Hey Guys,
I´ve just finish another "toture time" finding an idea for the graphics design for my sea urchin. after some work i managed (by luck) to create a ring indicator for the pots. im just learning how to use inkscape/illustrator and would like to know if someone could help with some template which i can be based on in the future.
Does anyone has also tried to have small LED indicators for the volume/tone/etc pots?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Gledison
I had these archive on a USB key. Might help some.
http://music.codydeschenes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Vector-indicator-rings.zip (http://music.codydeschenes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Vector-indicator-rings.zip)
Might be fun to make a nice DIY template for basic knob sizes.
Quote from: Gledison on October 23, 2013, 08:34:45 AMDoes anyone has also tried to have small LED indicators for the volume/tone/etc pots?
You mean something like that ?
(http://monimag.eu/upload/1313/pot.png)
http://mayhewlabs.com/news/new-product-rotary-encoder-led-ring
https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=10408&what=products
Here's some:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=5494.0
There's a web site somewhere that generates them also, but I can't remember what it is.
Hey Cody, thanks a million for linking to your Illustrator files. I've only got Illustrator on my computer at work, so figuring out indicator rings isn't something I've been able to accomplish during my lunch hour so far! These are all really cool options.
Quote from: croquet hoop on October 23, 2013, 03:54:39 PM
Quote from: Gledison on October 23, 2013, 08:34:45 AMDoes anyone has also tried to have small LED indicators for the volume/tone/etc pots?
You mean something like that ?
(http://monimag.eu/upload/1313/pot.png)
http://mayhewlabs.com/news/new-product-rotary-encoder-led-ring
https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=10408&what=products
yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesss! have you tried?
Quote from: selfdestroyer on October 23, 2013, 03:28:33 PM
I had these archive on a USB key. Might help some.
http://music.codydeschenes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Vector-indicator-rings.zip (http://music.codydeschenes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Vector-indicator-rings.zip)
Might be fun to make a nice DIY template for basic knob sizes.
Thanks a lot mate!
Quote from: Gledison on October 23, 2013, 08:24:58 PMyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesss! have you tried?
Never ;D It's just the first or second result given by google, I had never considered using LED rings for pots on a pedal. They must take an awful lot of space. They could be fun for effects with just one pot though.
Those are cool, but you have to have an MCU with SPI to work with them. They're designed to work with rotary encoders too, which pretty much limits them to being used with some type of processor on the knob side too. Though, you could probably ignore the rotary encoder connections if you were running to an MCU with an A/D converter and then output to the LED section from there.
Quote from: Bret608 on October 23, 2013, 05:24:20 PM
Hey Cody, thanks a million for linking to your Illustrator files. I've only got Illustrator on my computer at work, so figuring out indicator rings isn't something I've been able to accomplish during my lunch hour so far! These are all really cool options.
Glad they worked for you.. I do not want to take credit for them since I did not make them. I picked them up months if not years ago. I just archive things and forget I have them. When someone asks for something I usually look at my archive and post what I have.
Quote from: RobA on October 24, 2013, 12:33:28 AM
Those are cool, but you have to have an MCU with SPI to work with them. They're designed to work with rotary encoders too, which pretty much limits them to being used with some type of processor on the knob side too. Though, you could probably ignore the rotary encoder connections if you were running to an MCU with an A/D converter and then output to the LED section from there.
Pretty expensive solution these boards. Just imagine a 16x16 knob box. (OK, 8x8 or 4x4.)
Is it possible to do it cheaper if there is more than one LED ring and more than one encoder?
The parts are cheap enough. Here is a link to the main part's spec sheet at mouser
http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/405/slvs765a-261290.pdf (http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/405/slvs765a-261290.pdf)
Here's the part http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/TLC5925IDWR/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsE420DPIasPqeXS8%252blRWnW9wnwO8MoeK4%3d (http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/TLC5925IDWR/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsE420DPIasPqeXS8%252blRWnW9wnwO8MoeK4%3d)
That's the SOIC version. They have SSOP and TSSOP too if you enjoy more soldering torture.
It looks pretty slick. The Sparkfun link above has some sample Arduino code too. It actually looks like it would be pretty easy to use this. I picked up some linear LED arrays a bit ago and I may have to order a couple of these chips to play with. The TLC5925 looks like it takes care of nearly everything and really reduces the parts count. It even looks like you can chain them together to get more LED's.
OK, I only saw that one board is $15.95...
Quote from: kothoma on October 24, 2013, 07:13:35 AM
OK, I only saw that one board is $15.95...
Yeah, the price of the board is kinda crazy -- not sure why it's so high.
Dear engineers:
It could
Be possible to create a layout where , lets say, 4 small leds would light depending on the resistanc level of the pots?
I think 4 is too few, but I don't think that's the practical way to do it. You could if you were using a switch of some sort, but at that point, you may as well go to a digital solution anyway.
Jacob
Quote from: Gledison on October 24, 2013, 03:36:40 PM
Dear engineers:
It could
Be possible to create a layout where , lets say, 4 small leds would light depending on the resistanc level of the pots?
You want the four LED's for one pot or four LED's for four pots with the brightness of the LED reflecting the pot value?
Either way it's going to depend on what you want to use the pot for. If you are using the pots to control parameters on an MCU, then it's fairly easy. If you are using them as say a gain pot in an analog circuit, it's going to get complicated and most likely not worth the trouble.
Quote from: RobA on October 24, 2013, 09:27:51 PM
Quote from: Gledison on October 24, 2013, 03:36:40 PM
Dear engineers:
It could
Be possible to create a layout where , lets say, 4 small leds would light depending on the resistanc level of the pots?
You want the four LED's for one pot or four LED's for four pots with the brightness of the LED reflecting the pot value?
Either way it's going to depend on what you want to use the pot for. If you are using the pots to control parameters on an MCU, then it's fairly easy. If you are using them as say a gain pot in an analog circuit, it's going to get complicated and most likely not worth the trouble.
hey RobA , actually I was thinking about a led indicator for the volume or gain. 4 or more leds around the knobs... I don't now...just thinking about something different...
cheers
Could something like this be adapted to do what you're looking for? Maybe a dual gang pot where one gang controls volume or whatever, the other gang controls voltage to the LED circuit?
Kinda big, though.
(http://www.element14.com/community/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/2-12794-29674/battery+monitor.JPG)
http://www.element14.com/community/thread/4644
The idea of using a dual pot is probably going to be the best approach then. Doing it with that LM3914 would be one fairly straight forward way to do it. But that is a pretty big IC. There are probably other LED drivers that can do similar things.
But, if all you are looking for is 4 LED's, then you could get that from a simple little program and an ATTiny13. If you want a few more LED's, say 8 or 10, then you could do that with just an ATTiny84 very easily. The key to all of them though would be using the dual pot idea. In some circumstances, you might be able to get away without the dual pot, but you have to be able to feed all of these ideas so far a voltage that's proportional to the position of the knob.
If there's enough interest in something like this, I can put together a board and a little program and make the board available on OSHPark. Of course, that would still mean people would need to come up with ways to program the chip. It's easy enough to do and can be done very cheaply, but you still have to go through the steps of doing it.
Perhaps this. 5 LEDs logarithmically spaced: AN6884, BA6124, KA2284, LB1403, ...
Quote from: RobA on October 25, 2013, 02:17:52 AM
The idea of using a dual pot is probably going to be the best approach then. Doing it with that LM3914 would be one fairly straight forward way to do it. But that is a pretty big IC. There are probably other LED drivers that can do similar things.
But, if all you are looking for is 4 LED's, then you could get that from a simple little program and an ATTiny13. If you want a few more LED's, say 8 or 10, then you could do that with just an ATTiny84 very easily. The key to all of them though would be using the dual pot idea. In some circumstances, you might be able to get away without the dual pot, but you have to be able to feed all of these ideas so far a voltage that's proportional to the position of the knob.
If there's enough interest in something like this, I can put together a board and a little program and make the board available on OSHPark. Of course, that would still mean people would need to come up with ways to program the chip. It's easy enough to do and can be done very cheaply, but you still have to go through the steps of doing it.
Hey RobA , dont know if it worth the work. I was just wondering if someone already did/thought about it!
Cheers