I took my MOTM system to Saturday's synth DIY meeting, along with my DIY
touch panel controller project.
A while back there was some traffic on synth-diy about ribbon controllers,
and then Larry Hendry posted his notice about a good deal on Bourns pots at
Electronics Goldmine. I poked around that site looking for other promising
deals, and found surplus ELO touch screens for $5 each. These are glass
panels you put over an LCD screen to make a touch-sensitive computer input
device.
I ordered one and did a little research on the 'net. It turned out to be a
5-wire resistive touchscreen, which wasn't too hard to interface. I built a
device with a microcontroller and a couple of sample-and-holds which
generates a gate when you touch the screen along with analog voltages
proportional to the X and Y position you touch, sort of like a
two-dimensional ribbon controller. It has a few bugs and unfinished
features, but its basically working.
Anyway, people seemed to like playing around with it at the meeting. I've
set up a (rudimentary) page about it at
http://www.fuzzer.com/Synthesizers.html. Unfortunately, I've been rather
busy since Sat. and don't have my pictures posted yet. You can see a
picture of the touch panel with the MOTM in Toby Paddock's pictures, though.
That was the first time the MOTM system left its construction site... turned
out to be a lot heavier than I realized. :-) Next meeting, I'll have to
bring a handtruck and a buddy or two.
My only regret is we didn't get it hooked up to Patchell's Mikado sequencer
before he had to leave. So, he does need to come back for the next one.
Thanks to John Marshall for setting up the meeting, to everyone who
attended, and to Larry Hendry for the link to the surplus site.
...Craig