16n Faderbank: build help, dev suggestions

[zoundsabar]

That was an excellent theory, but I looked on both sides of the board, and it appears clean and good, with no stray bits anywhere. I tried the 16n configuration tool in Google Chrome, but it doesn’t see the device. Also, still no LED on the Teensy.

Unsoldering the Teensy could be a pain, I’m not looking forward to trying that.

[jengineer]

Did you ever find a way to resolve this? I bought the same pre-populated Emitum pcb and I seem to be having the same problem. All the solder points look clean, and all the resistors appear to be correct, but my faders go from 4.5V at the top to around 1.5V 3/4 down, and then back to 4.5V at the bottom. And that’s just when they’re doing anything at all! Most of the time they’re completely unresponsive and I have to reboot the Teensy.

[AtoV]

Hi!

First post here! I’m Arthur, I’m the guy who did the redesign of the 16n known as the AtoVproject Rework or Berlin Modular edition.

Clients contacted me and asked me if some modifications could be to the firmware. The request was to add a MIDI Thru function where the midi data sent to the serial MIDI output.

I therefore got to work and implemented that and I pushed a Pull request to the main github. I think that’s a pretty useful function as it allows, for example, to add hardware control to a synth using the 16n while sending notes and clock to this same hardware from your DAW.

I tested it successfully on both 16n with Teensy 3.2 and Teensy LC.

I think it could be nice if that was merge to the master branch.

Let me know! Cheers

[infovore]

ahoy! I am probably the person to deal with that, and have been a bit snowed under with work, so the repo has languished a bit.

That seems like a reasonable request, especially if it’s behind a config option, which we could add to the editor. I’ve dropped some notes in the PR, but am happy to help get it through.

(Also - it’s a nice variant! I would adopt the power filtering going forward forever, tbh…)

[disc0p]

No, I couldn’t figure it out and got sidetracked. I bought cheap sliders and figured they were faulty, but I’m not sure at all what the issue could be or how to troubleshoot it.

[infovore]

I’ve seen a similar issue which I managed to solve elsewhere (@disc0p, @jengineer), on a board which had the wrong opamp chips on it. What are the opamps at the bottom of the board? (That is to say, the eight chips in a row). They should be MCP6004s.

The behaviour you’re describing, however, was similar to what I saw elsewhere, on a board populated with TL074 opamps, and it was a board supplied by Emitum, I believe.

If you’ve got a board with TL074s on: that is never going to work. They are the wrong part, and they’re not compatible. Speak to the people who made it.

[disc0p]

You’re right, they are TL074! Guess I will send Emitum a message and see what they say.

[infovore]

argh, that’s just infuriating, because that’s just straight up the wrong part. hope they can sort you out.

[disc0p]

They gave me a partial refund, hopefully I can swap them out for the right part, otherwise it will be junked I guess.

[infovore]

it is doable, depending on your level of SMD skill. the easiest way to remove the TL074s is to cut them at their legs (which will destroy them for future use, but they are cheap parts. This is a less good option with expensive ICs).

The body will drop free, and then with a soldering iron, you can carefully melt the solder and sweep up all the legs. Then, you can fit new MCP6004s like you’d fit any other SMD IC.

You might also be able to find somebody to assist here.

[Fma]

not sure if this is the correct thread.

Has anyone done any work around getting the 16n to send nrpn’s? None of my searches are proving fruitful. Or barring that Msb/Lsb CC’s? I would love to be able to control some of the odder portions of my Digitone.

[infovore]

It’s probably the best thread we’ve got!

Nobody’s worked on that yet; the whole thing is very much engineered around CCs, and the current way the data is stored in EEPROM is… highly CC-centric.

It’d be relatively easy to fork the 1.3x firmware to investigate MSB/LSB CCs or NRPNs; working out where to put the config in 2.x would take more work, as would updating the editor.

But it’s a reasonable request. I don’t know of anyone who’s implemented this so far, thooguh.

[AtoV]

One “issue” that I see with the NRPN implementation is that the ADC of the teensy is 12bit and NRPNs are 14bit data. I supposed it would be possible to achieve an approximation of that by upscaling the data values. 12bit is quite high resolution already so it shouldn’t be such a problem.

[jasper_ryder]

Hi All,

My 16n Berlin modular edition is not outputting midi properly from the 3.5mm jack. I’m not sure if it is a hardware issue, but can anyone tell me which hardware components on the board I should be looking at? Chips, diodes, resistors? Thanks.

[ldezem]

Can you describe the issue in more detail? At first I didn’t recognize that the midi jack and usb midi values are configured separately in the editor.

[jasper_ryder]

@ldezem

Can you describe the issue in more detail?

Yes. I have been trying to pass midi through from Norns scripts. The only data passed is invalid midi data with a B style dongle. Also no data at all is passed on an A style dongle. Here is some pictures documenting some tests routing midi from Norns to the 16n then out the Midi jack to a laptop.

I have reflashed the firmware and tried multiple A style dongles. Only the B style registers any data so far and it’s invalid.

@ldezem

At first I didn’t recognize that the midi jack and usb midi values are configured separately in the editor.

The USB and TRS tabs in the editor have identical settings currently.

Any opinions are appreciated!

[ldezem]

Thanks for the details. I will have to update to see if I’ll experience similar behavior. Didn’t realize this concerned features added in the 2.1.0 firmware’s release. Unfortunately I don’t have experience with this issue.

[jasper_ryder]

Can anyone point to good TRS stereo jacks for the 16n build please? I’d like to replace the MIDI jack on it to see if that cures what’s ailing it.

@ldezem

Thanks for the details. I will have to update to see if I’ll experience similar behavior.

Give it a whirl and see how it goes, though @AtoV has verified that it is working fine.

[KeLaiFu]

Feels like a dumb question considering the technical level of some of the topics here, but has anyone modded (as in botched) power to LED faders in the 16n? I have built the board with just one fader and it’s working over usb and CV, but before I commit to 15 more sliders, i’d like to know if there’s any technical reason I couldn’t just jimmy a wire from 5v ( via a resistor) to the LED pin on each fader?

[scottmoon]

I snapped off the USB connector on mine also. I’ve been procrastinating about fixing it. I’m going to have to bug a friend with better soldering skills than I have to replace the teensy, Have you got it working with midi yet?