All things voice card related ordered

 ...well, almost - the digital parts remain.

But still - tonight I placed a huge order with JLCPCB, 5 copies of every card needed for a voice:

VCO

Pre-filter FX

Bus mixer

Bus mixer angled connector

Juno filter

Moog + JP6-filter

Waveshapers

Mainboard

Ordering 5 instead of just 2 copies is kind of a gamble as I don't know if everything works yet. But the cost (excluding shipping) is only 50% more for five than for 2. I guess I just have to wait and see if the gamble pays off. 

I have yet to sign off on everything, but I expect that part to go smoothly. So while we wait, here are some cool board shots

3D model

I've used Fusion 360 to check that everything fits together and that we have the clearances between cards that we need. 

I COULD have converted the eagle designs into something that Fusion can read, but this is the next best thing:

All the cards making up the voice. To the left is the (yet to come) digital board.

The narrow board closest to the camera is the bus board. To the left is a combined Moog/JP6 board and to the right a dual waveshaper board. Top left is the bit crusher (the only PCB I am not redoing!), below it is the FX board. Below the Waveshapers is the VCO

Under the Moog/JP6 filter board is the Juno filter. I really wonder if this will work out, the spacing is very narrow and it may get hot in there. Also note the vertically mounted board connecting the bus mixer to the mainboard.

On to the PCBs

A panelized board containing two waveshapers, the FX board (ring mod, distortion and noise) plus a special board that will make it possible to mount the bus mixer board parallel to the mainboard but 3cm away from it

Another panelized board, this time it's the VCO, Juno filter and bus mixer boards

The third board is the dual filter PCB, containing the moog-style ladder filter and the extended JP6 state variable filter.

The CV board - made on a four layer card to minimise noise (hopefully). This one has 56 output CVs!

Finally, the mainboard. I've spent six months or close to 200 hours on routing this, I REALLY hope it works.

From 3.3mm square to D-shaft

I've bought a ton of 10mm button caps in black sandblasted aluminium. They match my larger potentiometer caps perfectly and I want to use them as potentiometer caps. Only problem is, they are meant for 3.3mm square shafts, not D-shafts, so I had to find a way of replacing the insert inside.

I've experimented with various sizes of 3D-printed inserts and this is my best result:

The inner diameter is 6.2mm, the outer is 7.9-7.95.   

7.95 works with press fit, but 6.2 inner and 7.95 outer made the part stick too hard to the shaft.

6.3 was too loose for the plastic shaft but may work on the metal one - however, there we need a section without D as the D-part is much shorter.

I didn't have time to try 6.25.

The insert height is 9.5mm. The inner height of the cap after removing the existing plastic is barely more than this. However, this seems like the perfect height - it leaves a 2mm gap on the prototype, but that prototype is 2mm lower than the button prototype, meaning that it will be a perfect match if the panel is similar to the button prototype.

The turning force necessary for the metal pot with this 10mm cap is actually ok. Quite heavy but a certain quality feel. The plastic shaft on the other hand feels a bit too light, especially when compared to the bigger caps on the metal pot. However, it is comparable to the force necessary on my other gear (Prophet 5, Little phatty) so I need to make a full mockup to try it properly.

I removed theexisting insert by 

- Drilling a 10mm hole in a wood block, then cutting it in half to make a clamp.

- I then put the clamp around a cap and inserted it into a vice to prevent the cap from rotating during drilling

- Then I drilled a progressively larger hole - 5mm, 6.5mm and finally 8mm.