DIY volume control open-source project

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linuxworks

linuxworks

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there are lots of cheap, small compute boards, but the thing that matters more is the community support. arduino comes first, then rasp pi and then beagle black. all others are 'in the noise' in terms of popular support. to me, that matters a lot. you want to have a popular platform for lots of reasons, even if its not the most powerful one you can get at the moment.
 
geraldfryjr

geraldfryjr

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Joined 2008
Yep,This one just came out in October.
Even though it doesn't have much in built in I/O, 8 32bit ARM M3 cores is pretty good for $15!
Lots of support!!
That is what I do like about Microchip and Arduino.
I don't have the Arduino yet but I am thinking about getting one.
I just got my PIC programer working last night and I am really happy for that, as I have had it since June.
All I had left to do is make the cable, but I have been doing a lot of reading since then.

jer :)
 
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von Ah

von Ah

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This is a very interesting and entertaining thread! :D
linuxworks said:
if I hadn't soldered it to the board, it would be pushing up the daisies
Click to expand...
I see what you did there. ;) Listen, if I hadn't soldered that parrot, er, chip down... Nay this parr- chip wouldn't go VOOM if you put 4 million volts through it!
geraldfryjr said:
Much like when I used to hook stuff up to my Vic 20's and hard drives up to my Color computers that actually worked.
Click to expand...
This really made me chuckle. You should keep it all in the family, though, and find a way to include the TI-99/4A. :D
Great work, fellers. I'm interested to see how this project develops.
 

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mhelin

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geraldfryjr said:
Yep,This one just came out in October.
Even though it doesn't have much in built in I/O, 8 32bit ARM M3 cores is pretty good for $15!
Click to expand...

If you mean XMOS startKIT it contains 8 (virtual) xCORE microcontroller cores (well actually 16 but half of them is used on debugger tile). However, XMOS also has also the xCORE-XA architechture with an ARM Cortex-M3 core on the same die as 7 xCORE cores (http://www.xmos.com/en/products/silicon/xa-series) but they are coming later this year. Might be good idea to get one startKIT and learn a bit. You can do the same things with it as with FPGA but using C-language instead of VHDL or Verilog.

It though seems the startKITs are not available for a long time (and they go fast):

Digi-Key Part Number 880-1066-ND
Manufacturer Part Number XK-STK-A8DEV
Description STARTKIT STARTER KIT

Quantity Ship Date Estimate (mm/dd/yyyy)
--------- --------------------------------------
1 2/28/2014
 
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geraldfryjr

geraldfryjr

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Joined 2008
I got to thinking about that, But I find myself very often having to adjust several channels at the same time very quickly, especially in a live situation.
I haven't worked with any of the new digital boards yet but it seems that it would be cumbersome.

I have a hard enough time trying to work a DAW with just a single mouse and is why I don't use them unless I have to.
Not to mention the latency issues if you don't have the latest greatest hardware cranked up on some Freon or nitrogen.

jer :)
 
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rsavas

Member
Joined 2012
  • Volume control (w/ mute)
  • Switcher board
  • LCD screen
  • IR receiver
  • Microcontroller with input from smooth encoder
Since you are laying out a pcb anyways, why not put everything on one pcb. Using 3rd party MCU's makes the design/solution, a cludge. Wires/pcbs hanging together in a tangled mess is usually the result. Mechanical nightmare!!
It is so easy to get caught up in MCU solutions which are simply over-kill, i.e 32-bit MCU's. For the feature set you first listed, all you need is a 8-bit mpu. I suggest a xmega as it is more than capable for what you want.
Take time and think about/decide what you are asking the MCU to do. From your initial list above, it ain't too much.
For ultimate switcher performance, use relays!! It costs a bit of power and real estate, all part of deciding trade offs in performance. Panasonic AGQ are small and good quality
Encoders, I use Bourns, they work perfect for this application
I like PEL12D - 12 mm Encoder with Switch and Illuminated Shaft
Code, I wrote my portable radio/media player code in BASCOM-AVR, really easy and does not have the complication of "C", but if you are good at "C", I'd suggest to stick with it, as I discussed once with linuxworks.

Good Luck
Rick
 
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geraldfryjr

geraldfryjr

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Joined 2008
I just found another cool little Microcontroller project that may be considered for this sort of project.

It uses Microchips 32Bit MCU, The 32MX695/795 and runs at 80MHZ.

It features a Composite Video output with a 480x432 VGA B/W or Color video, pc keyboard input, USB, Flash card interface and 40 extra GPIO pins to work with.
It runs a BASIC interpreter with 128K of ram.

Everything is done completely on the MCU itself and requires no external support chips other than two regulators and a battery backed clock (RTC).

Very simple and very cheap to build, Kits are available as well.
All of the details can be found here,

Geoff's Projects - The Colour Maximite

Geoff's Projects - Maximite Design and Construction

You can use this little MCU board for $40 to build this system as well called the UBW32,

UBW32 (32 bit PIC32 based USB Bit Whacker) Project

Geoff's Projects - MMBasic for the UBW32

It is available here,

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9713

You can also pick up the little board an populate it your self for about $7 as well.

It is all open source and I will be ordering the MCU sometime next month and try to build one of these too give it a try for myself.

This beats trying to learn C and seems to have a pretty extensive I/O command set although I have not read thru everything completely...yet.

It is to my understanding that it is possible to program the 32MX using the PICKit 2 or even maybe some other after market opensource programmer.

I see many out there doing this.

I am in the process of building a PICKit2 at this time and I am still searching out all of the details.

From what I gather, Programming it is straight forward as with any other PIC chip.

I shouldn't need to do any debugging functions, as the software has already been written and debugging already done.

Just program and go!!! :)

Ohh.....And did I mention that it is all Open Source!!! ;)

Cheers!!!

jer :)

P.S. Here is a version that uses a touch screen TFT display,

http://geoffg.net/tft-maximite.html
 
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linuxworks

linuxworks

Member
Joined 2008
netstuff.org
open source only matters on hardware that is *popular*. that's the value of the hardware, its 'support'. its community.

please consider that before choosing some 'hot new hardware'. if you were commercial that would be one thing, but if users are going to have to buy and develop on some lesser common hardware, that's not going to be a good long term strategy.

there are lots of controllers, but arduino gets the nod for having so much community support so quickly. that's at the low end of computing. at the middle end (host) you have the beaglebone and raspberry pi, both small and fanless and full linux hosts, with many decades of maturity behind the tools and o/s. at the higher end, the intel mini-itx boards (many are still fanless).

what else do you need? that covers all the levels of computing you'd need for embedded processing. and all of those have stellar community support, tons of online examples and photos and write-ups, more than the base company could ever provide, in fact.

if you need fancy gui control, the way to do that would be to have a webserver on the back-end and a phone interface (android, ios) on the front end. that way, everyone can use their tablet (etc) to 'manage' the device. if you want a local version, well, velcro a phone to the front panel (I'm only half joking, as the cost of a previous year 'used' android phone is very cost effective and could be integrated right into the panel of a DIY product).
 
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