[sdiy] Crowminius

[The Old Crow]

   Projects like this sit around in my head for a long time.  I actually 
started on my CSR-15 first (compact rack-mount Yamaha CS-15) using my 
equivalent circuits for the VCOs and VCFs, but when I got my hands on 
the DuinoKit I decided that would make a great little synth case, 
enclosing the board so as to not need a panel.  I am not a builder of 
enclosures, so having a ready-made case as a design goal allows me to 
set certain PC layout parameters "in stone" such as the overall size.  
In this instance the case had a mounting frame for a 216mm x 280mm board 
thus my board is that size.  This means the controls are going to be 
crammed in there but they work fine for what I was able to do.  As 
mentioned in my blog on this project one motivation was replacing a 
friend's ruined 1974 minimoog, so compact case plus motivation to 
replace a lost machine = Crowminius. ;)

   You should be able to use mostly 1x3 2mm headers for the slide 
switches and 1x3 2.5mm headers for the pots.  The only special cases are 
two slide switches need to be DPDT (they're all DPDT so as to order one 
line item in my BoM but most have the contacts paralleled up for 
reliability) and the rotary switches which will need their own wiring 
harnesses.  I provide an I2C header so the LCD can be panel-mounted.  
The LCD is not strictly needed, but it will allow me to set various MIDI 
front-end parameters like what controller to set to modulate the filter 
CV. MIDI channel, MIDI mode (USB or DIN5), etc.

   I was thinking about how to make a front panel "at-size" for the 
single-board Crowminius; it will need some custom 3D-printed switch 
handles to get the switch actions up to panel level, and it will need me 
being able to find bottom-mount rotary switches that Alpha-Taiwan lists 
but no one stocks (quotes already requested).

   Cheers,

Crow
/**/

On 3/30/2015 4:56 AM, Roman Sowa wrote:
> This is great! I don't know where do you find the power to design all 
> those things.
> I'd like to build it someday, but all those densly packed pots scare 
> me off a bit. I dream about making large, full-minimoog-panel sized 
> PCB with all the pots and switches, that solders via pin headers to 
> pots/switches pads on your PCB.
>
> Roman
>