#362

I’m using the ControLeo2 as well. Default configuration. It peaks out at 255-260. I have white boards - some are yellowing a bit - must be some hot spots. Haven’t ever seen anything with the purple pcbs.

I also run mine outside in our brutal LA winter. That might cool things faster.

How toasted we talking? Have a pic?

#363

Quick Production Update:

  • Finished the first side of the first board this weekend with SMD. Before you get excited, it has only eight passive components on it. I’m doing the light-n-easy boards first to build up my speed and skills.

This is clearly going to take me a while to get everything built at this pace. I am also limited by the size of the headache I can tolerate from eye strain and fumes (even with a breathing mask and open window). I am preaching patience.

  • Packaged up the PCB and Panel reservations for delivery and sent out notifications to those that reserved. Will be ready to drop them in the mail as soon as I have addresses (email and physical) to ship them to. Quick builders will be able to have a TELEX in their studio soon.

  • @scanner_darkly has thrown in another firmware goodie with adjustable phase offsets (see video in the post above). So awesome. I should get around to a quick review tomorrow and then I’ll update the repository and documentation.

  • Planning to focus on hardware for the rest of the week; then, I’ll be in firmware mode as I’m on the road for the following week for work. I’m hoping to commune with some Fairy Penguins while I’m away; I’ll let you know if my dream comes true.

TELEX HANDY LINKS
Module Descriptions | Ordering Process Details | Open Source Repository

10 Likes
#364

Dude, what? :astonished:

Phillip Island?

Tasmania?

Jealous!

My son and I are planning that exact trip this coming summer.

/offtopic

1 Like
#365

/offtopic

Heading to Sydney for a few days on business. Have a free day at the end of the week. Not enough time to travel.

I hear that they little guys chill at a beach north of the city. Hoping to be able to hang briefly with them. I’ve grown obsessed. Not sure why … maybe it is because they sometimes wear sweaters:

blob.jpg830×553 90 KB

/endofftopic

TELEX HANDY LINKS
Module Descriptions | Ordering Process Details | Open Source Repository

6 Likes
#366

Damn - if you had more time I’d shout you a beer!
I’m in Melbourne/surf coast so close by our terms but 1000kms away…

Enjoy your time here!!

I don’t think there are penguins near Sydney but there are near me :slight_smile:
They’re so fucking cute, you wanna cuddle em but obviously you cannot touch them

1 Like
#368

TXUpdate:

  • Integrated the awesome additions by @scanner_darkly to the mainline repositories; now you can morph between waveforms and adjust the phase offset of each oscillator. Can’t articulate how awesome it is to have the testing support and to see the platform grow.

  • Corrected envelope-related issues, a strange LED negative voltage LED scenario and added LED tracking to OSC rates below 1 Hz (above that it just stays lit at the peak value due to Nyquist reasons)

  • Updated the command reference up at the repo to add in @scanner_darkly’s additions + changes (TO.OSC.PHASE and the new range for TO.OSC.WAVE).

  • Updated the TXo BOM to fix a labeling error that @MengQiMusic found (THX!) and to coalesce a couple of redundant 10k parts.

  • Uploaded designs for a 8x TXo Front frame to aid in bulk assembly of the next board I’m working on. Pic below:



  • Labeled and packed up a bunch of the Panel + PCB reservations; collected shipping details and payments; and will be shipping those out today. Just waiting on a few more responses to close this out this week - finger’s crossed. Excited to see the results from our brave DIY crew!!

  • Moving on to the next board in my SMD festival; TXo Front Back. This one has two sides; going to do the back side first as it has the trigger generating ICs. Still only ten components on the back of this one (and eight on the front). Shouldn’t be too bad time-wise - and I’m getting faster. :wink:

TELEX HANDY LINKS
Module Descriptions | Ordering Process Details | Open Source Repository | Printable Command Reference

4 Likes
#369

on/off/topics:

Quick reiteration of requirements request given that I am now Teletype operational:

The only additional hardware I will need preceding your expanders would be the 2c bus board and one ribbon cable from Monome.

True fact?

That picture of the plush blue penguin in the Penguin books sweater: is that yours? My son would be deliriously happy to have one of those.

My understanding was always that blue penguins don’t really make it as far northeast as Sydney. Obviously, there are wayward birds, but supposedly they’re mostly confined to Tasmania and the south coast. We’re taking our trip to Tasmania and Phillip Island at a sub-optimal time of year for penguin visiting, but it’s the only time frame we have (he goes back to NSW with his mom every northern hemisphere summer).

#370

You only really need the Teletype. I’m including three-wire i2c jumpers with the Telex (if you do both the TXi and TXo I am including a long and a short one). These are different than what ships with the Teletype in that they only take up half of the ports and are designed to hop between modules point-to-point. The bus board should not be necessary - unless you are using the two-row connector across both rows to connect to the Trilogy modules. Even then, you could jumper that off of one of the TELEX i2c ports - they are spaced out a bit so that it is easier to put two connectors on them.

I will say that the bus board does make things easier – especially if you have a complex set up.

Photo was a net grab. There is a whole set of sweater penguins to make your brain melt.

Yeah - I might have to schedule more time in the summer to go see the Penguins when I’m back (if I go back this year - it is a long flight from LA). :wink:

TELEX HANDY LINKS
Module Descriptions | Ordering Process Details | Open Source Repository | Printable Command Reference

1 Like
#371

I figured it wasn’t yours; thanks!

I don’t know if I need to seek them out per se. It’s cooler when things serendipitously cross my path, as this one did.

Have a great trip!

1 Like
#372

@bpcmusic:

Looking at the command ref, I see that LFOs are set in mHz, which is SO awesome!

TO.OSC.LFO 1-n α targets oscillation to frequency α in mHz

For the micro-tuners among us, I’m curious how hard it would be to support similar precision for TO.OSC commands?

1 Like
#373

@ppqq - All Hail the MicroTuners!!!

It depends. What sort of precision would you like?

Right now you can set oscillation in mHz, Hz and the Teletype native integer range (0 to 16383). You can also use the quantizer which supports precise microtunings using floating point tables.

The built-in microtuning support in the quantizer gives you a lot of precision in the output (scales are listed in the Printable Command Reference.) The internal digital oscillators should be quite accurate. As a control voltage source, it is really good - but subject to the variability of the downstream hardware.

Check out the scales in-situ:

You can easily customize the internal scales. I have some python scripts that I use to convert Scala files into the format that the TELEX needs. I’ll get them into the repo at some point soon if folks are interested.

ASIDE
For those that are wondering, I’m doing it this way for performance. We are up against some serious limitations trying to get four oscillators running on the device - which required some serious optimizations. While I could compute the notes from a far smaller set of data (the basic Scala data), in my tests it was far faster to lookup and quantize using these lookup tables. It also avoided processing spikes when switching between scales.

Both the TXi and TXo use these scales, which allows the Teletype to deal simply with note numbers but keep crazy precision from the input to the output.

Let me know if you have other needs or ideas. :slight_smile:

TELEX HANDY LINKS
Module Descriptions | Ordering Process Details | Open Source Repository | Printable Command Reference

5 Likes
#374

Ok, wow. So this all looks really good. For me mHz are probably fine enough but I’ll do some experimenting in Max to be sure — I do this all by ear so don’t actually know! :blush:

Cheers and happy travels!

#375

Timeframe Update

Some folks have been asking the age-old question "are we there yet?” I figured that a good general update was in order so as to properly set expectations.

I’m only at the beginning of the process to get these to your doors. Estimates are tough because things usually take longer than you think they will. Boxing the BETA units was eye opening as to how long that process takes (and what it adds to the cost - but I’m still needing to wait on the final price estimates). I’ve included my punch list below so you can get some idea as to where I am when I announce things on the forum.

This is a very arts and crafts process for me. That is on purpose. I know I could subcontract out of this work to folks and possibly skip some of the steps, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do when I made the decision to approach this project craftsman style. I’m quite enjoying it. :slight_smile: (Besides - I looked into some of that and it was prohibitively expensive at this volume.)

So - how long till the TELEX ships?

Gut estimates here. I have a feeling I can keep pace with reflowing one board a week. So, that is three weeks left just for doing the boards. Maybe three weeks to do the assembly. A week for testing and week to do the accessorizing and boxing. Then, I’ll start gathering shipping details and payments and sending them out the door.

So…the earliest I can imagine is eight weeks from now (that includes the week that I’ll be in Australia). That would put us at 3 April. This is right along with my initial plan (I estimated 8 weeks from the point that I received the PCBs and Panels) - which is why some of you have noted that I’m pretty optimistic.

This said, something could go tragically wrong that throws my work way, way off track. So, I want to reiterate, there are no promises here. This is why I’m not taking payment until things are in boxes and ready to go out the door. I’m a goofball sometimes and could have missed something important or totally boff a part of the assembly process. :slight_smile:

All that said, I can’t wait till these units are in your hands. It is an amazing motivator!

BPCMUSIC’S DETAILED AND LONG-ASS TELEX PUNCH LIST

Updated 29 April 2017

Pre-Build Prep Tasks [DONE]:

  • Separate and Shrink-Wrap i2c Cables [DONE]
  • Paint i2c Cable Sides [DONE]
  • Pre-Cut Teensy Headers [DONE]
  • Pre-Cut Board to Board Headers [DONE]
  • Cut Europower Headers [DONE]
  • Cut i2c Headers [DONE]
  • Cut Jumper Headers [DONE]
  • Panel Prep [DONE]
  • Teensy Prep [DONE]
  • Build Eurorack Power Cables [DONE]
  • Test Eurorack Power Cables [DONE]
  • Fill Little Bags with Screws, Washers and Jumpers [DONE]
  • Print, Cut, Bind, and Fold Documentation [DONE]
  • Stamp my Chicken-Turkey on the Boxes [DONE]
  • Print Box Labels to Keep Stuff Straight [DONE]

Build Tasks [DONE]

  • Prep, Paste and Reflow [DONE]:

    • TXi Top Bottom [DONE]
    • TXo Top Bottom [DONE]
    • TXo Top Top [DONE]
    • TXi Bottom Top [DONE]
    • TXi Bottom Bottom [DONE]
    • TXo Bottom Top [DONE]
    • TXo Bottom Bottom [DONE]

  • Assembly [DONE]:

    • TXo Front Jacks and LEDs [DONE]
    • TXo Mount Panel [DONE]
    • TXo Board-to-Board Connectors [DONE]
    • TXo Bottom Headers [DONE]
    • TXo Teensy Mount [DONE]
    • TXi Board-to-Board Connectors [DONE]
    • TXi Jacks and Pots [DONE]
    • TXi Mount Panel [DONE]
    • TXi Bottom Headers [DONE]
    • TXi Teensy Mount [DONE]

  • Plug-In and Test Each Unit [DONE]

Boxing Tasks [DONE]

  • Anti-Static Package the Unit [DONE]
  • Wrap Units in Padding [DONE]
  • Fill Box With Accessories [DONE]
  • Close Box [DONE]
  • Label Box [DONE]

Delivery Tasks [PENDING]

For each reserved user [PENDING]:

  • Gather Shipping Details
  • Collect Payment
  • Create + Print Shipping Label
  • Fill Out Customs Forms (for International)
  • Arrange for Extra Shipping (for International)
  • Put Units in Shipping Box with Padding
  • Label the Box
  • Take Boxes to the Shipping Center

Firmware Tasks Remaining [DONE]

  • Finalize Module Initial Firmware [DONE]
  • Finalize Teletype Operators [DONE]
  • Pull Request on Teletype Code [DONE]

Bus Board Tasks [DONE]

  • Order Trial Boards from OSH [DONE]
  • Assemble and Test Trials [DONE]
  • Order Production Boards [DONE]
  • Order Regulators and Resistors [DONE]
  • Order Shrouded Headers [DONE]
  • SMD Boards [DONE]
  • Attach Headers to Boards [DONE]

TELEX HANDY LINKS
Module Descriptions | Ordering Process Details | Open Source Repository | Printable Command Reference

10 Likes
#376

Thanks for update, so far everything looks good.
I was about to start hunting for NLC sloths but now seeing that TT can do 0.001hz… This will save me some money and hp.
Also feel inspired by @bpcmusic approach and “journey” so far, feel like I will get into diy stuff myself pretty soon, at the moment its mostly time issue, there’s only 24 hours a day :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#377

Not to dissuade you, but have you seen the new version of Sloth? Pretty amazing.

And who doesn’t need a module with functions Apathy, Inertia, and Torpor?

I have the earlier version of it right here:

1 Like
#378

That new sloth looks indeed nice…
I’ll have to check my usage after I get expanders and see if new sloth would be better way to go, for things I do, thanks for info.

1 Like
#379

Funny, those are usually things I’m trying to overcome in my musicmaking :wink:

3 Likes
#380

In my opinion, a Sloth and a very low frequency periodic waveform are two very different things. The Sloths are chaotic and fairly unpredictable. They’ll roughly follow an attractor pattern but occasionally wander off and do their own thing. They also jiggle a lot while trending toward their next destination.

I frequently refer to the Stasis Sloth as “my silent collaborator”. I like to set up a patch and find a parameter that sounds good being twisted in either direction. I then plug the Sloth into that parameter and let it make the decisions while I manipulate other aspects.

The closest digital neighbor of the Sloth is the Lorenz attractor easter egg in Mutable’s Streams, which was then ported over to Ornaments + Crimes. It would actually be fairly simple to contribute something like that to the expanders after I get mine built. They’re not terribly expensive or complicated, computationally speaking.

5 Likes
#381

Amazing thanks for the update.

1 Like
#382

When considering different functions to port over to the expander, what are the considerations/parameters the team uses to evaluate them (beyond processor impact)? Not that opportunism and community-minded development are bad, but I was curious to know if there was a product roadmap that’s also being followed, against which emergent functions like this are evaluated.

2 Likes