Synth workshop today with friends. Assembled three APCAPCAPC synth boards. Got all of them working, now we just have to figure out how to play them! #kosmo#synthdiy
I've started writing up my thoughts, design, and development thinking for an ESP32 based sort-of-educational pseudo-analog synth toy/hack/plaything meant to be used with a breadboard for extras.
I'm probably tempting fate by posting about it at this point, but I had several posts in draft so thought I'd hit "go" on them anyway.
When I get the actual boards back, if the posts all suddenly disappear, you'll know it was a bit of a disaster!
The build guide is now up. Apart from the (ok, somewhat major and definitely annoying, but probably work-around-able) issue with the strapping pins, hardware wise all the bits seem to function.
I got nonlinearcircuits - Fourier Panel+PCB as a birthday gift from my brother in February. Since then I've done a little 0805 surface mounted soldering (zlob - mineq and MTM - pulses (or was it volts?)) And it wasn't that bad and both modules worked on the first try.
Yesterday, I finally mustered up the courage to start working on this beast. All 10k:s done in the resistor matrix so far! One small fuck up that I fixed easily otherwise I think it's going pretty well. It's still scary though.
@diyelectromusic It's never too late to start doing something like that. Some people are still tweaking comodore64 (which I find quite impressive) :D Many thanks for sharing this. I planning to use your materials in my small project. At first free drawing lfo with external clock sync!
Fun fact: the hardest thing about #synthDIY and DIY electronics is not soldering (takes practice but most folks can do it) or knowing how electronics work (a lot of it can be approached like building LEGO or following a recipe).
The hardest part about DIY electronics is the fit and finish. (Not even aesthetics or an intuitive UI, though that’s all hard too!)
Just getting it all in a box such that it’s enjoyable to use and not in danger of falling apart.
@jepyang I've yet to design something from scratch so I have no experience making a nice usable package for one's thingy.
I think troubleshooting is the hardest part. After reflowing all the joints, taking measurements that looks reasonable, looking for polarity errors and or sketchy components and then still having some weird fucking problem still persisting - I'm completely at a loss. Luckily, it doesn't happen all that often but god damn it's frustrating when it does happen.
@symmetrizer@jepyang so like with coding (I’ve spent so much time in utter despair trying to find out why my thing doesn’t work, only to realize I’ve made a slight typo somewhere). I feel like if debugging code is already this frustrating, troubleshooting diy electronics must be on a whole other level.
@jepyang Yeah I ended up only paying attention to the SDIY stuff. I did quite a few used buy/trades back then, the site definitely got me on my DIY feet. And I met a lot of great makers.
Forums eventually wear me down though. My OCD can't handle having to keep up with them. The ONLY forum that I was able to handle was em411, and even then it was specific areas. I suck very badly at Discord because it's so Forum-esque.
@dtauvdiodr@jepyang I used to spend a fair amount of time there (you can find my real name all over the place 😅) and I'm favorably inclined toward synthcube so this seems like a positive thing. I'm pretty certain it was all community funded at least since the OG died, so I'd guess they were having some sort of funding crisis and SC stepped in to have the day... But who knows for sure?
I needed more attenuverters, so I designed my own 4x attenuverter module. I made a few mistakes. The power header silkscreen footprint is the wrong way. Not a big problem, just mount the power header the other way. Another mistake was that I did not put resistors between the op-amps and the outputs. This means that if I patch an output into another output, the op-amp will probably be fried. But, at least it works, and that's not bad for a first PCB design. #SynthDIY#eurorack
I've upgraded from the ice cream box front panel to an aluminium front panel. It's not very easy to make precise holes using a hand drill, but I got it close enough to fit.
@polykit@synthdiy Émilie Gillet released all her Mutable Instruments designs and earlier work like Shruthi as open source. Things are scattered around, but this is probably a good starting URL.
I wasn't going to bother but seeing as I've had to work through its MIDI support, SysEx parsing and now the difference between the USB packet and stream modes of TinyUSB, I thought I perhaps ought to make a few notes before I forget it all!
that way it passes packets by default or enter sysex mode and gather the full message. I am not sure what happens if things are not in order so I may have to make my own sysex parser with a buffer and a pass through.
Spun up another little #synthDIY board over the weekend, this one is a low-drift, low-tempco voltage reference (for pitch DACs) using an LT1236 ceramic chip.
If you’re in a patient mood, I also plan to put together a version that I can distribute as a PCB/panel set and open-source the manufacturing files. This one has a borrowed circuit block which the creator has asked me not to distribute except as a schematic.