A digital analog sequencer.

[Joey Nelson]

I'm new to the list.  But a friend said this would be a good place to
get feedback on an idea we were thinking on.  I'm an electrical
engineering student.  I've had a moderate amount of experience designing
mixed signal PCB systems.  The most advanced of which is an ISA bus CCD
camera interface board.  My friend mentioned he would like a analog
606/MAQ/Etc styled sequencer.  So we've begun to design up the
interface, and I've put some thought into the guts, and it's quite
likely we could put together a pretty nice package.  The problem as
always is money.  If we make only one or two of these a lot of the costs
involved become problematic, and I'm not so confident in the market that
I'm willing to try it out as a product.  What I thought may work is to
do it as a colaboration.  I've got a good touch of experience in these
area's but could afford to learn more particularly in the analog area of
the whole thing.  But I could easily design the circuit, route it, and
have it manufactured and assembled.  I'm thinking of a mostly surface
mount design so hand assembly isn't an option.  Right now we are
thinking of an 8 gate/ 8 CV 16 step sequencer with three digital knobs
per step and a few buttons.  It would have a pattern sequencer and a
small LCD screen.  For the heart I would use a Motorola 56002 DSP which
is almost over powered for the function but leaves a lot of flexability
in the design.  I'll post a sketch later when I get my scanner working
again.

The idea of the collaboration is that we will procure all the parts an
service together to get a good bulk discount.  We can have all the
design files be public domain, along with the source code for the DSP.
What price ranges would people be willing to put into such a project?
Here is a really rough breakdown of some of the costs.

Qnt.    Item                     Ea.
20      4 layer PCB board        $50
20      Board Assembly           $40-50
20      DSP56002                 $35
20      20x2 char LCDs           $80 ???
780     Roational encoder/POTS   $2 / $78 per person ???
80      Buttons                  $0.5 / $4 per person ???

Actually there is a lot of stuff to price out, but you can see already
we could easily be talking $400 in parts.  But we can make them look
real nice and perform beautifully, especially since most of the
functionality will be performed by a programmable DSP.  Give me some
feedback and I'll get back with some more concrete costs and some
initial drawings.

Thanks
Joey
highfreq at mail.wsu.edu