Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts

Tuesday, 26 February 2019

Ian Fritz - Hypster - NLC module

Some of my personal pics and build notes for the Ian Fritz Hypster module.
This version is NLC / euro module.

The Hypster is a hyperchaos module.


In Ian’s words -"It's fourth-order hyperchaotic, with voltage control of the main parameters, including exponential control of the cycle rate". 

 
"Hyperchaos is chaos on steroids, with the mathematical divergences being generated in more that the usual single dimension. The module is a unique, original design featuring voltage control of the main system parameters...............


...............With an eight-signal output it can simultaneously control a large number of synthesizer parameters or generate multiple audio waveforms for individual processing". Ian F.

The module ranges from a few kHz down to approx. 5 minutes per cycle so is great for CV and audio duties.


Using this transconductance amp (from the Cell Voice build).
Mouser: 513-NJM13700M-TE2


My bi-polar LEDs are green/red.
I used 470r resistors for these.







Links:
+ The electronic Soundhouse - Ian Fritz' site
+ Chaos Theory for synthesizers - Ian Fritz
+ NLC blog
bom
+ Muffs
+ NLC Facebook builders Guild

http://nonlinearcircuits.blogspot.com/2018/04/ian-fritzs-hypster.html


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Sunday, 24 February 2019

Tec 1D - computer

Some build notes for the Tec 1 computer.
This is a kit that came out in the early 1980s. 
It's a single board computer with readouts in the form of a seven segment display.
It contains it's own PSU.  It will also operate from a 6V battery. Battery back up is useful to avoid
loosing any programs written into RAM.
There is a 7805 regulator which keeps the operating voltage at 5V.
The PC layout of this board was done by none other than Ken Stone.


Notice the keyboard in the lower right of the photo. ... its really a keypad made up of switches. These are labelled with hexadecimal  numbers 0 to F. There are also 4 switches.... labelled AD, GO, + and -.

AD = address
GO = excute the address (pushing it twice will run any program entered into the computer)
"+" = increment the address
"- " = decrement the address

This single-board kit computer was first produced by the Australian hobbyist electronics magazine Talking Electronics. It was featured in 1983, in Volume 1, Issue 10 of the Talking Electronics magazine, pages 57 to 75, with relevant chip data presented on the rear cover.

 An early Tec-1 built by Ken Stone

Issue 11 featured add ons for the tec 1 --- ( two peripherals designed by Ken Stone for the TEC-1 -an 8x8 matrix display, and a relay driver board, allowing the TEC-1 to be interfaced to other equipment). 

Volume 1, Issue 12, pages 13 to 38, had the third installment, including an interface for a simple plotter  and a RAM expansion. TEC-1A was introduced in this issue with the PCB artwork presented on the inside rear cover.

Volume 1, Issue 13, pages 9 to 26, had the fourth installment, including a power supply designed specifically for it, and a non-volatile RAM module to allow data to be retained, even after the TEC-1 was powered off.  (Wikipedia)

I'm building this as its a great way to understand basic computer architecture and learn the facts and operations of programming from ground level.

This is a TEC-1D Reproduction by Ben Grimmett (2018) It is based upon the PCB artwork of the TEC-1D
The unpopulated board.

The board came with a specially programmed chip ... called an EPROM (electrically programmable memory). The original board used a 16k bit 2716 EPROM.The new board requires a 32k bit 2732. 
It is organized as 4,096 words by 8 bits. 
This is directly above the speaker which can be used to play music.
The EPROM is NMOS Type with a UV Erasable Window

That is it is housed in a 24 pin Window CeramicFrit-Seal Dual-in-Line package. The transparent lid allows the user to expose the chip to ultraviolet light to erase the bit pattern. A new pattern can be then be written to the device.

The computer contains 2K of RAM... programmed in machine code.
Machine code is very memory efficient and has a fast execution rate.... making high speed programs possible.

ic headers first.

A bit about the chips used in the original computer:
+ 8212 - Display Driver 1 --- drives each digit of the display
+ 8212 - Display Driver 2 --- drives segments A to G of the display
   (The 8212s have been replaced with 74LS273s. 
These are D-type flip flops....... also known as a latch ICs)

+ 2716 - EPROM
   (the new board uses a 2732 EPROM)

+ 6116 - RAM
+ Z80 - CPU
+ 4049 - CMOS - the oscillator for the clock.
+ 74LS138 - (Logic gate address decoder) selects between EPROM (2716) & RAM (6116)
+ 74LS138 - (logic gate) selects between keyboard and display


Simplified block diagram.

The ROM contains all the information to start the computer and keep it running

The Z80 CPU is the arms and legs to which all instructions are sent. It does what the ROM requests.

The Z80 selects which device it wants to address by one of the  two decoder 74LS38s
Because each decoder has only 4 outputs, we need two of them.

 
(Each 74LS38 logic chip has 4 gates with 2 inputs and one output).
Each selects one of 8 output lines.... going to the Keyboard or display & the ROM and RAM.


The 8212 Latch ICs (or 74LS273) drive the two LCD displays. 
Because each has only 8 outputs we need two. The displays are multiplexed. The Z80 constantly feeds info into the displays via these 8212s.

The 74c923 chip feeds into the keyboard. The keyboard is constantly scanned by this chip. It scans the keys looking to see if any have been pressed.
If a button is pressed the 74c923 sends a 5-bit binary number (corresponding to the key).
Eg if key 5 is pressed it sends the number 00101.

The 2716 ROM tells the Z80 what to do when that binary number is received.

The 6116 is  SRAM .... static RAM.
DIP-24 CMOS STATIC RAM 16K (2K x 8 BIT) IC
 (There are 2 types of RAM ... Static & Dynamic)


























Links:
+ Retro computing
+ Volume 1, Issue 10 of the Talking Electronics magazine
+ Talking Electronics Issue 11 
+ Talking Electronics Volume 1, Issue 12 
+ Talking Electronics Volume 1, Issue 13
+ Retro Hansotten  
+ Ken Stone Video
+ Video - Tec 1 computer
+ Holden
+ Wikipedia

To be continued......

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Dual LPG - NLC build notes

This is a  Nonlinear circuit eurorack module. It's DIY.
Andrew describes this as based on the buchla 292 except it uses the "black box vactrol method" seen in the Shat-noir Phaser and Noiro-ze VCF/VCA.
This involves making a light proof box. .... basically you will build your own vactrol using some light sensitive resistors and diodes.

The term "Low Pass Gate" was created by Don Buchla and stands for a module that can be switched between a gentle low pass filter (6db/oct) and a VCA.  (basically they are a VCFA). It's most famous implimentation is in the Buchla 292.

The control (manually and via external CV) is responsible for frequency in the low pass mode and for loudness in the VCA mode. Additionally a combined mode LP+VCA is available. In this mode the sound becomes more dull as the loudness decreases.

The old West Coast style Buchla 292 uses vactrols(VTL5C). It has an extremely organic response to control signals.



Your choice of resistor/ vactrol greatly influences how this circuit will behave.
Since we are building this in a non perfect light proof box, and your position of the diode, its brightness,  etc etc... there is a lot of variation.... ripe for experiment. Of course if you wanted reproducibility you could just use a factory vactrol, but that would be boring. :-)

DG analogue switches are used for changing between filter and gate modes.... so we have voltage control over the different modes which is nice. It would be nice to have a combo as well... LPF/Gate/Combo.
Maybe Andrew will add this in a future module ???

Clone #042 ???



Links:
https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/dual-lpg
BOM


+ Original LPG 
+ LPG - Jondent 




The virgin PCBs







Choosing the diode size

Op-amps & resistors first


fOR  REVERSE protection




bUILDING THE LIGHT proof box



LED - long lead into square hole.




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DG202 or DG212 - these are quad SPST CMOS analog switches.
What doe the DG stand for???

Double Gate CMOS  (DG)
 Traditional CMOS technology is approaching physicial limitations was we approach the nanoscale regime.
One such solution is the double gate transistor, proposed in the 1980s.
"Multigate transistors are one of the several strategies being developed by CMOS semiconductor manufacturers to create ever-smaller microprocessors and memory cells, colloquially referred to as extending Moore's law.




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You can find more NLC builds here.
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Monday, 11 February 2019

Beast-Tek Microbe - build notes

Some build notes for the Best-tek Microbe.
These arent official notes ... just a diary to help me trouble shoot.
I'm not associated with Beast-Tek.


This ia a 8 channel drum trigger module.
The official website describes it as a artificial intelligence based 8 channel algorithmic rhythmic engine with partial CV control.

The official site is here:
BOM & Build notes
Manual


There is a Rotating Clock Counter mode, a glitchy beat mode , a regular beat mode, a rotating clock divider mode and a Cellular Automation based mode.
The Cellular Automation mode allows the manipulation of organic trigger patterns from a cell grid based loosely on Conway's Game Of Life algorithm.  
I bought this mainly because of the cellular-automation section. 

The ATmega 328P-PU micro-controller comes pre programmed.
MCP602/MCP6022 High precision op-amp


cAREFUL  .. avoid any shorts.


The build manual is excellent, with lots of great illustrations.
A easy build.










I cut some of the metal jack supports to avoid shorts.




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For more Euro DIY builds click here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/diy-index.html
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