[sdiy] Elektron Digitakt teardown

[Julian Schmidt]

Hey list,

found in the mutable forums, some pics and comments of the digitakt guts:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/128743207@N08/sets/72157683648770700

"Compared to the "Analog" series devices from Elektron, there are a 
couple of changes.

  * The new "encoders" are actually potentiometers (probably sin/cos).
    That's very clever.
  * The "Analog"-series devices had a USB isolation to avoid having a
    ground loop when the device is connected to a computer and an audio
    interface. The USB isolation chip was removed. Instead, there is now
    an isolation between the analog side and the digital side of the
    circuits. The power rails and grounds for the analog and digital
    sides are entirely isolated. That way, ground loops are still
    prevented, but in addition digital noise is kept away from the
    analog circuity much better.
  * The magnetic NVRAM that was used in the "Analog"-series devices was
    removed (probably too expensive and too small - the largest
    available on the market is currently 16Mbit). Instead, they use a
    1Gbit DDR2 SDRAM powered from a Supercap. So, effectively you get
    the "persistent" memory (no loss of data when power-cycling, even
    without saving your project) but it porbably won't last 20 years
    like the magnetic NVRAM
  * The new switches are computer keyboard switches from Kailh -
    apparently that is a "Cherry MX" clone.
  * The type of OLED display is unfortunately not visible without
    desoldering it from the pcb.
  * They are still using a coldfire processor. To my understanding, that
    is pretty comparable to the higher STM32F7 devices (maybe a slightly
    faster) but interestingly the SRAM on those is only 64kB."

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