Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Field Trials Begin

Over the last 48 hours we finished the final coats of stain and acrylic covering, and i finished the last of the wiring of panels 5 and 6.

We then began harnessing the UMC's to the shelf inside the enclosure, as seen below:


Next came drilling holes for the screws on the face panels. we set the panels in one by one and marked them, took them off and drilled, reset the panels and put all the screws in. way too many, frankly. here is what it looks like underneath now, as we have not yet re-attached the doors:


Finally, we attached the heads to the UMCs (i labeled each head by X-Y, x=UMC channel, Y=which of the four heads it goes on, for a total of 25).

We brought it upstairs to the studio - there is really no room whatsoever left, but i shofted some things around to get it in here. As of now, i am happy to report it is pwoered, connected to the computer, and all controls are working perfectly. will start creating an ableton set to complement it immediately and give it a good thorough exercise over the next week.

here it is in all its glory:


Side view:


We still need to:
* buff it and shine it one last time
* re-attach the doors
* drill a hole or figure out a scheme for the cables coming from the USB hub
* attach the main volume knob somehow
* optionally re-add the small green LED by the channel volume knobs
* find and attach slider knobs (8mm head)

and maybe some other things i can't think of now, but overall this thing is SIIIIIICK!!!

thank you to Dismal/Steve for the Colossus name, Ken at Hale Micro for helping out and answering so many questions, my great wife Jeannette for helping and supporting at every stage, Jnet's dad Howard for the carpentry experience and precision that i never would have come close to, and even to Ethan for setting me on this course (whether you realized it or not). This whole thing started from me wanting to take apart a computer keyboard and wire the letter buttons to other controls that could be used to control Ableton. his first comment was, thats way harder than it sounds, you should try something else. wallah, here is the something else.

Gonna break to play with this thing for a few days, but soon enough i will get started on a set of other controllers in a similar vein (but considerably smaller) to sell and/or give to the equulei compatriots.

If anyone wants more detail on part numbers, etc, feel free to drop me a line any time.

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