#58

I tried to convert the .dxf-file to pdf but I could not get it to work. Does anyone have a pdf-version? I want to print it and use it as a template to make the panels in wood (not laser cut). Thanks!

#59

So I’ve built my Bleached but flashing the firmware gives me a “Download error” in the “Teensy window”. Anyone with experience?

#60

bleached_top-and-bottom.pdf (793.5 KB)
here ya go

1 Like
#61

Thank you @alley_cam! On m y issue above, looks like it had to do with a USB hub. Connected the Teensy directly to my computer and it worked like a charm!

1 Like
#62

Back again. All of a sudden my bleached isn’t responding in “learning” on Norns. It works fine in Ableton and when connectiong another midi controller to Norns it learns the CC without problems. Anyone had similar issues?
Edit: It seems to be working again. Have no idea what caused this. Tried different USB cables and even the modified firmware with 2x6 controllers. If I can find what made this behaviour I’ll report back.

Edit: More issues, if someone could check their bleached it would be great. When playing with Arcalogogies with bleached attached play / pause on K2 freezes up Norns. If i reboot and disconnect bleached, do the same, it works fine. I could have made a bad job of soldering it together of course.

#63

i noticed this post on the other thread

its of course possible that there is some assembly issue. but i also took the time to check the bleached firmware:

that’s a very hot loop. the BOM specifies a teensy 3.2, which is a 96MHz part. this firmware tells it to use every single CPU cycle available to read the ADC, perform a comparison, and blast out a MIDI essage. the result is going to be an ungodly amount of USB traffic, a correspondingly enormous number of lua callbacks on norns, and also a maximally high current draw. (i do realize that it is filtering on a comparison, and further is limiting the resolution, but still - the read itself is gonna be happening something like a million times a second.)

i’d strongly recommend trying a call to delayMicroseconds() in the main loop. to determine an appropriate amount of delay, i’d first check and buffer some values of elapsedMicros to see how much time is spent doing work. (alternatively, move everything out of the main loop and into a Timer.) i wouldn’t think there would be any benefit in sending MIDI messages at more than 1khz. (even that would be pretty extreme; i’d probably go for 5ms or 10ms polling and call it a day.)

5 Likes
#64

cool thanks for that, that probably explains some dropouts i’ve been noticing as well

this was a v lazy firmware drop in from the internet - i can find some time to fix that and clean things up a little more in general

anyone more familiar with arduino/teensy stuff can feel free to take a shot at it in the mean time : )

2 Likes
#65

Thanks, I tried to include delayMicroseconds(5000) and 10000 in the loop you pointed to but the behaviour is still there. If anyone else could try this combo, bleached + Arcologies and see if they get the same freeze it would be great. That could help me figure out if it’s my hardware (bleached) or maybe Arcologies or something completely different.

#66

I have some time to poke around this morning. I’ll try adding a few ms of delayMicroseconds() to the main loop and report back.

#67

I just tried this with no success (see above).

I commented out the midi port (for bleached) in Arcologies and now it’s working even though bleached is connected. So it should be something with either Arcologies or my bleached. I have used bleached with Less Concepts and it was working great although I had some issues connecting it once. Seems to be working good now though.

1 Like
#68

so i tried moving all the action out of the main loop and putting it on an IntervalTimer (15ms). seems to be working for me, though i’m not sure this is the type of timer @zebra was talking about.

anyway, here’s a gist if you want to try it out.

3 Likes
#69

Great. I’ll try it out later today. Did you get the same freeze as I described when pressing play/pause in Arcologies?

#70

nope, arcologies seemed to be working fine.

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#71

no did not work, getting the same freeze behaviour. i think i need to try resoldering, just hope it’s not the smd that i can’t reach without unsoldering the teensy…

edit: tested bleached on my mac with “midi monitor” and it does not report any strange behaviour. if there was a bad solder it would behave strangely on my mac aswell (i’m guessing). i’ll have to let this rest and report back if i come up with something. thx for trying to help me out @Justmat & @zebra!

edit#2: I found a solution that is probably good to implement in the ‘official’ code for bleached. In the main loop I added

  while (usbMIDI.read()) {
    // read & ignore incoming messages
  }

This filters out incoming midi preventing the freezing loop that happened to me.

2 Likes
#72

LOVE THESE, packed one in my Norns case on vacation and had a blast

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image4032×3024 3.25 MB
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image4032×3024 3.46 MB

13 Likes
#73

love it! did you plan to share .dxf?

#74

Will share for sure! I have a v2 i am working on with some changes.

Idea is to have no mounting screws on top (with the pots mounted to a floating panel) and have an LED light tunnel (same as on teletype)

Pro tip on Ponoko aluminum panels, they are cheap and fast but they arrive more or less raw. Some filing helps smooth things out but they are dirt and fingerprint magnets without a top coat of something like polyurethane.

I haven’t ordered from Front Panel Express but what I have seen they seem to make a more finished panel.

I am tempted to put some elbow grease into finishing these further at home but I don’t want to eat aluminum swarf in my cereal for a month :clown_face:

3 Likes
#75

Oooooh. Good to know. The edges are raw or the surfaces? I thought they offered an anodized surface sp was curious how it would work out.

(Pix look like raw, not-anodized surface)

#76

I can thoroughly recommend the ResponsiveAnalogRead library, which can handle the polling / checking if changed / hysteresis for you in a neat tiny bundle. There’s some examples of it in use inside 16n, although the examples in the library are just fine. It’ll work neatly with Teensy, as well.

4 Likes
#77

Surface is not too bad but definitely rough
Edges are sharp and have a bunch of burrs and some weird cut marks. A file cleans it up fine but I am curious how the stainless steel would turn out from them.

Might just go full Waterworld and order carbon steel for the next project. Embrace the rust.

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image546×546 52.3 KB

2 Likes