Anyone building a custom controller?

[kabuki]

Wow. Thanks Macro! That is what I needed to hear.

Questions:

What are the pros and cons of the different mounting choices (Panel or PCB)?

What was the biggest curveball about the buttons (quality, cost, availability)?

Did you have to cahin the PCBs inside the enclosure with MIDI cables?

Which PCBs did you use? 3 Pocket Dials?

What is the long tan/brown non-pcb board? Purpose? The smaller one with the 2 blue items?

Awesome advice and info! Thanks in advance.

[Emissary]

Me and the Double L are in the process of building a bouncy castle midi controller

Basically were going to use pressure pads and movement sensors. Should inject a bit more movement into electronic music. It'll Sound shit though hahahaha.

You think I'm joking.

Were doing something else aswell , but its top secret, lets just say it floats on air and is round.

[MrYellow]

oh the subject of knobs.....

http://www.potentiometers.com/

Can make custom POTS for you, either in cheap off-shore or quality US
factories. I haven't order off them yet but they are quite helpful......

I was looking for concentric POTS with 2 rings, the main shaft and a push
button.... This would be EQ4 band on/off, frequency band, Q ratio, and gain.

-Ben

[Komplex]

I was looking for concentric POTS with 2 rings, the main shaft and a push
button.... This would be EQ4 band on/off, frequency band, Q ratio, and gain.

-Ben

Hey Ben, did they have anything to suit that application?

[MrYellow]

Yeah mate.... ANYTHING....

Think the quote was something like $2 a piece with 20min order for US
made..... From my... not so good... memory..... think that was it....

-Ben

[MrYellow]

If we were to build these here, they would run around $30.00 in 25 piece
lots. We could turn things around in about 2 weeks. We would supply
either the 388 or 70 series which appears on our web site at
www.potentiometers.com under custom pots. Specs on this series are on
our site.

We could supply an off-shore product made by TOCOS which would have to
be purchased in 20 piece increments. The pricing on that product would be
$15.00 each and the delivery would run 6-8 weeks. I have attached a copy
of the catalog for your review.

As I mentioned before, we would need to get more specific as far as the
specs are concerned.

Well guess I was off on the price..... but still... it's affordable when u'r
talking about 3 POTs and a switch in the 1 unit.

From the specs sheets I saw the US stuff has a lil better tollerance range,
and can handle more turns in it's lifetime.

-Ben

[Komplex]

The pricing on that product would be
$15.00 each

would that be $15 each or for 20 piece lots?

15 for one pot is very steep... hmm but $15 for 20 is great

Let us know if you'll be ordering any, I'd be happy to split an order if that price is right...

[MrYellow]

Yeah I'm not real sure bout that one myself.......

Think it might be the expensive end...... but yeah 3 POTs and a switch.... and custom.... guess it's to be expected.

The only other concentric POTs I could find were lil miniture things that had
something to do with video camera construction.... Was on a site that had
lil LCDs and zoom rocker switches and stuff.

-Ben

[MrYellow]

Just reading thru the emails again..... Was also talk of putting center
position "notch" which he called "detents"..... I was asking about other
positions... Such as a "detent" at 100/127.... He said it's probably not
possible on orders under 1000 pcs and even less likely on dual concentric.

-Ben

[Macrostructure]

Wow. Thanks Macro! That is what I needed to hear.

Questions:

What are the pros and cons of the different mounting choices (Panel or PCB)?

What was the biggest curveball about the buttons (quality, cost, availability)?

Did you have to cahin the PCBs inside the enclosure with MIDI cables?

Which PCBs did you use? 3 Pocket Dials?

What is the long tan/brown non-pcb board? Purpose? The smaller one with the 2 blue items?

Awesome advice and info! Thanks in advance.

There's a greater range of products in PCB-mount, and they are much much cheaper. You also get more accurate and easier cotrol over layout as they fit into the pre-punched holes in the PCB. You can also butt controls hard up against each other to form keypads and the like, which is very useful and something you cannot do with panel mount.
The downside is htat you have to make the PCB. It is possible to design and etch them at home but it's another skill and another set of tooling up you have to do. You can get them outsourced but delivery takes time and you still have to design them yourself. Software is available to help with that though.
It is possible to use a hybrid approach - off the shelf PCB-mount keypads set into CNC'd holes in the front panel. But then you have to convert the keypad output into something useful. It is possible to send the keypad output raw to a PS/2 port on the laptop and set KEY mapping in Live to receive that data, then port the midi from knobs into Live for MIDI mapping but it's a clunky workaround and involves two wire conections plus power for the controller - not cool.
Panel mount buttons are limited in choice and ones of quality are very expensive. But you can get LED illumination, which is great. You also have to get the front panel of your controller accurately machined to receive them - some only have 0.5mm wide collars on them so blasting away with a hand drill in your kitchen may result in a poor quality fit!

Largest overall curveball was cost, most of the buttons/swtiches on my unit cost over $11 each. There are about 40 of them.

Yes, the Doepfer PCBs are chained with special tiny MIDI cables I made up myself with super flexible sheath and 90 degree ends. Nothing else would fit without causing stress on the PCBs. It's this kind of hassle that people don't understnd when they say "Oh, use MIDIbox then all the problems go away". Hmmm.

3 x Pocket Dial electronics, 1 x CTM64, 1 x Evolution MIDI-USB converter

Long brown prototyping board is the power distibution rail for the buttons/switches. If doing it again I would make this much thinner, mount it inside the front "roll" of the upper casing, and use smaller clips for the spurs.

Smaller one with blue connectors is the power distribution for the PCBs.

The casing is very cramped inside. I had to completely disassemble the unit after the first build attempt, and remove all the wires, shorten them and then re-assemble. The lid would not close otherwie! Thats about 700 solder hits. These things take time.....

[Macrostructure]

If we were to build these here, they would run around $30.00 in 25 piece
lots. We could turn things around in about 2 weeks. We would supply
either the 388 or 70 series which appears on our web site at
www.potentiometers.com under custom pots. Specs on this series are on
our site.

Man...all their stuff is Imperial...when are you guys gonna join the rest of the world in the Metric 21 Century?

[MrYellow]

Imperial

Yeah that bothered me too.... had to convert everything to see how it
compared to others and how it'd fit next to switches and such.

Isn't there 12 kings cocks to a arrow and 6 12/129th feathers to an arrows.

Simply stupid.

-Ben

[ben_blue]

macrostructure - this is invaluable, and the rest of the thread as well.

i really want vertical rows of buttons for clip-fire where :
-each button depresses downward when pressed , and it's LED flashes. (signifying which clips is playing.)
- when a different button in THAT row is pressed, it becomes depressed and flashes, and, the previously depressed button goes back up, and stops flashing.

i know the leds fashing is doable, or i think so, but am not sure about the physical detention of each button.

-ben

[Macrostructure]

Imperial

Yeah that bothered me too.... had to convert everything to see how it
compared to others and how it'd fit next to switches and such.

Isn't there 12 kings cocks to a arrow and 6 12/129th feathers to an arrows.

Simply stupid.

-Ben

Ahem...I was thinking more of the 1/8" and 1/4" shaft sizes of their potentiometer knobs...

[Macrostructure]

macrostructure - this is invaluable, and the rest of the thread as well.

i really want vertical rows of buttons for clip-fire where :
-each button depresses downward when pressed , and it's LED flashes. (signifying which clips is playing.)
- when a different button in THAT row is pressed, it becomes depressed and flashes, and, the previously depressed button goes back up, and stops flashing.

i know the leds fashing is doable, or i think so, but am not sure about the physical detention of each button.

-ben

Okay, flashing lights - you can forget about Doepfer PCBs then, unless you are prepared to heavily enagage with realtime processing of the data from your unit using MAX, Plogue or Building Blocks. Steady lit is more practical, but Doepfer has no native support for this except in the preset bank select buttons (4 no. per Pocket Dial/Control Electronic PCB, and they don't send MIDI). So it's either 1) MIDIbox or 2) an off the shelf keypad + converting the output data to keystrokes or MIDI for porting into Live.

Mutually cancelling detent - I am afraid this means using and off the shelf keypad. Creating this from scratch yourself will be very time consuming. The good news is that it's not unlikely that you will find one with lit (but possibly not flashing) buttons. I think you are asking for too much with that.

ms