#101

I’m thinking about doing a run of built fates with laser cut wood cases if there’s any vague interest in that

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#102

I’d be curious to see what that would entail. A friend of mine might also be up for assist with some pressed metal cases as well. I won’t say for sure, because I’m seeing there is a lot of interest on this board, but it’d be fun to have different materials for cases to easily tell the Norns and the (eventual) Orac 2.0 apart.

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#103

I’m also joining the waitlist! Interested in re-using my pi.hole 3B+ unit for a Fates build

#104

More than vague interest (depending on what the price comes out to be).

#105

I have free access to a laser cutter through my school in the fall so it shouldn’t be much higher than whatever the cost of components comes out to be

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#106

Thats great news about the mouser cart.
Wonder if i can find some spare 15mm from some of the mutable / ornament builds…have to check if they are compatible too.
With the 16n i only had to wait for a few weeks for mouser to re stock the faders, hopefully this will be like it too :slight_smile:

#107

FWIW - the standard O_C encoders are the clicky/detent ones and have a switch (my DIY Braids/uBraids are the same clicky/switch version). You can use the detent ones but it’ll take some tweaking if the encoder overlay. Smooth ones feel a bit nicer to me in this application.

I have a pile of plastic shaft encoders w switch (but not quite as nice as the bourns). I should test these and maybe I can give some away in a pinch.

#108

Interested!..

#109

I can imagine a site like Pusherman watching this thread eagerly.

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#110

I used the 20mm D shaft and they look fine, final check once I’ve got the enclosure.
But even these mouser is only showing 120 pieces, ( after that a 17 week lead time)

Why? Fates will happily run both, and more besides.

In about 3-4 weeks time, I plan to have the software ready such that you will be able to not only run orac but also switch between orac and norms (and others apps!)
Also I will update my fork of norms will allow the 4th encoder to be used as a master volume control
( or perhaps configurable?)

IMHO, I think it’s healthier to rather not think of Fates as a norns clone , rather a norms inspired platform which we can run many different applications , one of which is norms, but we can look to leverage a lot of other really cool rPI software out there.
( eg another example might be modep)

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#111

Honestly, it never really occurred to me to be able to run Orac 2.0 AND the Norns environment at the same time. That sounds… intense! Is this the specific reason RPi 4 and overheating were brought up? Have you been testing with an RPi4 without a fan? I remember there were posts about seeing if the RPi for could be under-clocked to reduce heat (due to lack of space between the Pi and FATES for a fan). In your experience, how does an RPi 3b+ hold up running these two?

To be honest, this idea blows my mind a little bit and I have a whole lot of questions about how the FATES would play with Orac 2.0 as well. So, for now, I’ll leave the hardware based questions above here, and take my software/environment questions to the Orac 2.0 thread.

#112

As I said , you’ll be able to switch - not run both simultaneously- at least that’s my current plan.

Past that, I’ll see where interests and my time lead me.

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#113

Understood. This is fine by me. Seems like a far more manageable use case anyway. Haha

#114

FWIW - in future the norns software is planned to have different backends - like pd for example. So perhaps in theory norns scripts could be a front end to the same pd engines as used by Orac. Or even interoperability?

This is also way out in the future as far as I know. So don’t hold your breath. :stuck_out_tongue:

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#115

Hah! Yeah, I was clearly dreaming big when I went running with that ball! That’s a cool future concept for the Norns environment. But I’ve barely gone more than surface deep (at most!) with most of the available content and work flows already available on this platform, so I’ll probably be busy for a long time to come. Having not had a good way to access Orac yet, I believe I’ll have a whole other world to dive in to!

To that end, was the conversations about Pi4 on FATES more about cutting edge hardware and future proofing the idea? I was figuring for now that if the heat dissipation hadn’t been fully figured out, I’d stick with a 3b+ (Or just is an extra 3b I’ve got laying around?).

#116

just buy 2. one for orac and one for norns!

#117

I’m more and more intrigued by this project, and signed up for a populated PCB (would be fine with a full kit too, but I don’t mind buying stuff from Mouser / may have some of the parts lying around already). I’ve mostly avoided spending too much time reading about the Norns specs in order to keep myself from feeling like I needed to buy one, but it looks to me like Fates’ biggest differences from Norns will be:

  • No internal battery
  • Fewer USB ports
  • One more encoder
  • 3.5mm jacks instead of 1/4"
  • BYO WiFi nub (and RPi too, of course)

Am I missing anything important?

#118

Pretty much this.

The pi4 runs about 10 degrees C hotter than the pi3b+ in testing so far. But… haven’t really been stress testing yet.

FWIW - I believe the pi3b+ is already a touch faster than the CM3 inside the norns hardware, so it’s more than adequate for the job.

A regular pi3b will work, but may require some different settings (one tester had to change JACK buffer settings).

Some yes, some no here.

  • No battery, but there’s a 5v/gnd header if you wanted to attach a different power source
  • There are 4 USB ports on the pi3b+ or pi4, so that’s the same.
  • Extra encoder is optional
  • Audio jacks are 1/8in (so 3.5mm, not 2.5mm) - I use modular patch cables
  • pi3+ and pi4 have WiFi Built-in, so no nub is needed.

Aside from that, Fates is a bit bigger/thicker than norns - as it has to accommodate the pi footprint

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#119

thank you! Even better then. Shows how much I know about RPis. And yeah, 3.5 is what I meant.

#120

but is it decided if these backends can run in parallel?
esp. as currently norns run one patch, so id guess at least initially only one backend?

but there are definitely some interesting interoperability ideas…

I think the main one is… do people want to potentially script (via lua) Orac patches?

from orac’s side, this is completely trivial … as it already has a full OSC implementation, covering not only parameters, but meta data, and even things like loading modules.
(this is how the alternative UIs work e.g. like Push2 controlling )
its designed to run ‘headless’

so perhaps, like norns, users might find it fun to drive orac modules via LUA rather than using a UI / midi,
that way they could right the own UIs or sequencers.
so its something I have considered…

one way to do that, is integrated with norns
but that only works if I can find a way for it to work across multiple platforms.
(Orac is cross platform , and will remain so :wink: )

the other way, is to embed lua into MEC (companion app to Orac) , this means its fully portable, and is very simple to do, and so less dev effort for me - but then I have to think about a Web UI (as id not have maiden)

anyway lots of possibilities… and best discussed on Orac thread.

but just to say, Ive lots of ideas for the future, and obviously Im watching norns developments too.

Ive been running it off a USB battery , which means it has great capacity
… Ive got some very short USB cables which make it pretty tidy , but not as tidy as connecting directly

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