[sdiy] Minimoog clone, was: Wasp clone, was: SDIY UK 2010 pics and vid

[cheater cheater]

Bryce,

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 17:55, Bryce Lanham <blanhamsynthdiy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I want to eventually trace the board layout directly and have
> some boards professionally made. If someone on list is willing to
> stick their mini's boards in the scanner and make some high resolution
> high contrast  b/w scans. Fantasy jack palance has good pictures, but
> they are not 1-to-1 scaled. (...) it would have been practically
> impossible to layout w/o a 1-1 scan.

They don't need to be 1 to 1 photos/scans. You can tell the right
scale from the distance between pads etc. What's worse is lens
distortion, i.e. when the photograph is not a linear transformation of
the flat image of the pcb.

Tim,
I'm not in any way disrespecting the amount of work involved... it's
just that laying out the PCBs are the bulk of work that stops many
people from getting anywhere with their clones, and so nobody actually
builds them. Drawing out a pcb layout would be a do-once
profit-forever job that would benefit lots of people and give them a
kick-start. The soldering can be done by a well-trained chimp ;-).
Once people are easily able to get working PCBs, they will all start
running into the problem of mechanics, and then they will start
cooperatively solving the problems associated with that, will start
making drawings, projects, etc.

Cheers,
D.

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 17:55, Bryce Lanham <blanhamsynthdiy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I want to eventually trace the board layout directly and have
> some boards professionally made. If someone on list is willing to
> stick their mini's boards in the scanner and make some high resolution
> high contrast  b/w scans. Fantasy jack palance has good pictures, but
> they are not 1-to-1 scaled. Then the only thing would be the WW
> trimmer pads, but I think a breakout that you could attach a standard
> flush mount trimmer (like Bourns3362P), and then solder to the clone
> boards would work fine. This would also allow duplication of the
> on-board capacitors on the oscillator board, which I replaced with a
> ceramic for my self-layout as it would have been practically
> impossible to layout w/o a 1-1 scan.
>
> I would like to have professionally made boards, but the cost is
> prohibited for one-offs, especially since the layout isn't correct. If
> there is enough interest on the list though, it could drive down the
> cost by quite a bit. Perhaps a kit with all of the hard-to-find parts
> (LS3954, tempcos, 2N4058s) included?
>
> On 7/13/10, cheater cheater <cheater00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Which makes me wonder, why aren't there Minimoog clone PCB layouts
>>  like that around?
>>  The thing's simple as a hammer! And currently it's possibly one of the
>>  current holy grails of cloning. Just look at the parallel topic :)
>>
>>  Maybe if someone pays off Kevin Lightner good he'd flatbed-scan some
>>  kickass version of the mini. You know there are umpteen revisions, but
>>  he's sure the one to know which one has The Sound.
>>
>>  Cheers,
>>  D.
>>
>>  On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 17:17, cheater cheater <cheater00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  > The thing's so simple I'm sure you could do daughterboards for mods.
>>  > Maybe there's even enough space to have 'alternate layout' areas that
>>  > can be cut off if someone wants the original. And yes, a flat-bed
>>  > scanner would certainly give much better results! Thing is, not
>>  > everyone has access to a flat-bed, but it's easy enough to find one in
>>  > e.g. a copyshop. If you use a copy-shop it's a good idea to make
>>  > multiple passes for each side, just for comparison - sometimes they
>>  > come out a bit crappy in areas and then the 'other scan' is much
>>  > better.
>>  >
>>  > Cheers,
>>  > D.
>>  >
>>  > On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 17:10, Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> wrote:
>>  >> The method you describe doesn't sound everso complicated, it's true. Maybe you could even pull the board out of one and sit it in a flatbed scanner. If it is single-sided, that'd about do it. Straight to P-N-P blue, then drilling, and soldering.
>>  >>
>>  >> Still, I'd find the urge to make "improvements" almost impossible to overcome.
>>  >>
>>  >> T.
>>  >>
>>  >> On 13 Jul 2010, at 15:44, cheater cheater wrote:
>>  >>
>>  >>> eh Tom, "all the work" is nothing compared to Jürgen's new vocoder.
>>  >>> Besides it's really only just a few elements, let's be honest with
>>  >>> eachother, a beginner project at worst. The PCB is nice, big, and
>>  >>> spacious, and there are no heat-sensitive chips either. You could
>>  >>> finish it with a soldering gun.
>>  >>>
>>  >>> Given that those things don't seem to sound that bad, it would/could
>>  >>> be an interesting project. Not everything needs to be pitch-perfect
>>  >>> and the limited range is as much a turn-off as it is a turn-on. Even
>>  >>> the wasp interface could stay intact - so that you can use the wasp
>>  >>> midi mod that already exists, or use it with your other wasp if you
>>  >>> have one, etc. Maybe the Spider sequencer could be copied too and then
>>  >>> it could be used directly with the midi interface (it's a small box
>>  >>> with limited capabilities so probably not too complicated at all).
>>  >>> Then there are the Gnat and Wasp Deluxe.
>>  >>>
>>  >>> I'm sure enough people are curious about the wasp's sound that they
>>  >>> would build clones. I can easily see enough PCBs selling for the
>>  >>> effort to pay off to anyone who invests their time to copy the pcb
>>  >>> from some photos - and this shouldn't be that difficult, either, just
>>  >>> some scaling with mesh tools to remove perspective / lens distortion
>>  >>> and off you go with a brush and eraser. Given the simplicity of the
>>  >>> circuit at hand it shouldn't be difficult to figure out what goes
>>  >>> where under the chips. I guess it would be "more authentic" than any
>>  >>> schematics-based copies too (schematics lie, and hey, layout is the
>>  >>> king of sound, especially when digital chips are being used for audio)
>>  >>>
>>  >>> Cheers,
>>  >>> D.
>>  >>>
>>  >>> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:06, Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> wrote:
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>> On 13 Jul 2010, at 05:27, cheater cheater wrote:
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>> Hi Chris,
>>  >>>>> really nice pics, thanks.
>>  >>>>>
>>  >>>>> Looking at the gutted Wasp, it's just one, possibly two-sided, PCB.
>>  >>>>> Given how insanely expensive those things get for what they do, I
>>  >>>>> wonder, why are there no true to life 1:1 clones yet?
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>> Because if you're going to do all that work, you might as well build something better than a Wasp?
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>> T.
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>> PS: I'm curious to hear about the Cygnus too.
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >
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