Summer of Synth-DIY: week 1

So far, I’ve made a pretty good start on the Sound Lab:

  • Entire board (sans connections to front panel and inter-board connections) is soldered. The PLUS kluges are crazy. Let me tell you that much. Pictures soon.
  • I seem to be short a 33k resistor for the S&H board. Curses! It’ll have to piggyback onto my next parts order.
  • Got the glass out of the dead scanner I’m using as an enclosure.
  • Got a sheet of acrylic for the front panel. Need to cut it to fit, and then drill lots of holes.
  • Dumb idea? Run a BlinkM on the inside with a cool pattern, leave the paper on the inside of the acrylic as a diffuser, AND HAVE THE AWESOMEST, TRIPPIEST COLOR-CHANGING SOUND LAB EVER BUILT? Maybe. I’d have to get a BlinkM, and then run a 5V rail out of the power supply. It may not have enough light output, too…

I’ve made a couple of design decisions on the cigarbox modular:

  • The connection medium will actually be exposed screws – I have a large quantity of clip leads to use, and connecting the points to the circuit board can use lugs attached to the screws. Plus it’ll look really cool and dangerous.
  • I want to try to only use conventionally available PCBs- nothing custom. Mostly things along the lines of the Radio Shack 276-159/Electronix Express PB-12 size factor.
  • Modules: Some kind of 40106-based  multi-oscillator, some logic-gate based “modulators”, a mixer somewhere at the end. Maybe a  simple SVF?
  • I need to find some tiny L-brackets to attach the PCBs to the cigar box. My first search (at a big-box hardware store) was fruitless.
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