspiring! As to the 4 layers, even more awesome. Edited June 7, 2010 by Echopraxia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
overdrive Posted June 7, 2010 Report Share Posted June 7, 2010 (edited) Quite impressive work on those PCB's, well done on making such flexible modular system! Guess it took quite some placing/routing time to get it all right. - Why the white soldermask (=expensive), because of reflecting leds, or? - Why not change on one of the 2 "DIN&I2C" connectors, the MISO and MOSI, so u don't need crossing cables to link them? - Why use such oversized (=expensive) resistor arrays, u would done with >0.125W? - Are those solder jumpers to select adresses? - Your stackup, did u use 2 routing layers and 2 ground/power planes? Greetz Joost Edited June 7, 2010 by overdrive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackazong Posted June 8, 2010 Report Share Posted June 8, 2010 Quite impressive work on those PCB's, well done on making such flexible modular system! Guess it took quite some placing/routing time to get it all right. 1) Why the white soldermask (=expensive), because of reflecting leds, or? 2) Why not change on one of the 2 "DIN&I2C" connectors, the MISO and MOSI, so u don't need crossing cables to link them? 3) Why use such oversized (=expensive) resistor arrays, u would done with >0.125W? 4) Are those solder jumpers to select adresses? 5) Your stackup, did u use 2 routing layers and 2 ground/power planes? Greetz Joost Yeah, the routing was difficult. I did it with kicad, it took me i think about 5 attempts. Regarding your questions: 1) yes, correct. White soldermask is just a tiny bit more expensive than green at http://www.multipcb.de/. I can really recommend them by the way. 2) I don't get that, sorry. I have all module connected in one row, therefore there is one input and one output on each PCB. It connects the DIN and the I2C bus (for the LEDs) 3) No, 0.125W would not be enough. Each array drives 16 LEDs. Unfortunaltely, the PC!9635 requires resistors, I would have liked a part with constant current regulator, but I did not find one that suited me. 4) Yes, they determine the I2C address of the driver chip, which has to be different for each chip. There are three on each PCB, one for each color. 5) Yes, more or less. one signal layer, one ground layer, a mixed power/additional PWM layer and one layer only for PWM (of the LEDs) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reincarnate Posted June 12, 2010 Report Share Posted June 12, 2010 I saw this first on Hackaday - I had to come here to find it. I knew it would be a MidiBox. Anyway, this is completely incredible - sort of what I've had in my mind since using Ableton, except about 100x better and more impressive. Congratulations! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eameres Posted June 23, 2010 Report Share Posted June 23, 2010 Absolutely gorgeous. Please consider posting more details so that we can more easily follow in your footsteps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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