Showing posts with label Eurorack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eurorack. Show all posts

Saturday, 7 April 2018

Bastl Grandpa - eurorack sampler - build

Some pics of my Grandpa eurorack module build.
This is a sampler. Love the wooden panel.

 These aren't really build notes. See Bastl's official site for those.
http://www.bastl-instruments.com/grandpa-assembly/

 Though I hope some extra pics of my attempt to assemble it will help a bit more.
I usually put the IC sockets first then the resistors, etc etc.


 tHERE are 2 PCBs.


The upper board: Holds the jacks, pots, LED etc
A small mistake here. I soldered the LED display too close to the PCB.
It has long legs for a reason... so it can sit up against the panel.
You can still view the LED easily even if you did solder it against the PCB, but it will be even clearer if do.



tHE tricky bit .. soldering the SD card.



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Some pics from my Second build of the Grandpa.
THIS is version 1.2









The RGB LED.


 i soldered the SD card at the end.

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Monday, 19 March 2018

Mutant Bassdrum - Hexinverter

Some picks of this great module i just finished building.

These aren't really build notes but I hope it will help others in their quest to build one of these.
Its not a difficult build at all.
All through hole components.

There are 2 PCBs. ... this is the lower.
The upper PCB holds the LEDs, pots etc.



Below are pics of the build process... working backwards.


 Be careful with the orientation of the vactrol.


Now I want to build all the drum modules. :-)

LINKS:
hEXINVERTER

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Tuesday, 20 February 2018

NLC Eurorack power distroboard.

Some pics of the nonlinearcircuits distroboard.

What is covfefe? The tweet by Donald Trump that baffled the internet ...

 (n.) When you want to say "coverage" but your hands are too fat and small to hit all the letters on your keyboard.

Back to the build.
Notice the noise reducing capacitors.  
These are decoupling capacitors. They filter out unwanted noise from power supplies.
"A decoupling capacitor is a capacitor used to decouple one part of an electrical network (circuit) from another. Noise caused by other circuit elements is shunted through the capacitor, reducing the effect it has on the rest of the circuit". (Wikipedia).

 In a eurorack system, each module shares a common path to the power supply.
So changes in the current drawn by one one module may produce voltage changes large enough to affect the operation of others. The decoupling capacitor works as the module's local energy storage. The capacitor is placed between the power line and ground. It provides a bypass path for transient currents reducing the chance of voltage spikes and fluctuations.

 I used 3.3K for the LED resistors

  the connector:
oo| GATE
oo| CV
oo| +5V
oo| +12V
oo| GND
oo| GND
oo| GND
oo| -12V 



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An good alternative eurorack bus board with filtering that I've built is the Synthrotek one.
http://www.synthrotek.com/products/modular-circuits/noise-filtering-power-distribution-board/




The build notes are here:
http://www.synthrotek.com/kit-assembly-instructions/modular-circuit-assembly-instructions/noise-filtering-power-distribution-board-assembly-instructions/

i ADDED +5V to this PSU using a simple 7805 voltage regulator and two 0.1uF caps.
The value of the caps could be 10uF or 1uF. I used 0.1uF mylar as I had these on hand.
If you decide to use electros, the negative end of the cap (cathode) should contact ground.





Another good alternative Power bus:
The Bastl instruments Juice Bus. This has onboard 5V


You may wish to add other voltages to your circuit. eg: 9V, 3.3V if you are prototyping circuits:
So ideas:



I haven't tested all these circuits, but notice that the input voltage is always higher than the output voltage.
Experiment with the capacitors
Most linear regulator datasheets suggest tantalum capacitors as they have higher ESR.
Remember that electrolytic capacitors (including tantalum) are polarized.
Best to read the datasheet and follow their instructions.



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Sunday, 11 February 2018

Bindubba sequencer - NLC build notes

This is a wonderful sequencer.
I have one of these in Serge format and can't wait to test the eurorack version.

The colour code for the 4U panel : Blue are inputs. Red are outputs.
This sequencer has two sets of inputs, a CV out, inverted CV out, glide out and 16 gate outs.
There are also two direction inputs to control forward and backward motion, and two reset inputs
Its interesting to have two different clocks. These will form complex patterns.

Here are some pics of the unbuilt Euro panel and PCBs.
The euro version of this sequencer, is designed to be used with the Divide & Conquer clock divider module (Divide and Conquer - build notes), though any two clocks will drive it. It's better if they are random, or running at different speeds.
The Divide & Conq, is also good for modulating the direction.
Something like the Triple Sloths, is good for modulating the horizontal / vertical jumps

The gate outs are useful for triggering drums, envelopes, pinging filters,

Plug modules like The Hypster ( chaos module) into the Slew inputs

Some NLC words of wisdom
Is this a reference to the 1997 film Con Air???? .... Nicolas Cage acted as Cameron Poe, the burdened soldier who just wants to go home. 

I'm using 680 ohm resistors for the LEDs.

I like to install the ICs first.
They are the fiddly bits. CMOS chips used: 4081, 4029, 4052
My vactrols have very variable off resistances....0.9M to 1.2M
I'll probably need to experiment with the caps. i'll stick with the 470nF caps for now as marked on the PCB.




 Protection against plugging in the module backwards. We have all done this once.


Line up the pots .. don't solder yet.

Jacks.



Another one done. :-)


Links:
+ NLC Build notes& BOM
+ NLC wiki - description & usage of the Bin sequencer
+ Bindubba 1 & 3 sequencers with Kilpatrick Phenol
+ NLC blog (old)

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