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Mixing control surface project


Claire
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No, thank you for sharing!


It always amazes me how much hard work people share so that people like me might ride on their coat tails...

 

One of the things I have to do is determine affordability when machining. That many small LED rings machined into a top aluminium plate is going to get expensive so I look at ways of implementing it in other ways, in this case the whole ring area could be machined out with a small lip and a plastic disk of smoked plexi pushed into the hole. Ponoko have done "light shapers" so that led shapes are perfect. This is something I did on a Monome Arc build I did while back

fetch.php?w=400&tok=925f7a&media=anticha
 

Shiny knobs

 

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Yes you can do such a disk but in my case with so close and 120° angle led, the closest led are polluted and you loose visual precision.
I tried it too lol.
I've got a CNC so I haven't got limit. There's PMMA in the ring holes too, this holes have a kind of tear shape, the bit I used is 0.8mm diameter.
Ring and screen window are one piece PMMA.

large.IMG_3527.JPG.1741365692c5234e44a24


Make a full ring is difficult in my case, because of the circuit, there's bus inside the ring and i need to connect it, this is the way on my PCB.
And it was a very very very long work to route this part.

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The light shapers I made were made from black and white acrylic essentially any solid colour to help keep the LEDs from diffusing as they would in clear acrylic like you have there.

I envy people with their own Laser Cutters and Machine tools. I have always dallied with the idea of buying an Epilog Laser a 3d printer and a CNC Mill but I think I will probably join a Makerspace with access to these tools if I need to progress that route. Most of the time I use Schaeffer as I can rapidly work with their software.

 

Because of this the way I think I will work is work on CAD cut card then make a channel strip. Make sure it all fits and when I am certain it does then mill a whole top sheet. I might try to machine using studs to minimize screws on top.

But this is a ways off yet. I still have to work out how many DINS/DOUTs and so on I am going to need. and how it all hooks up into the Core
 

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Be careful about the total number of DIN/DOUT . Big Serial Register In Out chains (large number of DIN/DOUT chained) are possible in theory but tend to be hard to manage in practice.
If not already done , i advice you to check about matrix designs (http://wiki.midibox.org/doku.php?id=led_dotmatrix | http://wiki.midibox.org/doku.php?id=switch#matrix_design ) to maintain SRIO chain as small as possible.
Also, regarding CNC things, Midibox is a community and i know that some members are equipped with toolry . You might ask/pay a midiboxer (maybe cheaper than schaeffer) to do it ? Surely more flexible ^^
Bests,
JK

Edited by Psykhaze
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4 hours ago, Claire said:

I might try to machine using studs to minimize screws on top

Hi

Yes you have to try !

I use them for my last design, also with digital print for label, definitely high qualities and industry grade for "affordable" price.

Five studs here to attach the illuminated tact switch pcb, as the big push button (+ bracket) at bottom.

Best

Zam

 

89MotioN_light.jpg

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I am considering adding more buttons as a variation of 2 x BLM4x16s: 4 small 4mm LED buttons to the right of each fader and 4x medium ones above, (8 per channel) this would do away with the need for a separate ableton or monome-style grid so I can do clip launching from the desk with no need for a secondary controller. By making the button in this way I can reassign them to other more "normal" mixing desk duties when needed. The plan is to carry as little extraneous equipment with me when I need to.

It all depends on the amount of I/O I have available to the STFM core and the MF_NG faders. Additionally there is are the LED meters to the left of each fader. Its tight but I am trying to make a largecontrol surface but keep it small.


LP4 be aranges as 4 vertically stacked per channel/fader (whhere you would expect arm/write/mute/solo to goes) LP6/LP16 can be sample trigger (a la Ableton) or assigned to control/mute/whatever plugins, logically arranged below the encoders. Its a halfway house between a traditional DAW control surface and a pure performance surface like Julian's Protodeck. Not much out there that seems to be ready made.

These are quite nice. A bit $pendy but discounts are available. They also make a nice oval key cap (G Cap) so I can really get the buttons close and compact but with some air between them.

(https://eswitch.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/the-new-tl6215-series-tact-switch-offers-right-angle-mount-and-ip67-ratings/)


Illuminated-Briefcase.png

Edited by Claire
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I really like the use of RGB LEDS. 2 x the Soldering gets you an awful lot more. Will you be eventually publishing files that I can use and incorporate?

I decided on doing away with a laptop and am looking into incorporating an Intel NUC/SSD/EMC for the DAW into the enclosure. Having just spent a day researching eDP interfaces on 5th Gen i7 NUCs, passive cooling and totally affordable iPad "retina" displays. I'm not out of the drawing phase as yet. 

I think I will probably keep using my iPad as a secondary Lemur control surface too.

The Inheritors stuff is nice. I am currently listening to him on Marhaba (the collab with Maalem Mamoud Guinia & Floating Points) He is quite cute to look at too and I think him in a dress suit 1930's tux would work wonders on him.... as it does almost any man.

I would sit my Arc on top like James did -- admittedly though I cannot afford the toys he has which is why I DIY most things.
 

It lives (again)

 

Edited by Claire
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@Smithythe Arc was a tough, fiddly repetitive build, as was the Stribe. I have a finished 2 x Stribe (the Curious Inventor variant) in the wings which I really need to ask @TK. if he still has any documentation for Midiboxing because its so complete it is just waiting on an Arduino and for me to finish the Multiplexing/SPi shield... and for the people that made it to get me the Max/Msp patch, but they have disappeared. Midiboxing it would be a hardware solution that would break it free of all that Puredata/Max Patching and laptop or proprietary nonsense.

I really want to be a finisher from now on.
 

Stribe 16: Take 2


 

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Just now, Claire said:

I really like the use of RGB LEDS. 2 x the Soldering gets you an awful lot more. Will you be eventually publishing files that I can use and incorporate?

Depends on how you need to get it placed on your project.
Maybe I can make a library from my pcb by grouping each ring, for you after to route between rings/driver and mosfet adresses lines.
For you to know, it's 4 layer pcb, there's 48 channel lines between rings and driver + 32 addresses lines.
Soldering 32 *1.6mm square leds by ring oblige to be precise and patient. Parkinson please refrain from ;)

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On 14.9.2016 at 2:15 PM, Claire said:

I have a finished 2 x Stribe (the Curious Inventor variant) in the wings which I really need to ask @TK. if he still has any documentation for Midiboxing because its so complete it is just waiting on an Arduino and for me to finish the Multiplexing/SPi shield...

Sure, there should be a PIC based software in the repository. I built a MIDIbox version of the Stribe a few years ago, so I can confirm that TK's implemenattion is fully functional.

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13 hours ago, ilmenator said:

Sure, there should be a PIC based software in the repository. I built a MIDIbox version of the Stribe a few years ago, so I can confirm that TK's implemenattion is fully functional.

That is brilliant news! Thank you. Its just been sitting here for a few years unable to leap that last hurdle. I looked for Stribe but found an unlinked mention in the Wiki but that is all. 

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