nILS' heap of bytes2012-02-05T23:59:59ZnILSCopyright 2012, nILSSPHPBLOG(n) Modular Synth - Step A done.
Yay!]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry091014-1322162009-10-14T00:00:00Z2009-10-14T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - Finally, the VCO *Yawn*
Stuffed. Even the footprints of the caps all matched. Nice.
There was actually a semi-challenging part to this build. Farnell was out of the tempcos, so I got the same model in a different package. Let's just say soldering wires to a 1.6mm x 0.8mm component is not a lot of fun...
...especially not after 6 cups of coffee.
What's next? Well there isn't a lot left. We'll see.
]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090822-0214552009-08-22T00:00:00Z2009-08-22T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - The VCA The bare pcb. Déjà vu.
Stuffed the hell outta that one.
Added ghetto panel and some wiring. Why are only some knobs on there? Cause with the knobs the panels doesn't fall over while soldering the wires, simple as that.
Okay, all of these modules worked pretty much right away. I think I'll end the streak by building the VCO next.
]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090822-0210032009-08-22T00:00:00Z2009-08-22T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - The LFO The bare pcb.
Stuffed, this is getting old...
Pre-wiring ghetto panel. For some reason I haven't taken any pics of it with the wiring done. So instead, we'll take a look at what the rack looks like so far ;)
The LFO also worked. Fun little bugger. What's next? I think the VCO.]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090822-0203172009-08-22T00:00:00Z2009-08-22T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - The Steiner VCF That's the bare pcb.
Fully stuffed.
And another ghetto temporary panel, so I can already do the wiring...
And some wiring shots:
To my surprise this one worked right away as well :-) I am on a roll. Let's keep going...]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090822-0155452009-08-21T00:00:00Z2009-08-21T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - Making the case A modular synth needs a case, so I went to the super store and bought some stuff.
Wood pieces cut and pre-drilled and ready to be glued and screwed.
Screwing the side pieces together...
Mounting the strip of wood that'll hold the panels.
Glue is always good. It's also very tasty!
Glued and screwed.
Finished case, shown from the front.
Finished case after applying the first coat of wax. I like wood wax. Not quite as tasty as glue, but still nice.
]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090818-2317352009-08-18T00:00:00Z2009-08-18T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - The Envelope Generator That's the PCB once more.
All parts mounted. Yay.
My ghetto test panel. Purty, isn't it?
This is how I plan to mount the PCBs to the panel. On modules without pots I am screwed, I guess.
PCB mounted to the ghetto panel and some of the wiring done.
And that's how I test stuff atm.
Turns out, the envelope works nicely and as expected. Hooray #2.
Some updates:
Now with the preliminary panel :-)
]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090818-2126572009-08-18T00:00:00Z2009-08-18T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - The PSU This, again, is the bare PCB for the PSU.
That's the assembled PSU. You think the heatsinks will be big enough? ;-)
Top-down view of the PSU, the two power LEDs (one per rail) are not yet connected. Duh.
The fused mains socket and switch. All nicely isolated because I don't really like electrocuting myself. 230VAC is ouchy.
And that's the whole thing with the transformer. Done.
Tested and working nicely. Phew. that's a good start. Let's hope the rest works out as well. ]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090818-2119302009-08-18T00:00:00Z2009-08-18T00:00:00Z(n) Modular Synth - Ready, Set, Go! Sooo, the parts and PCBs got here. This is one of the three boxes of parts I got. All the parts were ordered from reichelt, musikding and farnell. I got the the knobs off ebay.
This is the pile of parts. Thank god reichelt (where I got most of the parts) ship all the different values in different bags. Conrad has a tendency to just throw all the stuff into a box....
That's the PCB which contains 9 modules. Yes, it's missing the part names, because I am an idiot :-)
And that's the PCBs after I cut the up with a handsaw.
All of them have my logo, teehee.
Moving on to the different modules: The PSU. +-15V regulated at ~1A.
The VCO, would suck not to have one, eh? Why did I take this pic with the PCB turned 180°? Dunno.
An LFO. Can you ever have enough CV sources?
And that's a mixer. Whee.
Well that's the PCBs. Next up: Assembling and testing them.]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry090818-2101322009-08-18T00:00:00Z2009-08-18T00:00:00ZBasic Gallery Test Entry [gallery=pedals]
If not - get a real browser with matching OS ;-)
Known to work: - Firefox 3 on XP - IE 7 on XP
Known to not work: - IE 6 on XP
Yours does (not) work? Feel free to add a comment!]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry080722-0026122008-07-21T00:00:00Z2008-07-21T00:00:00ZJust some DIY stompbox pictures
Bluesbreaker clone:
Rangemaster clone:
Tubescreamer clone:
For labeling I used a waterslide decal with decent results:
]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry080624-0050182008-06-23T00:00:00Z2008-06-23T00:00:00ZtheGIMMICK - pictures of the prototypeThis is a picture of the prototype taken with my webcam. Sorry for the lousy quality; higher resolution pictures will follow soon.
]]>http://www.schickt.de/index.php?entry=entry080610-1014372008-06-10T00:00:00Z2008-06-10T00:00:00ZtheGIMMICK - User manualtheGIMMICK guitar tuner.
1) Powering the gimmick
The board needs to be powered with a 7-10V AC or DC power supply (wall-wart, 9V block, ...)
2) Using the gimmick
As with any other tuner, there's not really anything to using it. This short section describes the screens you'll run into while using the gimmick.
This is the loading screen which is shown until a note has been played.
This is the screen which is shown when nothing is happening.
This is a mash-up of all all the notes that are being displayed during use on the first line. Apparently only one note will be shown at a time - the one you play. The # indicates a half-note.
During tuning the first line displays the actually played note, while the second line displays the tuning offset. If the indicator is left of the middle, your note is too low and vice versa.
If the block in the middle turns black and there's no indicator anymore, your string is perfectly tuned. It's actually already virtually perfectly tuned when the indicator is there as well as the block.
A "+" in the top right corner means that a frequency has been detected which is too high to be used.
A "-" in the top right corner means that a frequency has been detected which is too low to be used.
A question mark in the top right corner means there's an error somewhere. You should not get to see this.
3) Bugs/Known Issues
-- "in tune" display is really hard to get to as it's only reached when the frequencies match exactly. When you get see what's in picture 2, your string is virtually perfectly tuned, so this is no major concern.
-- The circuit is not fully optimized yet and may hence still change a bit over time.
-- The tuner has issues when working with bass guitars. It works well down to the A-String, the E-string (and on 5-string basses the low H-string) are hard to tune. A simple "workaround" is to use the 12th fret harmonics to tune the those strings.
-- The PCB is really hard to DIY-etch due to trace and pad-sizes. I'll make a more DIY-friendly one soon. Thanks for pointing this out sineSurfer! (fixed). As the circuit is relatively small it's fairly easy to do a perfboard version though.
theGIMMICK is a DIY PIC16F84A-based chromatic guitar tuner. The PCB is roughly 40x60mm so the whole thing can be built into a regular sized stomp box.
A mockup of how it could (and will as soon as I get the case delivered) look in a stomp-box case:
Depeding on where you are located, the parts for the PCB will costs you about 6€ (at least they do in 07/2008 at reichelt.de). If you take a closer look at the LCD and are lucky enough to own a BOSS GT-3 (or 5, 6, 8, ...) the display will seem familiar. I basically copied the display layout from BOSS. Thanks [NameOfBOSSDeveloper] for the awesome work! Also I'd like to thank everyone who's done similar work before and documented it online - I found some really useful tips and hints which made this project relatively painless.
Special thanks to Matthias Wientapper who's project this is based on and who did a tremendous job implementing the frequency detection (links below).
For now you'll have to resort to looking at the mockup and .pdfs - I'll upload some photos once my tuner is boxed up. If you build one, please let me know if you run into any problems or have any suggestions!
All you need to do is plug in the guitar, stomp on the switch and you're good to go. Oh, and, well yeah, you'll need to build one first.
Pictures of the finished prototype can be found here.
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