Offworld-1: USB power utility

[scrag]

@steveoath I’m also in Sweden and would be interested in taking a board off your hands, too. Maybe you could send both of them to one of us, and we can sort something out from here. Provided that works for everyone?

@accountboy - Jag är Sthlm, var nånstans är du?

[accountboy]

@scrag - Stockholm också!

[steveoath]

Wow, I didn’t realise these are so sought after!!!

I plan on building my own when the boards come. And can send on any spares with the usb sockets (unassembled) as I imagine that I’ll be ordering in bulk anyway.

I have a few people who have shown interest, so I will get back to them when the boards come.

I would suggest, if you are looking to order some I found oshpark really good. Worked out as about £4 posted to the UK. So it may be more economical to go through them as I suspect posting a single board from UK would be >£2.

[xenus_dad]

I put one of these together this evening. There were no shorts or obvious errors with my build…it’s a very simple build. However, when I plugged my Grid into it, and then into my Ansible, it was not recognized. After this, I plugged it directly into my Ansible, which was previously working, with no response. I also plugged it through a Switch to my Teletype. Again, this was previously working but now I get no response.

It is also not recognized by my laptop, though to be fair I had not tried that prior, so it’s not a good test.

In all cases, I get the 4 4 3 2 led flash in the upper left upon powering, but no activity after that.

is it possible I could have caused damage from using Offworld-1?

[tehn]

@xenus_dad

i can’t imagine how any damage could have occurred. did you try a different USB cable? if still not working, e-mail info@monome.org and we’ll set up a repair

[xenus_dad]

Shameful… With a different cable it works fine. I blame the later evening and a bit of whiskey.

Apologies for the noise, and thanks for the response!

[edbkt]

I’ve soldered one of these together in a pretty rushed/average manner and had a relatively large break between when I soldered it and when I was able to test. Tried with multiple cables and power sources with no success. Does anyone have any tips for getting in there with a multimeter to check whether the problem is with my soldering or not?

[tehn]

i’d suggest just fully reheating every solder joint. there aren’t very many of them.

also swap out your USB cables, that might be the problem

[xenus_dad]

Ensure all three cables work individually to connect your grid. I had trouble using a cable grid & Ansible were unhappy with with my Offworld, even for the power connection. Probably user error but still, make sure all three are good.

Can you post pics of your build?

[jlmitch5]

could i plug a keyboard and grid into a usb hub, into offworld-1, into teletype (and power)?

[scanner_darkly]

libavr32 code used by teletype/trilogy/ansible doesn’t support usb hub protocol, so this won’t work unfortunately.

[jlmitch5]

ah, wishful thinking. I actually have offworld-1 mounted in a pretty convenient spot for swapping so not a huge deal

[scanner_darkly]

the cool thing with intellijel case is you can use the usb tile to power the offworld.

[jlmitch5]

o neat!

(tagent) I currently have a surge protector mounted underneath the board which has one of the iphone outlet plug -> usb adapters. I’m planning on updating that to a two usb port version, as I’ve run out of room to power norns as well (and I’m working on an auxillary board with norns/keyboard/grid and nanokontrol faders to use with the modular/pedal system) will share in the standalone instruments thread once I get it all figured out and wired up.

[tehn]

soldered pcbs in stock. https://market.monome.org/products/offworld-1

these no longer include the plexi covers. price lowered.

[adrianf]

Thanks for making these available again. I did the y-splitter thing, but it’s nice to have both options!

[fever606]

Thanks @tehn and @bpcmusic!

[noiserock]

I would love a modded offworld with male usb-c on one end and female Micro USB for power and female standard usb for data on the other end. To be able to plug in external midi controllers to my OP-Z while charging… would this be an easy breadboard build? it’s all about signal routing, am I right?

[infovore]

one problem will be finding any form of usb-c connector that can be easily breadboarded; most are SMD, and the few that are through-hole aren’t breadboard friendly. there are small usb-c “modules” that exist, where someone has broken then out to breadboard/perfboard-size pins. I’d recommend just making a custom board.

[okyeron]

I’m not sure a breadboardable USB-C connector exists. USB A/B connectors are 5 pins, USB-C is 24 pins. There’s also extra circuitry inside USB-C cables (e-marked cables) which needs corresponding components on the host side for compatibility.

You might be better off trying to find a commercial power splitter + adapters.