JellyEdwards

Fitting

2010-08-10T09:57:00.001-07:00

After the enclosure was assembled I started to carefully drill holes using a Dremel (well, actually the cheapest version of a Dremel I could afford) into the underneath of the top plate corresponding to all the holes in the PCBs. The official Sparkfun plates are a two step process, with an assembly plate and a top plate so this is a little bit less pristine than that solution:

Also I had a small problem with the DC power input of the Arduino so I had to drill away a little section on the inner side of the USB side plate to get the Arduino to fit flush on the outside… oops.

Then I screwed in the PCB boards with screws used to hold CD or HD drives in desktops – probably not the best to use (as they didn’t fit properly and in the 4 near holes I could usually only fit 2 in diagonally):

Then it was all done… time for the reveal…

<ding>

Then plugged it in to see if it worked………………………

WOOHOOO!!!! … well not really, it didn’t work first off, during the fitting I had broken a few wires – but it was easy enough to fix so I won’t bore ye with the details.

Ok so it all works, next is to try and use it to make some music… hmm where to start….

Assembly

2010-08-10T09:39:00.001-07:00

I’ve made all the 45 degree edge cuts to the laser-cut plates from Ponoko, now to put it all together. First we (my Dad and I) taped all the pieces in place:

Then used superglue on the inside seams and waited a day for it to dry completely:

In order to make the box totally seamless, we decided to use magnets to hold the bottom plate in place. My Dad flies model planes a good bit so we cannibalised one of the motors (very similar to a CD ROM motor) and took out all the tiny but powerful magnets from the inside the main motor hub.

Then using a spare side piece as a prop for the bottom plate we worked out where to stick the magnets (using the key hole cut outs).

I think I used about 6 of these magnet pairs in the end, any fewer than that and the bottom would fall of when you picked it up – not good! :)

Enclosure II

2010-08-10T08:56:00.001-07:00

Ok so the MDF rushed way didn’t work very well, but I still wanted a nice seamless box so after investigating a few different options I decided to go with Ponoko and get some laser-cut acrylic. I found a little tutorial at instructables, downloaded Google SketchUp and Inkscape and made a template for my monome. It’s a little bit wasteful to be fair, but I wanted to have a few spare parts to play about with in order to get the process right. If anyone wants my design you can get it here – but be warned it won’t all click together as is there’s a lot more work to be done!

I was very impressed with what I got from Ponoko, it looked so neat! And about a million times neater than my attempt with the MDF!! Laser-cut material is usually only ever cut at 90 degrees and I needed 45 degree cuts to make my seamless box – i.e. I didn’t want any dove joints or anything like that, I just wanted the join to be on the edge of the box.

Here’s a pic of what I got from Ponoko:

With my Dad helping out (if I tried these parts on my own I wouldn’t have fingers to type this blog with) we set up a rig with a router and a table to cut the edges at 45 degrees. After a good bit of trial and error we finally got it so that it would cut away exactly at the edge give or take a few nanometres – it was very satisfying seeing the paper slightly curl up as we passed the pieces by the router. We ended up using a couple of bits of scrap metal to keep the rig as straight and level as possible – without these the wooden box had a natural dip in it from the weight of the router which would result in inconsistent edges. You could of course hire a proper router table but where’s the fun in that? Here’s a close up of the setup:

Here’s a pass of the top plate:

And a corner of the bottom plate with 2 45 degree cuts (see how it’s going to come together yet?):

We stuck the side pieces together to do them all in one pass (one has a laser cut hole for the usb port):

Now all the plates have 45 degree cuts on all their edges, next step is to stick them all together…

Enclosure

2008-11-03T09:20:00.001-08:00

That title sounds like some sort of crappy summer blockbuster action movie... starring Steven Segal as an ex-FBI agent turned Arduinome-maker??

Anyway, I needed to make some sort of enclosure for my Arduinome. The manky tea-towel you've seen my Arduinome resting on wasn't really going to cut it as a long term solution. I'm heading off travelling for a couple of months and I wanted to loan my Arduinome to a friend while I'm away so when I come back she can teach me how to use it :) So, I had to get it ready before I go - hence why the rest of my work is so rushed and looks like a drunk 5-yr old did it.... ok ok, drunk AND angry.

Initially I wanted to make an enclosure for it out of Lego & call the end result a Legome. Lego have part of their site where you can order individual bricks - it's pretty expensive but I thought it would be perfect... until I saw the 22-business-day delivery time - so that was out the window.

Next on the list was MachineCollective's site - he makes kits for Arduinome enclosures - perfect!! Except he's having trouble with his suppliers so isn't currently taking orders :(

My next desperate attempt at getting an enclosure was to get a friend who does that sort of stuff for a living to make up a design file and get it prototyped. It was going to be really expensive but I thought at least it would look really cool. Unfortunately it turned out to be too big for their prototyping process.

So, my last ditch desperate attempt at getting an enclosure was to rely on myself and my skills to make one... bad.... BAD idea....

I got a 45° router bit, my dad's old router, some MDF, a workbench and some clamps and got started. I wanted to make a seamless box (nice ambition for a first attempt eh?) so I cut out pieces for the sides and the top with 45° joins:

But I didn't have any 90° clamps so I couldn't join any of it together. I decided to give the faceplate a try. I cut out one hole as a template. The plan was to do a full row and just use a router to get nice and even holes using the template. So I drilled out one, cleaned it up a bit and started the face:

Somehow even using a template every hole came out different & I was really out of time because I had to clean this mess up:

Oh well, Lilly will just have to use the patent-pending tea-towel enclosure until MachineCollective starts taking orders again.

Because my Legome dream is dead, I think it's much more appropriate to rename it to Ghettome.

Can't get mlr working...

2008-10-31T04:13:00.001-07:00

Hey, I can't seem to get mlr working with my Arduinome & I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm following all the readme's and instructions but it never seems to kick off and respond to me hitting the 2nd button down (I tried all the buttons just in case).

I followed the instructions from http://wiki.monome.org/view/InstallationXp to install (I've got quicktime installed too).

Here's what Arduinome Serial looks like (I had to type "mlr" manually into the Address Prefix Pattern - I couldn't find any /sys/prefix button on mlr like on the simpler newer apps):

And here's what mlr looks like (dac is up, volume is up, wavs are loaded, tap is blinking):

It should - according to the docs - kick off when I press the leftmost button on the second row down on the monome - but no joy, nothing happens, nothing lights up and I can't hear anything.

Max does say "can't find plug-in, using default" in the main window whatever that means? Also the docs say "max/msp must have the OSC objects installed" so I should find out what they are...

Anyone have the same problem? I'm guessing it's got something to do with it being an Arduinome and not a monome - maybe the device id should be m40h-001 instead of a40h-001 for mlr to work??? Anyone any ideas? Please help!!

I've got a post on the forum here so hopefully I can get started soon :)

Update: thanks to guys on the forum (soundcyst & edison) I got mlr and 64beat working - I had to put "/box" into the prefix address on ArduinomeSerial. Version 2.27 of mlr has a /sys/prefix button though, it can be found here. These apps are great fun to play with!

Daedelus gig was awesome!

2008-10-29T15:44:00.001-07:00

The Daedelus gig in Limerick was brilliant - that guy is amazing! I brought a few friends along who hadn't heard his stuff before and they really enjoyed it. I wish I had a picture of it here to show ye...

I got a chance to chat with Daedelus (Alfred) for a bit too and told him all about my Arduinome. Somehow (a few drinks perhaps) I ended up challenging him to a battle next time he comes to Ireland. Also, somehow (also a few more drinks perhaps) I told him how badly he was going to lose and he would cry all the way back to LA using his sideburns to dry his eyes :D

Somehow (too many drinks) he burned me for being a David Hasselhoff fan - I'm not!! How did that happen?!? Ah it was all in good craic.

So I'd better get started training up for this battle... I need to have the skills to pay the bills (there are a lot after this project)... I think mlr is the main app for mixing and I've tried to get it running a few times but no joy. Unlike the simpler test apps, mlr doesn't seem to have any /sys/prefix button so I tried setting the Address Prefix Path to "/mlr" manually, no joy. I'll post to the forums and hopefully someone out there knows what the deal is.

To pretty up the post, here's a picture or 2 of maxlife in action:

Mirrored

2008-10-29T15:22:00.001-07:00

All the bad things I was saying about why you shouldn't follow my wiring show up here, basically my Arduinome ended up mirrored - nerdscroll showed this up best (that's supposed to be a J):

To remedy I decided to flip the connector on the Arduinome shield as this would save me loads of rewiring on the SparkFun boards. Bad, BAD idea. Nope I hadn't been abusing the solder fumes lately... Here's how taking the pin headers out resulted:

Here's how cleaning the holes out resulted:

So I had to wire up a new shield, what a waste - I really should have just done the rewire on the SparkFun boards. Now my set up is nothing as neat as it was before:

Under-side of Arduinome shield:

What a mess... at least it's not mirrored any more:

If there is anyone reading these out there I hope they realise (as I just have) that how-to's written by total amateurs (me) shouldn't be followed! :) you have been warned!

Max/MSP Patches

2008-10-29T14:54:00.001-07:00

Apparently you can use all sorts of apps to communicate with your Arduinome - like ChucK or Processing but I'm going to stick to Max/MSP for now, it seems to be the most commonly used.

Plug in your Arduinome, fire up ArduinomeSerial and get Max Runtime going. Click File->Open in Max Runtime and open the monome_test.mxb that you downloaded earlier (in the last post). You should see something like this:

Click the "/sys/prefix /test" button (highlighted in red on top above) - this seems to set up the Arduinome to work with this patch - Arduinome Serial should show "/test" in the Address Pattern Prefix. Now when you press buttons you should see them light up. If you select toggle in the pairing (also in red above) - you can now draw by pressing buttons on your Arduinome!! Here's a space invader I did:

I did some other images too - when I tried to do a self-portrait I just couldn't get my ear right. It was maddeningly frustrating. Instead of doing a Van Gogh on it and cutting off my ear, I've ordered another set of Sparkfun buttons and will attach them to the side of my head when they arrive.

Some other patches I found that worked so far were:

monome_midi_press_64 - play some piano
monome_midi_64 - more piano
skr - really sounds like Daphne Oram
maxlife - Conway's Game of Life
nerdscroll - scroll text (IN CAPS) across monome

Generally they all work by clicking a /sys/prefix button first.

Nerdscroll highlighted a problem for me that would cause me to muck up everything...

Hooked up

2008-10-29T14:20:00.001-07:00

For a bit of stability, I got a few cable ties and some hot glue and stuck my 4 boards together - I'm probably going to regret it later when I try to screw it to an enclosure of some sort - so stay tuned for more disappointment!!

The next stage I did was to add the DIL sockets - note that I don't recommend this way - go with someone else's directions - I'm just telling it how it is yo.

Now it looks all neat (these are the pre-fix photos):

To hook it all up to your computer you need the following at a minimum (mostly gotten from Julien's site):

... uhh I'll edit this if I'm forgetting anything ... download the right ones for your O/S (I'm on Vista - not my choice!!!) and unzip/install all of the above.

With your Arduinome plugged into the USB, run the Arduino programming environment. Load up the Arduinome Firmware you downloaded earlier and and upload this to the board (icon in red on top). It might complain that it's not the right port - usually it's the last COMXX port but try the others until the upload works.

Run MProg. Click Device->Scan. If your Arduinome is hooked up ok, you should see:

Number Of Blank Devices = 0  
Number Of Programmed Devices = 1

in the status window (if not plug the USB out & in, wait a while then try again). Click on Tools->Read and Parse, check the "Use Fixed Serial Number" and enter something like "a40h-001" (you could change the number on the right if you wished). Click File-Save As... then click on the flash icon. If it goes well, you should see "Programmed Serial Number..." in the status window.

Close MProg, and reconnect your Arduinome. Run ArduinomeSerial and it should detect your Aruinome:

At some point lights flash across the board - cool it works!!!

I was ecstatic when I saw the lights go up (not too happy about the red line because I thought I only hooked up blue) but couldn't play with it as Daedelus happened to be playing later (in the Trinity Rooms Limerick of all places) so I had to go see him play! Later!

Wired - a better way

2008-10-29T13:09:00.001-07:00

Part of my decision to take a shortcut was based on an observation with the ribbon cable - if I used ribbon cable I could connect the DIL socket directly to the Arduinome shield and dodge having to do these solders & connections on the breakout board:

However, using the IDE cable turned out to be a lot of work. I learned about something called the pitch of cable. When I read it first I thought the pitch was the angle it made with the PCB, but I've since found out that it's the spacing between wires on a cable. The IDE cable has 1.27mm pitch so I had to split the individual wires on the cable to fit the holes on the PCB. A better option would be to use 2.5mm pitch wire, that comes pre-stripped and everything! You can find examples of these here at RapidOnline (UK).

Once you wire up the boards in the same way as I did previously (or follow Nomeist's diagram - it's clearer), wire them up to the breakout board following Nomeist's diagram because the order they go in is important. Because I directly connected the DIL sockets to the cable I couldn't change the ordering of the wires & my monome ended up reversed (more on that later). I *think* it would be possible to change the PCB shield to allow the reversal and make it simpler.

Then solder in a couple of DIL sockets (or pin-headers like I did - thanks to my local Maplin out of stock) to the breakout and hook up with a standard IDE/DIL cable to the main shield.

Next - plugging it in!!

Wired - how not to do it

2008-10-29T12:51:00.001-07:00

The initial wiring to breadboard I did with the solid core before I got my shield looked so messy & would break easily if it moved too much. Instead I decided to get some IDE ribbon just like the kind you might find in your housemate's desktop computer when he's not looking.

This title is called "how not to do it" because I'm in a rush and made some shortcuts which caused a big mess. In the next blog I'll write about a better way.

It took a couple of goes to get the stripping (taking the plastic off the end) right, the first few do-them-all-at-once attempts failed miserably:

What I found worked well, was to make a small cut at the end of the cable for however many wires you need (usually 4), then pull this apart from the rest of the cable (cutting all the way I often missed and cut into the wire). Then I scored 1 cm from the end lightly, bent it back, then scored the other side - try not to cut into the wire itself. I found my teeth were the best wire-strippers once the initial cut was made - try not to actually eat the wire.

Next 'tin' the strands from each wire. Twist the strands of each individual wire so they are tight, then apply a small bit of solder with the iron along the twisted strands. This makes it much easier to solder to the PCB later and stop strands from touching the other wires.

Nomeist has a good diagram on how the wires should be soldered to the boards. I think if I were to do this project over again, I would look into getting a proper 8x8 board with all these wirings already done on the PCB - it's a really fiddly job. Meeker is in the process of making one (but for single colour non-RGB LEDs). I thought initially I'll end up with an RGB Arduinome, but retrospectively the single colour one would have been perfect for my needs.

You can see how I wired up the boards from the next few diagrams. I thought I was doing ok and would save on wiring & connectors (my local Maplin only had 2 DIL 16 connectors & messed up my reorder). It turned out my monome ended up mirrored & it was a lot of work to get it back again.

You can learn from another one of my mistakes now - (if only I learned from my own mistakes):

When you solder the wire to the PCB you should solder the other side (the side shown in the picture above). I don't know why I decided to solder the same side as the wire was on - perhaps my own stupidity, perhaps added stupidity from inhaling a load of burning wire plastic, at any rate it took a lot of stupidity.

Next is how I would imagine someone with some brains would do this... First though, I've to help my housemate with his computer - it won't boot for some strange reason..........

Shields up!

2008-10-29T12:11:00.001-07:00

... what a dorky blog title - sorry! :)

I'm writing all this from the future (no still no hoverboards), I got my shield last week and did a load of work on it but haven't blogged about anything since so this is written in retrospect. Anyways, I got my shield:

And started to solder it all up with my new temperature controlled soldering iron. It was so worth it to get, I just dial in the temperature I want and don't have to worry about it overheating anymore. Because I can solder and solder without having to take a break for the iron to cool down, the only worry left is having too much fun hallucinating from the solder fumes. First I put on the chip seats (with the dimple in the right place).

Then the pin headers:

Then the resistor network... shit, it's the wrong size so I just made like a undertaker and cut the leg off so it fits.

Next I put in the 22k resistor (didn't have a 20k) and the capacitors. For mine the cathode (or negative) was the leg with a dot printed above it on the capacitor. The bigger capacitor had a minus sign and a shorter leg to indicate the cathode.

This was all made really really simple with the temperature controlled soldering iron. Now it fits neatly on the Arduino:

I'm dreading the next stage, wiring up...

Bits missing

2008-10-11T08:23:00.001-07:00

I had a go at wiring it all up according to Julien Bayle's schematic here, but quickly found out there were a couple of parts missing from his shopping list - like the RN1 in the top left whatever that is. Also it was going to become really messy really quickly (this is just one board wired up):

I did a bit of googling around around and found a few people (nomeist, dovemouse, bricktable) had gotten an Arduinome shield made up (sometimes called an unsped shield). It's another PCB that sits neatly on top of the Arduino and sets it up to act more like a monome using the same components as Julien Bayle (I guess). I think it's kinda cool that the monome people (Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain) let people discuss a clone on their site, they've got a topic in the documentation with some handy links. Here's a pic of the shield in place from someone who's also using the kitchen table as a worktop:

On the monome forums I found out that I had just missed a group buy (it's much less expensive per PCB if they manufacture more of them). I've asked if there's anyone interested in another group buy, so will have to wait and see what happens... dovemouse's blog has a good parts list (UK based).

Testing

2008-10-10T14:54:00.001-07:00

I hear ya: "Sure, when I get my monome working I'll become a world famous musician with groupies all around the world and enough cash-money to shake a large stick at - but when will I ever get to do the bad-ass cool sh!t like testing my PCB board???" Right now!! "AWESOME!"

To test that the LEDs are all ok, I made a really simple light circuit. I have 3 volts going through a resistor (50 Ohms (green black black) at least if using 3 volts - I used 1k Ohms (brown black red) so the LED brightness wouldn't mess up the pictures), then the positive wire (on the right) connects to one of the other LED legs & you get red, green or blue.

To test the board that was just soldered, just bring the negative line (the line that the LED cathode was in) to the LED grounds on the PCB board. These are marked LED-GND1 through to LED-GND4 on the underside - I didn't have to solder these in place, they worked ok for me just held there.

Now bring the positive line to the contact marked RED1 and row 1 should all light up red! Keep testing for the other colours and on the other rows too.

Any rows or LEDs not lighting up? Make sure the cathode is in the right place and the solder joints are making decent contact.

Next you can test the diodes & switches. There are tiny little holes you can do this test from but I found it easier when I snipped all the diode legs, put the button pad on and put the board upside-down.

Using your multimeter set to 2000 Ohms resistance (or the diode tester if you have a model with the diode symbol on it (looks like ->| an arrow against a line)), connect red to SWITCH4 and black to SWT-GND4. You should initially get a 1 readout (meaning no current is getting through). If you push down (so the button is being pressed) the readout should change (mine went to 700ish) meaning when the button makes contact current passed through.

Repeat this for all the other buttons by moving the red to SWITCH3 and testing the button second down from the left and so on. When you get to the bottom, move the black to the next ground SWT-GND3 and move the red back up to SWITCH4.

Is the whole thing broken? Does nothing work? About to throw it all away and set fire to my blog? WAIT!!! All is not lost, you've made your first instrument, the pluckome, possibly inspired by this rainbow episode. Just pluck on any legs you haven't clipped yet - now go and impress your friends!!

Soldering

2008-10-10T14:37:00.001-07:00

This might seem over-the-top basic to a lot of electronics-able people out there but it took a little working out for me because I'm an eejit so just in case it's helpful to others, here's the solder job.

I usually like to dry fit everything first then do the soldering in one go. There's a few ways the RGB LED can go into the PCB, the right way is facing up (doesn't make sense to illuminate the inside of your monome - although it would be more minimal) and with the cathode or ground of the RGB LED connected to ground. The picture below shows how they should go in. The longest leg goes into the second hole over if the board's oriented so you can read the text the right way up. On the underside the longest leg should go back to GND (ground) the circuit is highlighted in the picture on the right.

Definitely not like this:

You need a small bit of force to push the LED in place (you need a lot more if you do it the wrong way). There are little ridges on the LED legs which will sort of slide into place when it's in properly. The LEDs shouldn't fall out if you turn the board over. You can put the button-pads over the LEDs and push each of them to make sure none of the LEDs are sticking up too much.

The diodes then go in on the underside of the board (the opposite side to the LEDs) so the top side of the board is nice and flush for the button pad. I bent the diode first (see the pic), slid it in then bent the legs to hold it in place. It's really important to ensure they are orientated the correct way (the stripe has to match the stripe on the PCB).

Next the solder - the PCB holes are tiny and really close so it's difficult to get the solder to connect to just one of the little buggers. If you're totally new to soldering, it'd make sense to practice on a cheaper project first. A really precise soldering iron helps and one that's temperature controlled would be really handy as well. I found a de-solder pump really good for fixing mistakes.

Some basic tips:

Apply heat to the part you're soldering, not the solder itself - otherwise you end up trying to drip the solder in place
Don't apply too much solder - it should connect all around the hole with a little raised area sticking to the leg
Use a damp sponge to clean the iron tip when it gets clogged
Don't leave the iron on too long - the solder will boil and spit

I never really knew what the difference between a cheap soldering iron and a temperature controlled one was, I just presumed it was a pro thing until I saw a bit of solder boil on contact with the iron and spit everywhere. A sensible reaction would be to close your eyes or look away, I, however, widened my eyes in surprise.

So if you have a temperature controlled soldering iron or you don't have inappropriate reactions to dangerous scenarios - read on! Otherwise, I feel your pain.

If you're confident enough in your work, snip all the legs - if not give it a quick test first (next post). Personally I find it easier to fix something if the legs aren't snipped.

Shopping 0.1

2008-10-10T14:32:00.001-07:00

I've called this 0.1 because I'm sure there'll be a ton more trips to the electronics shop before I'm done. As I'm by no means an expert, I started out with a list form Julien Bayle's site - but couldn't get some of the components at the links he suggested, so found other sources (I'm in Ireland by the way):

1 Arduino board 1 x $34.95 from Sparkfun (Julien's supplier link only deliver to France unfortunately)
4 Sparkfun breakout PCB 4 x $9.95 from Sparkfun
4 Sparkfun buttons pads 4 x $9.95 from Sparkfun
4 Sparkfun buttons bezel 4 x $9.95 from Sparkfun (I didn't bother with the bezels myself)
64 RGB LEDs common cathode 64 x $1.95 from Sparkfun
64 Diodes Small Signal (1N4148) 64 x $0.15 from Sparkfun
1 MAX7221 (LED Driver) 1 x FREE!! free samples from Maxim-IC
1 74HC164 (8-Bit Serial-In, Parallel-Out Shift Register) 1 x €1.60 from CPC (Farnell had a minimum order limit)
1 74HC165 (8-Bit Parallel-In, Serial-Out Shift Register) 1 x €1.64 from CPC

If anyone reading this has found better sources post them & I'll update the list - thanks!

You'll also need some basic soldering stuff (easy enough to pick up in any electronics place):

Soldering iron
Solder
Multimeter
Breadboard
De-solder pump
Variable power supply
Resistors - a variety pack will do for now
Jump wires

Monome Clone

2008-10-10T14:31:00.001-07:00

Hi, I'm a total electronics amateur but I thought I'd give making a monome clone a bash. I have always wanted to get back into playing music, but didn't know where to start... It would cost millions to get my music collection on vinyl and start mixing, I tried out a few free mp3 mixers and didn't like them much. A friend showed me Reason and it's fantastic so far, but I was on the lookout for a physical device that would make making music easy and fun... then I saw the monome...

I've wanted a monome ever since I saw Daedelus play, but the guys that make them are inundated with orders. They're not cheap but 100s of them sell out within 24 hours of being available!! They're not even taking any more orders. So, part in desperation and part in persuasion from my Dad, I decided to try to make a clone. Besides, it should be fun (if I don't solder my fingers together or something like that).

The monome (pronounced mon-ohm) is a really cool, minimal, grid of back-lit buttons which can be hooked up with software to play samples & make music. I think it's best shown off with a little demo (I think this might even be Daedelus himself) - it's best at about 1:11 in:

There are a good few others out there making clones too so I'm not doing anything original. They're posting all their progress too, but as I'm a total amateur I can't guess some of the steps they skip. I figure I can have a go at following their instructions and post my progress step-by-step here and it might help others like me.