I was able to find DIY banana jacks on eBay for a decent price and have been making cables from 14 gauge speaker wire. They work well and they’re easy to fix. Additionally I’ve started making 3-way and 4-way cables to really get things talking crazy. Also, if you get some All-Flesh kits from Landscape you can hack them to be banana, which is super fun.

I have a Sidrax but my friends with Tetraxes probably use upwards of 10 cables on their instruments.

Color-coding helps me to keep things clear when I’m improvising so it’s super easy to tell where the patches go. I imagine if you’d rather not keep track of what’s going on (if want to focus on music or if technical stuff gets in the way of your creative process) then one color might be great.

3 Likes

Thanks! I’m impressed at your DIY skillz - I’d probably set something on fire if I was let loose with a soldering iron!

Your thoughts on colour-coded cables says it well - I was trying to find the words earlier but you’ve articulated it way better than I could!

1 Like

The ones I found are actually screw terminals, so there’s no soldering involved! I just make sure not to tug on the cable, just on the jack (good practice anyway). I can look for a link if you want!

1 Like

Umm… Haha, thanks but no thanks! I’m really, really bad at DIY in all shapes and forms! But, anyone who can do it has my deepest admiration! :heart_eyes::star_struck:

1 Like

How would one go about building a rollz paper circuit? I have the idea of adding extra rollz to use with my PB2.

I can manage the soldering but the rest of it is a bit blurry for me. Any help would be welcome?

Print out the paper circuit, Procure components, Fold paper in half, poke components through holes and solder leads together (following the printed trace).

1 Like

I can echo that pasting the paper on tagboard (I used a cereal box) helps with long-term durability. Though there are people who have made circuits on regular paper and then removed it after the circuit was finished.
EDIT: Also, I found it helpful to use a pushpin, as opposed to a sewing needle, to make the holes.

1 Like

my main piece of advice is to be very careful that both sides are lined up. When I made my Lil Siddrassi I didn’t fold and glue it accurately and they were a bit off, which was pretty mind-bending once i poked the holes thru and had to figure out what connected where.

1 Like

great info, I’m not familiar with kiCAD and there have been requests for people without macs to view the paper circuits on windows. Could you explain how you imported the gerbers from Osmond to kiCAD? The issue some people are having is missing solder pads on the reverse side of the Osmond files and hoping your kiCAD solution helps.

I’m curious about this, the process of importing into Osmond and exporting to gerber is not working for me. Most of the solder pads are in the wrong places.

Coolest dad ever.

10 Likes

If you follow the steps I included above, you should be able to import to kiCAD. Just remember since most of these paper circuits are one-sided, and most board houses are expecting at least a two-sided design if you do not include this relevant layer nothing will be routed on the underside of the board. I usually copy layer 1, mask 1, and paste them as layer 2 (.gbl), mask 2 (.gbs)

You can then import the gerber files into kiCAD using gerbview. To work properly you will need to import layer 1, layer 2, mask 1, mask 2, silk 1, silk 2, and aux layer. Once you’ve imported them select export to Pcbnew and follow the output diagram below.

You should see new .kicad pcb file containing all the layers. I have noticed some weirdness importing from Osmond. It has trouble reading some footprints, for example all the through hole pads appear as vias. I haven’t found a work around for this yet. I found if you include the original drill.txt from osmond in the zip when uploading it to seeed/jlcpcb etc. it will route and plate the holes properly

3 Likes

This tick box option was added recently to the Gerber procedure as a member of the Facebook group said it put solder pads on the reverse - it is wrong and does not work.

When I made my PCB’s I never ticked any boxes and the solder pads were all in the correct place. The only issue I had was some PCB’s came back without solder pads on the reverse. The top was OK.

In your case, If the solder pads are in the wrong place then I think the issue is because of ticking the mirror option box when exporting. I will remove that option in my instruction post and make it clear that they are single layer, 1 sided PCB’s and without solder pads on the reverse.

Ok thankyou, that’s very helpful.

Stores at the Mole by Peter Blasser
(don’t know if this is linked before)

9 Likes

thank you for this, the more I dig into it, the more the universe of Peter Blasser seems to expand

1 Like

Thanks, unticking that option worked. In addition I also duplicated the layer1 and mask1 grb files and renamed them to layer2 and mask2 like @dianus recommended. The files look perfect on the jlcpcb gerber preview now with solder pads in correct places and on both sides.

Thanks for sharing your methods. It makes everything a whole lot more accessible.

2 Likes

Heres my paper circuits pcb wooden box - inside is a Dogvoice, 2 x Swoop, 1 x Rando, 4 x Gongs, 1 x AV Dog, 4 x Ultrasound, 6 Roll, 5 Roll, 2 x 4 Roll, 2 x 3 Roll

34 Likes

Its beautiful. I’d love to hear it

3 Likes

unless i’m mistaken
check his instagram page…@mlogger has been building & playing the modules for the past few weeks (sans enclosure)

really wonderful sounds from the circuits

2 Likes