DIY monome compatible grid w/ Adafruit NeoTrellis

[kbra]

I use Teensy 4.0 in mine, works fine. Have a panel-mount micro USB to standard USB breakout cable (I think Adafruit or Sparkfun branded).

Of course, the panel-mount breakout does not fit okyeron’s cool “sandwich” case design, and probably no other super tight case either. As I wasn’t aiming for something as slim as possible, it’s nice to have a larger connector that doesn’t break as easily, and can be swapped instead of Teensy if it does eventually break.

[eigen]

@Microwave

[…]just make sure you test the boards!
[…]
Had one dead pixel on a board[…]

@PaulFe

I made my grid, and 3 out of 8 boards weren’t working and were causing issues.

This!
I also had one board out of 8 that didn’t answer over i2c.
Ordered with mouser, they sent me a replacement unit.

There seems to be some QC issues with those boards.

[jmsiener]

Same. Out of 8 one was bad. Received my replacement board today - all good! One has to love the next day air Mouser gives you when they drop the ball.

[okyeron]

Mouser has always been very good to me with this sort of thing.

QA issues are probably on Adafruit’s side of things though

Fwiw these 2020 leds are a PAIN to get right when assembling - probably just as much with robots doing the work.

[kbra]

“Glad” to hear I’m not the only one having issues (or even one out of two having issues). Was going crazy with those Neotrellis boards for a while.

And thanks to everyone who underlined the importance of testing each board individually before soldering everything together, the process would have been a medium minus pain instead of minor pain otherwise.

[Microwave]

I too followed the build guide and used the teensy 3.2. mostly because I wanted to keep the slim design and wasn’t comfortable enough to modify the case myself.
The fact that it makes it easier to replace in case of breakage is definitely a plus.

[Gerald_Stevens]

You are all going to want to use the FTDIfriend anyway… once I get it working right. Should fit in the Noreyko slim case with minimal changes. It should allow connection to any of the monome eurorack modules… some of which are slated for DIY release in the (near?) future.

[jmsiener]

Last week I put together the neotrellis boards. Everything seemed to be working great and even experimented with the FTDI + teletype - all good on that front. Yeah, there was some head scratching as I considered everything between the FTDI -. Teensy -> neotrellis but it all came together within the hour. Just ordered a case through Ponoko so we’ll see in a month or so how it all shakes out but I’m thoroughly impressed so far.

[wheelersounds]

@okyeron I’m about to order the parts to build one of these, how does one acquire a flexible PCB carrier like you have featured on your github? Is that something one orders? And what is the orange tape you’re using to adhere the teensy to the back of the neotrellis board?
Thanks so much for putting all of this together

[MUNINN]

i just bought the neotrellis and i can’t wait to build it!
i’m in love with this bamboo design https://github.com/mike-kelly/monome-layered-enclosures?fbclid=IwAR2XFSfRRB-KNuJRlBiPuGnL2HhiEn3IfzCFmWAEnJfP3VWFuoXWQ3wGQNk
anybody here that tried it? i got 0 experience in laser cutting but i found a fablab in my city that rents a machine per hour

[okyeron]

The github repo has my laser cutter designs which can be used with bamboo as well. You just need to be mindful of the actual material thickness - the bamboo ones I made had like 3.5+mm thick layers so it worked out pretty close to what I’d done with 3mm acrylic. I’d not gone the full distance to glue the layers together, but that’s not too hard.

[MUNINN]

got it.
so do you recommend 3.5 mm for bamboo or any kind of material?

[okyeron]

Its gonna depend on the particular material you can get. there’s just variance from sheet to sheet, or from supplier to supplier.

I’m used to working with acrylic the most and it’s billed as being 3mm, but can vary from 2.9 to 3.5mm thick - which is just kinda what you get because the casting process can’t give them precisely uniform thickness. This usually only causes issues when making boxes with notches, etc. and you need to calculate the slot size.

[MUNINN]

As soon as i can find somewhere to buy wood i will measure it myself. Thank you for the advice!

[ash]

Hi Jorgen,

Thank you for the great 3d printed case design.

I am trying to make an 8x8 grid.

Would you be able to tell me how I can modify your design for an 8x8?

Ash

[Nu_Gravity]

Adafruit Site

[MUNINN]

i just built a 128 and it worked perfectly on the first time!

just got a question.
i’m trying to run the paletted version from @Gerald_Stevens, just downloaded from his github repo;

as you see, the .ino file is the only one in the folder, so when i try to compile it it gives me error of missing libraries.
so i tried to put all the files in the “neotrellis_monome_teensy_paletted” folder, and arduino ide compiled successfully and i did upload the code on the teensy with no problem.
except that now my norns don’t see my grid anymore!
i reuploaded the normal code on teensy and it now works with no issues.
what could i have done wrong?

[okyeron]

You need all the associated files (.cpp .h) from the original repo in the same dir as the .ino file, … just replace the .ino file with the paletted version.

[MUNINN]

tried and didn’t work! still not seen.
well i saw on line 30 of your script that i can change manually the color so i’m going with that… weird

[okyeron]

Oh… his i2c addressed are probably different. You will need to copy the code from around line 65 from the working sketch and replace that in the neotrellis_monome_teensy_paletted sketch.

Adafruit_NeoTrellis trellis_array[NUM_ROWS / 4][NUM_COLS / 4] = {
  { Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x32), Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x30), Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x2F), Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x2E) }, // top row
  { Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x33), Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x31), Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x3E), Adafruit_NeoTrellis(0x36) } // bottom row
};