crOwBX 8-voice

livewire · Post by **livewire** » Wed Mar 07, 2018 12:33 am

Just received an update from Old Crow on the status of the CrowBX 4-voice board sets to cover existing orders.
He has received the panel and carrier boards, the voice boards are due to be received at the end of March.
He will update again when he has the voice boards and is ready to ship.

mOBiTh · Post by **mOBiTh** » Wed Mar 07, 2018 5:17 am

glad to hear this is ticking over!

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Wed Mar 07, 2018 10:46 am

livewire wrote:Just received an update from Old Crow on the status of the CrowBX 4-voice board sets to cover existing orders.
He has received the panel and carrier boards, the voice boards are due to be received at the end of March.
He will update again when he has the voice boards and is ready to ship.

Great, thanks!
Has anyone heard anything about or received the 8 voice backplane yet? Not that i’m that much in a hurry, but before starting the voice cards it’d be nice to be able to check the clearance between voice cards - for capacitors etc. having seen the creative solutions people have done for the 4 voice I’d like to know these things before starting...

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Wed Mar 07, 2018 10:53 am

Has anyone looked at a source or alternative of the obsolete Molex connectors?
For example, looking for part: 538-09-52-3032 on mouser or digikey gets nothing.
Anyone know if they have been replaced with a new compatible model, or do we have to start looking in old bins at surplus stores for spares?

mOBiTh · Post by **mOBiTh** » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:07 am

Definitely worth installing trimmers you can access from the side once all the cards are in place

Can't imagine anyone will shed any tears over those molex connectors...

JanneI · Post by **JanneI** » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:56 am

mOBiTh wrote:Definitely worth installing trimmers you can access from the side once all the cards are in place

Can't imagine anyone will shed any tears over those molex connectors...

This!!! I posted pics of the trimmer mounting I did on my 4-voice, all accessable without removing any voice cards. Also, there's pics of the big el.caps mounting. Let's hope there is more room between the voice cards in the 8-voice back plane.

jimfowler · Post by **jimfowler** » Thu Mar 08, 2018 1:57 pm

The 8 voice backplane does afford more space. The amount of space is uniform for all voice cards and is the same as the space between voices 2 and 3 on the 4 voice backplane. See attached photo.

[/img]

oldcrow · Post by **oldcrow** » Thu Mar 08, 2018 3:47 pm

I did this spacing on purpose to avoid having to resort to creative capacitor lead-bending.

jimfowler wrote:The 8 voice backplane does afford more space. The amount of space is uniform for all voice cards and is the same as the space between voices 2 and 3 on the 4 voice backplane. See attached photo.

oldcrow · Post by **oldcrow** » Thu Mar 08, 2018 5:00 pm

For those interested, I will be opening a pre-order page on my sales portal later this month for the 8-voice board sets. There will be full sets and as well as partial sets for those with existing voice cards. I am working on the front panel and control boards currently. Delivery of the backplane and voice cards will be in April, with the panel and control expected to be ready sometime in the early summer.

Crow
/**/

ultravox · Post by **ultravox** » Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:12 pm

oldcrow wrote:For those interested, I will be opening a pre-order page on my sales portal later this month for the 8-voice board sets. There will be full sets and as well as partial sets for those with existing voice cards. I am working on the front panel and control boards currently. Delivery of the backplane and voice cards will be in April, with the panel and control expected to be ready sometime in the early summer.

Crow
/**/

That's great news! Eagerly awaiting the new 8 voice front panel and control board.

jimfowler · Post by **jimfowler** » Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:18 pm

I’m in line right behind ultravox.

mOBiTh · Post by **mOBiTh** » Fri Mar 09, 2018 5:03 am

oldcrow wrote:For those interested, I will be opening a pre-order page on my sales portal later this month for the 8-voice board sets. There will be full sets and as well as partial sets for those with existing voice cards. I am working on the front panel and control boards currently. Delivery of the backplane and voice cards will be in April, with the panel and control expected to be ready sometime in the early summer.

Crow
/**/

Awesome news, thanks Crow!

Can we see a preview of the new front/control panel please? Are you planning to make this more spacious now that the mid-plane is ~twice the size?

oldcrow · Post by **oldcrow** » Fri Mar 09, 2018 6:24 pm

It is in the preliminary phase, but the control panel will look something like this:

The 12mm buttons will all have integral LEDs. The section in the lower right area are individual voice panners which connect to the backplane header I have in place for this. This is meant to fit behind a 5U a 19" panel.

mOBiTh wrote:
Awesome news, thanks Crow!

Can we see a preview of the new front/control panel please? Are you planning to make this more spacious now that the mid-plane is ~twice the size?

mOBiTh · Post by **mOBiTh** » Fri Mar 09, 2018 6:28 pm

looking fantastic!

ultravox · Post by **ultravox** » Fri Mar 09, 2018 6:42 pm

Excellent!!!

I'm going to go ahead and source the rest of the BOM for the voice cards and start building them.

The Real MC · Post by **The Real MC** » Fri Mar 09, 2018 8:05 pm

jimfowler · Post by **jimfowler** » Fri Mar 09, 2018 11:16 pm

Looking very much forward to what you've got in the works.

livewire · Post by **livewire** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 12:11 am

Bravo!

JanneI · Post by **JanneI** » Sat Mar 10, 2018 2:49 am

Add to basket.

mOBiTh · Post by **mOBiTh** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 7:39 am

Hey Crow, is that a 4 pin SPI LCD in the middle of the panel??

I smell presets/autotune

oldcrow · Post by **oldcrow** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:22 am

It is in fact a small OLED display.

Given the OBX had presets and
autotune, I plan to have the same thing here. The display is not strictly
needed, but when I go to write and debug the patch manager program, it
helps to have something I can use to show information.

mOBiTh wrote:Hey Crow, is that a 4 pin SPI LCD in the middle of the panel??

I smell presets/autotune

mOBiTh · Post by **mOBiTh** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:57 am

oldcrow wrote:It is in fact a small OLED display. Given the OBX had presets and
autotune, I plan to have the same thing here. The display is not strictly
needed, but when I go to write and debug the patch manager program, it
helps to have something I can use to show information.

mOBiTh wrote:Hey Crow, is that a 4 pin SPI LCD in the middle of the panel??

I smell presets/autotune

Fantastic news! Ah yeh I meant OLED...

So we could add an arpeggiator too then??

oldcrow · Post by **oldcrow** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:42 am

FYI: I've put up pre-orders for both a backplane with 4 voice boards set and a backplane with 8 voice boards set. These are of course bare board sets. The voice boards are my latest v2.4 type that use the AS3310 re-issued envelope generator ICs. The 2.4 boards are backward-compatible with the v2.0 except they do not need a slot adapter for 4-voice or 8-voice use.

I will also put up a pre-order for voice boards only for those needing them to complete an 8-voice system.

The front panel and control boards are not done yet, but I will be opening that pre-order sometime this summer.

Cheers,

Crow
/**/

duff · Post by **duff** » Fri Mar 16, 2018 4:03 pm

I've got a bit confused by the various board set options there have been over time so I was wondering if someone could clarify.

Does the 8 voice set require the control board before you can use/test anything or could I use/test the voices as I were to build them without it?

Chrutil · Post by **Chrutil** » Sat Mar 17, 2018 12:37 pm

Good Lord, I could not resist so it looks like I will be building two 8 voice sets...

MUFF WIGGLER

MUFF WIGGLER

crOwBX 8-voice