xmacex
1894
I have these antishadows too, part of the norns æsthetic innit?
PS looks great on the white screen 
Yeah, those are just a thing OLED displays do. IIRC it’s something to do with a single row using a fixed amount of power distributed evenly across all the lit pixels in that row, so the more pixels in a row are lit the dimmer each pixel is.
People on the Elektron forums were flipping out about it when the Octatrack MKII came out.
3 Likes
zebra
1896
basically, no. the HDMI output is disabled by default and framebuffer 0 is directed to the OLED. to change this i think you would need to roll your own kernel…
(for example, to roll back these overlay changes: include cmdline.txt and config.txt for norns and shield · monome/linux@6201e87 · GitHub - but caveat here, i’m not really familiar with this area…)
… and edit /boot/config.txt locally.
for the development team, supporting other displays is not a priority or even desirable. we want to continue develop a self contained instrument and maintain parity of experience between shield and factory users. so for example we design everything for a 128x64px, 16-level monochrome display surface. working with that graphical framework on a large screen is a little weird.
3 Likes
I was talking about composite not HDMI but I’m sure it applies either way. Just wanted to make sure, since other displays I’ve used on the GPIO header in the past were simple to reroute to the composite or HDMI output. 512x256 would be a pretty reasonable resolution for composite video and would also open up a lot of possibilities for using it to generate visuals also, but it’s kind of niche so I’m not surprised it isn’t available.
1 Like
zebra
1898
Oh right, sorry missed that. I’m afraid I know nothing about the raspi composite output. But you can easily give it a shot with config.txt. it may be that the composite video stuff is enabled in the normal/shield kernel (iirc there were specific reasons to disable HDMI to expedite the screen working on shield.). @ngwese or @simonvanderveldt might know.
. I
Thanks, no worries. A Norns Watchman is one of those things that’s impractical and pointless but I still want to make one if it’s not too much hassle.
Plus I needed to get a panel mount, switching RCA jack for another project recently and that’s an obscure enough part my only good option was to get a bag of 25 of them NOS, so if I could get this working I could also easily add an RCA composite output that was normalled to the internal CRT but would also let me patch it into an analog video mixer or synth and use it for visuals, too.
Atarity
1900
I can confirm: bought CS4270 from this seller and it working fine. By the way: this is refurbished IC. That means it was de-soldered from old equipment. Seller warn me about it by chat.
2 Likes
Hi. I’m new here and very curious about the shields. I have just signed up here to learn more.
I could go the DIY route and order a bare PCB and the parts, but would have to solder in all the smd components, which seems pretty hard (have lots of experience with regular soldering, but no experience with SMD soldering).
Has anyone made their own shield from a bare PCB? Any tips/tricks/experiences you want to share?
And where can I find a list of exact components (screens, resistors/chips etc)?
If someone has already done this before, a mouser list (or the like) would be great!
Thanks:)
welcome here! 
i‘ve done the diy shield a few weeks back, and really enjoyed putting it all together. i have - like you - loads of soldering experience but never actually soldered smd, so i teamed up with a friend who has done things like this before and it went really well. everything worked fine from the start, but i have to say that my friend really has the right equipment and has done smd a lot in the past. i got to solder some parts of it too, but i couldn’t have done it all by myself.
regarding parts - if you scroll all the way up in this thread @tehn put links up for BOM (a site that lists all the parts you need with links to the suppliers) and everything else you need to know for your build.
maybe you have a more experienced friend too that can help you with soldering or you just give it a shot, there are so many great people on here that will help you wherever they can.
1 Like
I did a fair amount of SMD in the last year and depending on the actual size of the parts (so none of those grain-of-salt tiny things that you pretty much have to bake) it’s actually pretty simple to do with the same solder wire and iron you use for regular through-hole. I’ve done a Kijimi, a couple Eurorack modules, and the SMD parts of a Lyra 8 and after the first dozen or so components in the first project it got to where it was a lot faster and no more difficult than through hole. I still prefer through hole for easier reparability but SMD is (mostly) not an issue anymore. Only special tools needed were a good lamp, tweezers and a flux pen. I got a magnifier but most of the time it turned out to be easier to work without it.
If you have a lot of soldering experience, turns out it’s not as hard to do SMD as it looks.
2 Likes
Are there any updates regarding open-sourcing of the new version of the PCB?
I understand that monome might choose not to, but just wanted to know if there are any intentions of doing so before I order some PCBs
1 Like
SMD isn’t so bad. I’ve been doing Euro projects with 0603-pitch passives and SOIC chips for a few years, and actually prefer it to through-hole, now.
I found with previous TH projects, a lot of time was wasted turning the boards over repeatedly, and you don’t have to do that with surface-mount.
I’d take issue with @LagoonCity’s comment re. repairability - if you invest in a hot-air rework station, I’ve found it’s much easier to rework SMD than TH components.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve trashed a pad or ripped off a trace attempting to remove and replace a through-hole component, and that rarely happens to me with SMD, hot air and plenty of flux.
I do understand the jump from TH to SMD can be intimidating. I felt the same way myself, after several years of exclusively through-hole projects.
I found someone to show my the basics, and haven’t looked back, though.
3 Likes
This guide includes fixes for most of the common build issues / all the pro-tips from the cats in this thread.
Feel free to shoot me a DM with any specific questions. Happy to help.
Thanks a lot everyone!
Anywhere to find a complete list of things to use? And what is the average price for a complete parts list? (Minus pcb).
Will check out the link posted in a post above.
Thanks!
This discussion might be slowly convincing me to attempt to DIY norns instead of saving up for one :S
2 Likes
I feel the opposite way about repairability, I’ve done a lot more through hole repair than SMD but I’ve lost about 50% of the SMD pads I’ve desoldered, but only 5 or 6 through hole pads ever (and those were on boards that have really easy to lift pads - the MPC2000xl, a couple pads on an Alpes Matrix 1000 programmer that were my fault for working too fast when I was swapping out the stock pots for nicer ones, and a Realistic MG-1 that doesn’t count because it was my first soldering project, with a $10 Radio Shack iron). I think through hole is way more forgiving, but I also never bother with the cheap hot air station I have, because I don’t have space to keep it permanently set up. I also almost never bother with flux when I work with through hole - the rosin in the solder is usually enough.
But for building, SMD resistors and caps are generally a lot faster than their through-hole counterparts since I got a feel for it; ICs are also quite a bit faster with SMD most of the time but I like to have them socketed so I still prefer through hole.
I’m leaning toward building a DIY Zynthian box and dual-booting Norns on it when that gets fully worked out (if it hasn’t been already). I’ve already got everything but a display, although after looking at the 7" touchscreen options I’d probably end up getting the official display and I/O boards and case, just because the form factor is nice. I’ve got a HIFIberry DAC+ADC and a Pi 4 already.
Not going to happen for a few months though, right now all my spare income has to get set aside so I can afford to get a full set of new production Space Echo heads when the next round of them hits market soon. Should be at least 2/3 of the way there by the end of next week.
2 Likes
Hmm yeah. Getting slowly convinced as well. I have a good soldering station. But I guess I need the thinnest tip for it? Along with the thinnest soldering tin? Never used flux before, but I guess it’s needed with smd?
Counterintuitively I’ve found that my regular conical tip is better for SMD than the super pointy one I got for that… the point of the very fine tip tends not to heat up as well.
And i just use normal solder wire. Yes flux is definitely a good idea.
Chisel tips all the way. A 1.2mm tip is generally what I use for (imperial) 0603 and 0402 soldering, but a 1.8mm tip is great too. The benefit of a chisel tip is twofold; you get an increased contact area between the tip and the pad/component for better heat transfer; you can use the flat tip as a perpendicular barrier to push the part against when tacking a component down.
Actually, here’s a short video I made for my friend showing how to solder resistors. The flux application at the end is entirely unnecessary, but shows how you would use it to get nice shiny joints. The solder is 0.38mm.
1 Like
Ok so you are saying that flux isn’t needed, and is mostly just a visual thing?
