Reviews of restored numbers

[Greg]

Congratulations, Greg!
I've just received my 1st order of PCBs as well. One has already been hand soldered and is up and running. Still developing my code, as well.
Not trying to compete (no ad, just upside down 🤔 pics), just sharing the joy of victory.
After these challenging years, it's certainly a Happy New Year, ain't it?

Yeah, I know. It's not competition, it's just Friday night, time available to post effect. They sent those stickers, so it seemed a good way to indicate the box is full of belas as well. Good looking board! That's exactly what I need to finish learning how to do. Did you "hand solder" those tiny little chips?

[Greg]

Are those quad op amps? Could you give me a number to look up if so?

[TheHermit]

Yeah, I know. It's not competition, it's just Friday night, time available to post effect. They sent those stickers, so it seemed a good way to indicate the box is full of belas as well. Good looking board! That's exactly what I need to finish learning how to do. Did you "hand solder" those tiny little chips?

Thanks Greg. Yes, I'm very pleased with the way they've turned out, considering they are my 1st attempt. Quite a learning curve, all things considered.
But I'm several weeks ahead of a proper reveal, so I'm taking it down, rather than distract from your accomplishments.
Yes, I hand soldered it, using a $100 must have digital microscope. and ordered a batch of 6, with 3 being the minimum from OSH Park. JLCPCB doesn't stock my 6in ADC/8out DAC.
I highly recommend watching Mr SolderFix's SMD soldering series on YT. The others are BS.
Tip: Start with the larger easier 0805 SMDs with only 2 pads, furthest away from the finer pins into get into the zone. You'll soon realize that the movements of your hands automagically scale down to the magnified working environment.
Then, move on to the TL084 DIL packages, with the smaller pins, leaving room to work your fine tip iron, w/o hitting the surrounding resistors & caps. With that under my belt, I tackled the very fine quad package of my most expensive ADC/DAC CODEX IC, tacking down opposite corners to position/hold it precisely in place, like welding. Once that's successful w/o any solder bridges, then work outwards to complete the SMDs. Last, solder the through hole components, connectors and headers.
Unfortunately, there was one (expected) mistake, which only needed a minor mod of cutting a trace and adding a short jumper. So, I'll place another order. In hindsight, I've relocated the through hole trim pots & IH0509S DC-DC split convertor onto the same side as the Teensy. I'll also mount the DB25 on the opposite Teensy side of the PCB for a more compact configuration.
The pic shows my 'dev' model, with the Teensy on headers (underneath the pictured PCB where 'The Hermit's...#@%&* logo is hiding) for easy replacement whenever I kill it.
That also allows access to the GPIOs for the use of motors, solenoids, and RGB inside a lumia projector, as well as 5 traces going to pins on the DB25 for SFX devices, with driver boards inside the remote imaging projector. Things you may want to consider. JS
But, otherwise, everything fits inside the enclosure, like a typical laser DAC.
I designed the PCB with only medium sized 0805 SMDs and chose longer hand solderable pads in Kicad, which makes a big difference. Otherwise, it's like working with grains of sand.
BTW, I mostly learned Kicad from this great Digikey tutorial series. Phil's Lab also goes into detail regarding isolating analog/digital noise.
Tip #1: Order SMDs in larger quantities, to get price breaks and to avoid repetitive expensive shipping charges.
Tip#2: I'm using the highly customizable Reaper DAW, with its own vast # of VST modulators, bells & whistles to send MIDI tracks independently to output busses, where the master controls reside for each whatcha-ma-call-it that controls each projector. One MIDI surface, one DAW, to control multiple projectors, independently or in unison, like Laserium.
Tip#3: As you can see, OSH Park provides the option for a black PCB, with a clear solder mask, which I chose in order to easily follow traces for troubleshooting, cutting, scraping, and modifying. That helps a lot on fixing 1st run mistakes and paid off bigly.
Now that you've seen it, I'm taking my previous post down.
BR
Roj
😎

[TheHermit]

Are those quad op amps? Could you give me a number to look up if so?

Yes, TL084PWR (SOIC 🤷 ) which are being discontinued this year for alternative pin compatible whatcha-ma-giggers or thinga-ma-doodles, which you may as well use instead.
I'll email you my BOM for the op amp circuits, but you'll need to change the Rin and/or Rf resistances to match your 5 V (I presume) DACs.
"Share & enjoy, (share & enjoy...)"
Roj

[ronhip]

You guys are both an inspiration! That's all I have to add.

Ron

[TheHermit]

You guys are both an inspiration! That's all I have to add.
Ron

Thank you Ron.
Your words of encouragement are most appreciated. I've noticed that you have been an excellent shepherd, helping Greg to achieve his goal.

Hope you had a great holiday, happy new year, & BR

Roj

[laserist]

A shipment of belas arrived for the first non prototype clone of the multabela system: the portabela, as promised. This version should have just the 4 belas, the four ILDA projectors, one hopefully pre-populated order in PCB, PSs and laptop, 8 buttons, and available pins for 8 analog ins, not needed for show playback.


System software and catalog development continues. The shows are playing with scripted data modification control, and full signal drop in and replace between markers capabilities, including spiral ramp and PDM. Export a segment to 5 track XYRGB wav is a feature. I can now explore, restore, and / or develop any number in any existing show, and export that number to XYRGB + audio, and then throw that onto the gigging juke system.

Way to go Greg! It's been fun reading about your journey. Thank you!

[Greg]

Here is a one take console performance of turn me on from 1981. I always thought this was a good number to open a show with because of it's simplicity. No joysticks, offsets, chopper, colormod, or graphics. Just a performance entirely on CYGN-A.

video here:
https://youtu.be/G-swbrw2LZ4

[Greg]

Here is The Wait, newly restored and featuring the dynamic offsets popcorn, pong, brownian, and illusion of motion in the breakaway between verses 2 and 3.

video here:
https://youtu.be/ZwFaX7yFE2s

[Greg]

The data for the show which includes Summer Madness has been obtained. The number does indeed direct all four laser channels to use the FXCY image source, though I don't know which FCXY image would be selected. I use star as a default. Also, the data allows the spiral ramp to run which provides the PDM signal. It is trivial to sum the PDM with an image source axis, and patch a knob to manually adjust the PDM gain. The data brings the four channels up one at a time near the beginning, moves them from fixed offsets to centered during the middle of the song, and brings them out one at a time toward the end.

This is not enough information to figure out what made this number so memorable.