A Single-Channel MIDI Instrument
The many steps before that…
Prototyping and fabricating week!
The goal here is to make it as thin as possible in all dimensions, width, height, depth.
I started off by taking apart one of the slides to see what it’s made of and how I can make it thinner.
Turns out there is no way to make it thinner except if I make the slide itself a circuit board…
But, that’s not happening! Too risky and no parts.
I then tried different ways to stack all the components together to find the best solution.
What’s the best way to package them all?
After trying a few variations, I made a sketch of the ideal scenario.
Once I had the idea, I tried out with the cardboard prototype to get a sense of scale (the PCB here is used to represent the board + wires).
I was quite happy with how thin I got it to be.
I then tried milling with leftover materials I had to get a sense of the depth of the pocket for the slides and boards.
Once I had the pockets I then worked on the wiring.
And this is the compilation of everything I tried before finalising the design and parts.
Finally I put all the best pieces together …
Once put together, I was satisfied with the outcome.
Only 7 mm (around 5/16″) gap between top and bottom pieces! And the width x height is 10 x 2 cm.
Yay, this worked:
Sadly, the pictures are not what they seem…
This is the reality
Once I decided on the optimal measurements and fixed the files, I started shopping on McMaster-Carr. SO MANY OPTIONS! SO OVERWHELMING! I must have spent around two hours on this website.
Waiting for parts to arrive. These are the expected dates:
- Soldering paste: April 24 // I have this problem where the very tip of my soldering iron doesn’t heat up (but it’s new and not oxidised, what’s wrong?)
- Boards: April 24
- Screws and threaded inserts: April 21
- Black rubber feet: April 28
To do next:
- Assemble parts this weekend
- Program the ‘mass tuning-in’ software
- Playtest with people who live around Downtown Brooklyn
Random questions (note to self):
- Milling pocket, CAD? Illustrator? Is there a reason they move? Re-home?
- Best practices?
- Add channels on top?
More stuff…
