Monomonome!
Sweet sassy Christ I never thought I would be done with those summer posts! Now that those are out of the way, I can finally get to what I've been up to as of late! Sometime last year I came across a YouTube video of a device called the Monome 40h. It has 64 buttons in an 8x8 grid configuration. It's an open source music device, meaning you can not only write your own programs for it, but you can also open it up and tinker with the hardware to your liking. I was interested in one of these a long time ago, but never bought one seeing as how it was $500. Eventually it sold out because it was a limited run of 400, but as luck would have it, the creators decided to set up a DIY version of the 40h, a kit that you have to solder and provide LEDs for yourself.
I was quite reluctant to get it since I really didn't have that much soldering experience. I decided to get it since it, like the original 40h, was a limited run, this time of 100. I jumped on that like flies on dog shit. The entire kit cost $260, not including the LEDs I bought for it (75 bright blue LEDs [i only needed 64, but I got extras b/c you never know...]), the soldering iron, soldering iron tips, solder, desoldering tool, and the soldering practice kit I bought to test my soldering skills out before I went and tackled the 40h. It took about 90 minutes to finish the practice solder kit, which when completed made a European horn. I made that with no problems. I was quite excited that my skills were up to par, so when the time was right, I got started on my kit.
I start on the logic board, which was the easiest of the two parts (the other being the keypad board). I take out all the pieces, sort them all out and consult the online assembly guide to assure that I had everything. Unfortunately I did not. There were three pieces missing: the JTAG connector, which allows you to rewrite the firmware on the processor chip, and the two 2x8 ribbon cable connectors, which allow you to connect the logic board and the keypad board together. Without those pieces, i couldn't really get very far with the kit. I decided to put what I had of the logic board together and figure out a way to test it out. The logic board took about two or so hours to put together. I installed the required software and tested out the board using a solderless breadboard wire. The logic board looks like it works!
A few days later I decide to tackle the keypad board. That was a bitch and a half to put together because of all the pieces I had to place in. 64 LEDs and 64 diodes. These diodes were about 1mm x maybe 3mm in size. those little bastards were tiny! So I follow the assembly guide directions and place the LEDs in. No sweat, other than the fact that there were 64 of them to put in. Then I carefully place in all the diodes. All 64 of those little fuckers. I put in the ribbon connectors for the keypad, and voila! Done!!
Not so fast. I reread the assembly guide just to make sure that I follow everything correctly. I get to the diode placement part. I failed to realize that the diodes had to be placed in a specific way, and the keypad wouldn't work properly if it wasn't done the right way. I look at how the picture has them placed, and I look at how I placed them on the keypad. Out of the 64 diodes I put in, 34 of them were in backwards.
:'-O
I was so pissed at myself. I had to go back and rearrange 34 of those blasted diodes. That meant desoldering the two ends and resoldering them the right way. I had to do it, but at no time during the process did I enjoy it. Not at all. Eventually I got it done and rejoiced.
About a week after i notified the company that I was missing parts, I received said missing parts in the mail. I was getting ancy about getting my parts. The mail doesn't come on campus on Saturdays, so if it didn't come by Friday, I was going to have to kill somebody. But I got my parts about an hour before the mail room closed, and nobody died. I rush my parts back to my room, fire up my soldering iron and slapped the missing pieces on.
And so the moment of truth was finally upon us. Did I solder everything correctly? Fire it up, run the test program...the thing goes all bibbledy on me. I fire up my soldering iron and resolder a few places on the logic board...still goes crazy with lights and blinking and crap. the problem was that the keypad and the logic board were touching each other so I just put the whole thing in a small cardboard box, allowing the keypad to lay on the ends of the box, and everything is honky dorey....
...Not so fast. There were seven dead LEDs on the keypad, so I had to go back, desolder the broken LEDs, then solder new ones in (see, those extra LEDs came in handy! Werd). 90 minutes of cussing and burns later, the new LEDs are in and the 40h is completed! W007!!1
Labels: Things I've Done
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