I've just finished building a couple of Blacet Dark Star Chaos
modules with Stooge front panels. Below are the details of some
simple mods I made to them (in addition to the three Dave B. mods at
http://www.hotrodmotm.com/ds_mods.htm). If you're building a DSC, or
have already built one, these mods may be of interest to you.
1. I used a green Lumex LED rather than the one supplied with the DSC
kit. It seemed a bit dim compared to my other modules. I changed R43
from 1K to 330 ohm to get the brightness up to spec. (Keeners will
note that this is the same value used in the MOTM-700 module to drive
a green Lumex LED off a 5 volt source, same as the DSC.)
2. I made the "Continuously gate the Dark Star ON" mod but noticed
that it rendered the Gate pushbutton useless. With nothing plugged
into the Gate jack, the gate is always high so the Gate pushbutton
has no effect (no problem there). However, with a signal plugged into
the Gate jack, pressing the Gate pushbutton still has no effect if
the signal driving the Gate jack is low (0 volts or negative). I want
to be able to manually trigger the DSC by pressing the Gate
pushbutton no matter what voltage is applied to the Gate jack.
Fortunately, the solution is simply to add a diode (1N4148 or
similar) in series between the Gate jack and J5 on the PCB (anode at
the Gate jack):
Gate jack --->|--- J5
Without this diode, the voltage appearing at pin 9 of U7 is (roughly)
the midpoint between +5 volts and the voltage at the Gate input when
the Gate pushbutton is pressed. Adding this diode blocks the effect
of any low voltage on the Gate jack so that pressing the Gate
pushbutton will still drive pin 9 of U7 high even when the signal at
the Gate jack is low.