#21

Were there additional runs of the 2012 256 beyond the initial 50? How many varibright 256 grids are out there? Sorry for the tangent, but I’m eager to try this. I guess I’ll find out which parts work with a 128. Thanks for sharing!

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#22

@kza & @kali_yuga tx guys!

@jasonw22 I know there aren’t that many 256 varibrights out there. I initially created this for my own instrument and performance practice but thought it could be interesting to other monomers, so I’m sharing it. Making it available for nonvaribrights is on my list, then smaller grids. For now, most ‘control’ modules will work on smaller grids (the dynamic faders won’t). Some visualisation modules will work too: glitch, hfreeze, vfreeze, loop, pulsegrid, snake, stutter and VU meter … perhaps not optimal but they’ll work.

Best,

ithkaa

2 Likes
#23

Thanks! It’s helpful to know where to start.

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#24

I found this thread and it’s a very compelling reason to get a 256 grid. I’ve been trying to make sense of the kits docs since there’s so much stuff there. I feel confident enough to at the least get an acrylic prototype of a 256 enclosure built with some time and a laser cutter. There is a plate drawing of it in the mk github repo.

But…the repo has eagle files for PCBs but I don’t know enough about Eagle (and it’s not installed on my computer right now) to determine if there’s a bill of materials. Microcontroller tech has changed a lot in the last 8 years since these documents were published.

@tehn would you think given the contents of the mk repo and a bill of materials it would be possible to make a DIY varibright 256 in 2019?

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#25

@jedgar and @okyeron may have some Trellis-inspired ideas here…

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#26

i would generally not recommend it as the driver circuitry is not great compared to the newest editions. (the VB is flickery on these old kits).

more importantly: i don’t have keypads for that old kit-size.

it may be time to think about a kit/DIY grid again… though there is simply so much going on at once.

#27

I’ve been trying to get a panel made for my DIY varibright grid before doing a post about it, but maybe i should get on that. (my setup is a 128)

Unfortunately my current design can’t do a varibright 256 (not enough led driver chip addresses). (Edit - holy crap I just found an led driver chip that supports up to 215 addresses! How about a 1024 grid! LOL)

In theory the new adafruit neo-trellis boards could do a 256 grid (and I could adapt my teensy-monome code back to the trellis hardware). If anyone wants to send me some neo-trellis boards I would be happy to prototype and test that out. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#28

these?

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#29

That and also this controller board (which integrates a microcontroller and other stuff):

What I’m curious about and maybe @jedgar has some insight from working with this - Can you expand the M4 board with multiple extra neotrellis boards? It looks like you can.

So an M4 + 6 more neotrellis boards = a 128 grid.

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#30

Yes, you could extend one by soldering multiple NeoTrellis boards together with the edge connection pads. I haven’t tried this yet, and we don’t yet have any documentation. As soon as I have a chance to test it I’ll post here about it.
UPDATE: @okyeron someone just got Trellis M4 working with two additional NeoTrellis boards for a 64 button grid: https://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=146778

2 Likes
#31

Collin Cunningham just made a nice Live launcher project with a Trellis M4 https://learn.adafruit.com/neotrellis-live-launcher/overview