Every now and then (admittedly too often for me) a project comes around that you just HAVE to build. This one is in the league of my Ambika synth build...expensive, lots of work, chip burning, and bit of a white knuckle ride. The pay off...even considering that I'm just riding in on the coat tails of the people who've put these projects together...was to be able to step back and think "wow...I built this!".
This one will be a daily driver.
I've ordered parts from Mouser and will finish up with a few bits from BLMS, so while waiting I thought I'd get the chassis drilled out. Marshall Arts has gone to a lot of trouble of laying out a very detailed drill guide in SVG format. I downloaded and installed Inkscape to manipulate it a bit. The zip file I'm attaching to this post is the resulting PDF files. If you print them to actual size, cut along the lines, and then tape them together they will be exactly 59cm in width and layout all the top/back/inside-bottom holes you need, along with hole sizes.
The pages taped together and the drilled enclosure:
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-01.jpg)
And more detail:
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-02.jpg)
What are you using for an enclosure?
That looks super tidy drilling and cutting the square, top notch! Yes, wow, you're building this, epic.
Looking forward to seeing how it comes together!
Quote from: Willybomb on May 20, 2019, 05:43:23 PM
What are you using for an enclosure?
I have the same question. Did you order it from overseas? Or did you get one of the few MA was selling?
I got one of the few that MA was selling but I've got them stateside before. If you call the contact info in the docs you can find it. I think you have to buy a 6' piece if memory serves. Might be a good setup for a group buy.
For the enclosure: you can also try Musikding, the sell a 60 cm Looper enclosure (it's the same cable channel)
Been a rough summer so far so it's knocked me off anything close to a schedule.
Bad news: my wife was diagnosed with lung cancer and we had to put our dog of 12 years down (and in the same week!!)
Good news: wife is doing marvelously (well she doesn't think so just yet as she's very sick from chemo once a week and radiation 5x week) and is expected to beat it. And we are getting a puppy in a few more weeks. Doberman.
The Eoo3 is coming along after Marshall Arts walked me thru the Arduino programming. He has revised the build doc so if there's anyone out there getting close to firing code in the beast I'd make sure you have the latest and greatest. He's done a nice job of explaining the process.
Here's a few progress shots and I'm hoping to get some of the wiring done over the next few days:
(http://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-03.jpg)
Note the bench stickers and the beer opener. Oh and it's stain on the bench...not blood...really...
(http://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-04.jpg)
All the best Gordo, I hope she continues to improve and the new dog fills your heart!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That looks really good, gordo. Much better than my build ;-). While you are at it, you might consider to drill two or three extra holes in the bottom to attach it to a pedal board. I ended up doing that with mine (with a wood wedge under it to raise the loop buttons). I really like what you did to the display... please explain!
Is the labeling waterside?
The display is my not so subtle attempt to rescue some jacked up drill holes. I ended up using hot glue to mount the LED panel and used a chunk of hardware store lexan cut to size. I taped it off and shot a border in black with spray paint. I might touch it up with a bit of black paint inside the display cavity. I'm worried about it breaking loose but I'll see how it holds up.
They are water slides and although the photo hides it a bit you can see witness lines around them. I shot clear nitro lacquer to seal them. It was about the only thing to stick to the coating on the aluminum. If I do this again (I have another set of boards) I'd cut a piece of thin lexan the size of the front and it would serve as the display cover and protect the lettering.
This project bit me a few times with lack of consumables. First I ran out of solder (excuse me??....) and now it looks like I'm short on hookup wire (I swear I just did a Barry's Best order not that long ago).
What I DO like about this project is that it's a throwback to how exciting new builds used to be. I swear I've read the build docs so many times I have them memorized. I'm kind of on the edge of my seat the whole time I'm working on it. Great fun.
It's also got me thinking about how to layout a new pedal board to accommodate. I suspect I'll cut back to essentials (not a bad thing) and try to incorporate a midi effect in the amp's loop, much as you've done with your Helix. The fact that it also makes the amp switching more of an "effect" will be pretty cool too.
Thanks Jimi! I'm off to Vermont this weekend and then we pick up the little guy once I'm back. Photos to follow.
The biggest fun is putting it all together on a new board. Midi, stompboxes, amp channels... It's flawless. At first, it is some work to wrap your head around the concepts, especially if you are new to the midi side of things. Eventually, you end up with a few banks with master setups and you build your presets without ever bending down.
BTW, Gordo - here is an overview about how I use my Eoo3... I did that for myself, should I ever have to debug that thing...
(https://i.postimg.cc/tT7HsVDv/Overview-Board-2019.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/fRFsY7hc/IMG-20190623-130341.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/m2k4Z3Zc/IMG-20190512-075442.jpg)
Your drilling game is strong!
Thanks for sketching that out. I'm really stoked about getting this thing together and one of the things that has escaped me till recently is rather than try to fight my amps inherent ability to break up and deal with a murky clean sound is to add a clone of a JHS Haunting Mids and boost the upper mids when I roll back for a clean sound. It maintains the edge and grit that I'm looking for (I don't really like totally CLEAN) while staying very focused and detailed. Setting up "scenes" involving the JHS plus effects plus the amp channel with a single switch will be very liberating.
Any progress on the Eoo3 so far?
Well, "wiring in a few days" ended up being half the bloody summer but I'm back at the bench. I'd forgotten how much work a new puppy is.
The code is in and the footswitches are wired up and all appears to be working very well. I haven't tested midi functionality yet but I have little doubt it's good. The wiring looks like a rats nest now, although it was all neatly bundled. I'll get to that in a minute. It's going to be challenging to jam all those wires in and get the lid closed so will just take a bit more planning and dressing.
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-05.jpg)
My wiring issue was the angled connectors mounted to the footswitch boards. On Marshall Arts' build his connectors had the release clips on the top, which makes it MUCH easier to unplug the connector if needed. And in my case it was needed. Hardly a big deal but my release clips (connectors purchased from Mouser) are on the bottom. Even though I'd read the build docs multiple times...in my brain I rotated the wiring scheme to be upside down to compensate. Obviously I didn't put a lot of logic to it. Here's how my connectors (wired correctly now) look:
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-06.jpg)
So all my wiring was backwards. Turns out not to be that big a deal: with these connectors it's just a matter of inserting a flat blade screw driver into the slot that the crimp connectors plug into and they pop right out. I had every footswitch rewired in under 15 minutes. I had to cut apart all my neat wiring bundles but it turns out I needed to anyway. Space under the display and on top of the controller board is a bit tight.
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-07.jpg)
I should be able to reroute a bunch of this stuff around the midi connectors and over the loop 7/8 tails board (not installed yet) Wire used here is the Smallbear 24ga and would be nice to have something with less jacket. I really like the wire though. I picked up some of their fine gauge RG-174 for the shielded runs to the jacks so that will help.
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-08.jpg)
It was a REALLY good feeling to apply power after pumping code to the Arduino and having the display and LED's boot up to a little light show and E003
Oh yeah. A pic of the pooch. Dylan is 12 weeks in this picture and his ears are cut but not pinned yet. It's a drag to put him thru the pinned ears thing but he's going to look great and for all the attention he gets he doesn't seem to mind. Sort of a barbaric practice though, I'd probably have passed on it had the breeder not got the process started...
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Dylan01.jpg)
Wow, great work there... I know that the space for all these wires is tight, but did not find another solution for that.... I could have used +5v and Gnd 'rails' and than connect both from switch to switch, but that does not look nice either...
If it boots up, midi will work :-)
I like your Eoo3, but your dog is the REAL Beauty in this thread! Wow.
He's a handful. Generally if I say anything to him he assumes it means "lets trash this place". He's getting big very quickly.
Got my ribbon cables made last night and hoping to at least get the loop board done today.
As a motivation: Re-labelled mine and use it mainly as a controller for my HX Stomp and Amp Channel Switching. Looks like this these days: (https://i.postimg.cc/Gm5rV8T1/IMG-20191102-130501.jpg)
I like that. I've been wondering how I was going to mount it and my thought was to put in a two layer approach like that. Set it and forget it stuff on the bottom layer and then anything I need to interact with on the top. I picked up a bunch of Hosa TRS to 90 degree angle mono cords so I should have connectivity covered without having to make cables.
We've got wireless in-ear monitors these days so I picked up a relatively inexpensive Line6 wireless system so I'll just need access to the Loop In, Loop Out, Amp Channel, and Output jacks.
That was the nudge I needed. Spillover board is ready to be loaded in. Relay board has all the coax wired up and hoping to get the jack boards connected tomorrow night. If that happens I should be able to test the main loops and once verified can load in the spillover.
I think I mentioned that I'd picked up an old Line6 M13 for next to nothing and it will be great for testing Midi functions. I use it when I'm playing an unknown backline because I'm used to the L6 modelers, it's easy to edit on the fly, and its super flexible. The distortions are mediocre but usable. I even coaxed a believable slow Uni-Vibe out of it yesterday. Because...well...you need a Uni-Vibe in church!
Finally some solid progress. I had to abandon the coax cable. It's thin enough that I was constantly having to chase snapped wires. I got frustrated and tore it all out and used stranded hookup wire instead, although I twisted it to try to avoid parallel paths as much as possible. If I get too much noise I'll revisit it but at this point I just want to get this thing working.
Loops 1-6 are working correctly as are the channel bank switches and the patch switches. Tuner output is good. I have the wrong jacks for the loop send/return but I have that bypassed for now.
Spillover goes in next and hopefully I can start using this beast. Very excited.
Cool. I guess that hookup wire is totally fine, unless you use multiple high gain pedals. Let me know, please. Hope, that the spillover works for you and does not create switching noises... So excited to see yours come alive!
This is quite an undertaking! Looking great so far, your pedalboard is gonna look pretty intimidating with all those switches ;D
Testing this beast tonite. I got the tails board in only to find out that there was no possible way I was going to close up this beast. I've made every mistake imaginable on this build so I should have figured as much.
The nice part about having crimp connectors on everything that if it was all soldered it would have taken me forever to redo the wiring. I had to bite the bullet and cut a considerable amount of length off of the loop button wring. Honestly, within an hour or so I had 32 wires shortened, recrimped, and inserted back into the connectors.
The beast is closed up and I'm going to drag down an armful of pedals to plug in. I've checked each channel individually, now it's time to load it up.
I'm officially calling this a win. I haven't been able to check amp switching yet but it's working on my DMM. The display window needs a bit of black paint to dress it up a bit (you can see the edges thru the plastic). I'm not getting voltage or any noticeable clicking thru the trails loops. I need to get this beast on a board with everything in place for a final verdict but so far it seems very quiet and rock solid. I'm very stoked.
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-09.jpg)
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-10.jpg)
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-11.jpg)
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-12.jpg)
(https://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Eoo3-13.jpg)
As I mentioned, I've made every imaginable mistake thru the build of this beast. My board standoffs were too tall, the crimp connectors on the ribbon cable had a hood on them that stood too tall, loop wires WAY too long, Small Bear shielded cable is great but is so thin that any movement and it breaks...I ended up going with standard hookup wire that I twisted to get all runs non-parallel. During it all I had some major life events that checked me into the boards a few times...but STILL...it works. I'm really proud of this one.
A few notes worth mentioning. Follow the build guide, the drilling template, the parts list, and the docs. Marshall Arts is German and this is German engineering at it's best. If you build as documented this thing fits together like a BMW.
I reserve the right to revisit this with shielded cable. I really won't know till I get it in a live situation but so far it's dead quiet. I can begin work now on how I want this thing to layout on a board and introduce it to my little 6505mh.
Quote from: gordo on December 02, 2019, 05:03:18 PM
I'm not getting voltage or any noticeable clicking thru the trails loops.
I am so happy to hear that. I had some (acceptable) clicking in high gain settings and I know, that this feature is important to you (if I remember correctly, you were the one to put that on the feature list).
Congrats for a successful build of this monster. Will you put this in the BOTY contest? If so, I would not put in mine ...
Nope, all the kudos go to you on this one. I'll vote for you :-)
For me the tails is the major feature, I love the sound of my delay in the effects loop but really need it to fade naturally after it's turned off. Integrating the amp switches as effects is the icing on the cake. I'm laying out a board for it now and hope to have it finished in time for the beginning of January.