What's he building in there ?

PHOBoS · Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 5:22 pm Post subject:

Thanks guys!

So what's in the Asylum ?
starting on he bottom row from left to right:
- Chromatic Melody Generator. The SAW output is connected to the mixer, so now you know what that was doing on the inputs/mixer panel.
- Skrogger. Indicated with the little sheep on the panel. I guess it's a bit of an inside joke and for the same reason I used the blue wooly fabric, but I am pretty sure Dave will appreciate it Laughing

- Bay-B-Key. Indicated by the yellow with red stripes and small colored keyboard.

In the center on top of the Skrogger my:
- Yellow Case PWM Lunetta. It is connected to the internal mixer but because it already has it's own build in stereo mixer there are no seperate level/pan controls for it.
and next to it on top of the Bay-B-Key:
- Lun-A-Key. Indicated by the light blue with small white keyboard.

Then there are two towers on either side with some lunetta modules. These where originally CD storage systems in which I
mounted some wooden rails and I used some thick solid core copper wire to create some busbars for power distribution.
On the left side from top to bottom:
- Master Clock Divider.
- Fibonacci Sequence Generator.
- Morse Code Generator.

The Master Clock Divider and The Morse Code Generator where originally mounted in the other tower but I wanted them on the left side.
Because the CD storage systems have some inwards sloped sides (which are now top and bottom since I put them on there sides)
and the Master Clock Divider module has a rather large PCB mounted on the top I had to leave some space above it for another module.

On the right side from top to bottom:
- Double Pulse Swing Divider. (2x)
- 4089 Rhythm Generator.
- 8bit random generator.
- "Little gate" Sequencer.

And the centrepiece is my:
- Modular Lunetta. This one also has it's own little mixer so doesn't have seperate level/pan controls.
(there are 2 panels on both sides of it but I will explain some more about that tomorrow)

And located on the top on the left side:
- RGB Shroom Synth.
and on the right side:
- RGB Shroom Drums.
Outputs of both of these are also connected to the mixer.

And here are some more photos.

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Cfish · Joined: Feb 24, 2016 Posts: 477 Location: Indiana

Really love how you did this project. Was a lot of fun. Turned out beautiful.

you should do a YouTube video with that. Seeing and hearing it made me think of this video (A profectionist at work)

https://youtu.be/IvUU8joBb1Q

AlanP · Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 10:09 pm Post subject:

Brilliant execution, both in end result, and playing with the forumites! Smile

RingMad · Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 3:06 am Post subject:

Meh... there's no swimming pool.

Hahaha, no, seriously... a great bit of engineering and construction of a PHOBoPHOniC meta-synth!

Thanks for the fun ride.

.:James:.

P.S. What are the approximate dimensions of this thing?

PHOBoS · Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 8:52 am Post subject:

Skrog Productions · Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 10:37 am Post subject:

FANTASTIC

Great work Phobos , i can see this appearing on the summer solstice gig and more Smile

.

Heheheh , sheep panel legend , Very Happy

Nice blue lining too Wink

Dave

PHOBoS · Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 11:06 am Post subject:

POWERSUPPLY

The main transformer I used was something I got many years ago but I don't have any info on it, or if I do I don't know where it is.
It has a lot of connections (on 2 sides) so I started measuring all the different voltages between them. For a stable 12V DC voltage
I'd need about 12VAC and I found 12,6VAC between two of the connections, they also had the thickest wires attached to them.
To be sure it would be able to supply enough current I attached a low resistance high wattage resistor and measured the voltage to
see if it would drop. It didn't seem to drop at all so those are the connections I used. Although the total power consumption isn't
very high all the digital circuits can be rather noisy, so for that reason I used 5 seperate 12V voltage regulators (the amount I had left).
fun fact: I ordered 10m cable to make the power connections and used all of it.

I wanted to use a seperate transformer winding for the Console Light (there where more than enough anyway) so I looked for another
suitable voltage. I found two sets of connections but one of those dropped to 0V when I attached a resistor to it, the other one seemed
stable and gave an output voltage of 8.75VAC which results in 10V DC. For the Console Light dimmer I used a variable current source
using a circuit I found here. The LED I used is a Nichia NSDL570GS-K1 which is a warm white (2700K) 23lm 140º 5mm LED with a current
rating of 70mA (but I stayed a bit below that). The light is not as warm as I had hoped it would be but it is bright enough.

For the mixer section I wanted a dual supply and I used a seperate transformer. I had a salvaged one that has an output voltage
of 2x 10VAC and by using some adjustable regulators turned it into a nice dual 9V supply.

Both transformers are connected to 1 switch and 1 protective fuse, but I noticed they also both have a built in thermal fuse.

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PHOBoS · Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 12:22 pm Post subject:

SIDEPANELS

so what are the 2 panels next to the modular lunetta for ?
The left one holds the console light and the dimmer for it.
Below that are the connections for the RGB Shroom Synth:
- Data in
- CLK in
- Audio (square) out
- Data out
- CLK out
And below that are the 4 Note Select connections for the Chromatic Melody Generator, so that I don't need to run patch cables
all the way down to it, although I still can.

The right panel has a wooden dowel rod to store headphones or patchcables.
Below that are the connections for the RGB Shroom Drums:
- Data in
- CLK in
- High Bongo trigger in
- Low Tom trigger in
- Bass Drum trigger in
And below that the 3 Octave Select inputs for the Chromatic Melody Generator + the square output.

The other 10 colored connections on both panels are for what I call "The Rainbow Bridge" and they are just connected together to
make patching between the left and right side easier.

I mounted a 9p Sub-D connector on the Chromatic Melody Generator to make all the connections and for the RGB Shrooms I used
M3 solder tags. All the wiring is guided through some plastic tubing which was a bit of a challenge by itself.

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PHOBoS · Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 5:27 pm Post subject:

Cfish · Joined: Feb 24, 2016 Posts: 477 Location: Indiana

Very cool.

blue hell · Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 2:37 am Post subject:

Nice summer track :-)

Grumble · Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 3:00 am Post subject:

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

MusicMan11712 · Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 8:22 am Post subject:

Very nice Kolorful Kaleidoscopic Kaliope music!

1:11 · Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 3:55 pm Post subject:

OMG

robsol · Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 4:02 pm Post subject:

Amazing track! Love it!! Very Happy

PHOBoS · Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 3:18 pm Post subject:

Thanks guys Razz

You are all an inspiration to me and although I built it for myself to play with it wouldn't be so much fun without you!

MIXER

The mixer has 9 inputs: 6 of them are mono channels with panning and level control, 2 of them are stereo channels without any controls
and there is one input that can be used both as a stereo or mono input with level control.

All the inputs have AC coupling and a preset level control because there is some variation between the levels of the different synths.
They are also buffered to get a stable signal for the rest of the mixer circuit. I used NE5534 low noise opamps because I had a bunch
of those which I got years ago but never used. I did some calculations for the panning section and if I did them correct than it should
be -3dB at 50% ('constant power' law). It also adds a log responce to the Level pot.

The level/panning control inverts the signal which is needed for the summing mixer so for the other 3 channels I added an inverting
amplifier. The 11K resistors parallel to the level pot of the mono/stereo channel are added to give it a log responce as well. The mixer
itself is just a basic summing amp. I used the 16K resistors because I had ordered 100 of them for the panning section.

After the mixer the signal is split 4 ways:
- the main output which has level control and output buffers.
- the monitor output which has output buffers but no level control.
- the VU meters.
- the Headphones amplifier.

For the VU meters I did some calculation to get close to the levels of -10dB (consumer line level), 0dB, +4dB (pro line level)
and clipping at 7.5V. The headphones amplifier is pretty much the ciruit that I found here, but with less gain and only
one (stereo) output.

Although the stereo/mono in/outputs work fine I realized too late that because I combined mono with the Left channel and Stereo
with the Right channel the channels are reversed when using a stereo (TRS) connector.

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AlanP · Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 10:00 pm Post subject:

Careful not to clip your alligator clips onto your mixer pots!