TC Electronic Nova Repeater Switch Hack (with photos)

[tysonlt]

I am hacking my beloved nova repeater to allow me to bypass and set tempo remotely. I have a lexicon mpx 500 that allows TRS control of bypass and tap, so this will let me control both from my nascent midi/loop switcher.

There is a vid on YouTube somewhere, where a guy has hooked up an old footswitch board to control the parameter buttons, but mine just does the stomps.

The tools:



Piggybacking off the spst momentary stomps:



The socket:



The dastardly plan is to make a new hole for the network jack here:

 

I was hoping to use a simple TRS plug, but the stomps must be using some kind of capacitance discharge to trigger the logic, because I found that touching wires between stomps would trigger a change as well. So it will have to be network cable with two separate wires for each stomp.

To go further, I was imagining wiring up the other buttons and the pots, and cramming a PIC in there to accept midi commands. Now THAT would be cool. The little microswitches I know can be done, but is there any way to use a PIC to change the resistance of a variable resistor? Tying a digital potentiometer in series with the pots for example?

Anyway, the next thing to do is figure out how to drill square holes...

[tysonlt]

Update: an rs232 port will be easier to fit to the chassis.

[CodeMonk]

That's nice.
I modded my Nova Delay for external Preset access.

Maybe I should do a thread on that.
Its a very easy mod.

[Gaetano Capuano]

That's nice.
I modded my Nova Delay for external Preset access.

Maybe I should do a thread on that.
Its a very easy mod.

Please do that would be awesome!

[tysonlt]

Yes please do! Would your mod work with the repeater as well?

[CodeMonk]

Here it is:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=95548.0

I don't have a repeater, so I could't say for sure, but it probably would.
Just test the pads the switch is soldered to.

[Gaetano Capuano]

Yes please do! Would your mod work with the repeater as well?

I see no way, the repeater does not have presets so.............

[tysonlt]

I replied on your other thread... is that... naughty?

Mentioned there that you would have to use a PIC to do presets.

BTW, does anyone know if it is possible to electronically control an analog POT?

OR are the pots in the nova pedals digital?

[slacker]

OR are the pots in the nova pedals digital?

The pots are probably wired as voltage dividers, so the voltage on the wiper goes from zero to some maximum voltage as you turn the pot, so they are sending a voltage to what ever they are connected to. If this is right, then in theory you can replace them with anything you like that can deliver the same voltages, so you could use a PIC with PWM outputs and some filtering to generate the voltages to give you presets.

[tysonlt]

Well I finished this last night. Works like a charm! Ended up going with the ethernet because I had one lying around and didn't want my nova's guts sitting on my workbench any longer!

Tested just by shorting contacts on the other end of a connected ethernet cable.

[CodeMonk]

Thats cool.
I may go with ethernet cable if I should ever decide to do the external tap tempo mod on my Nova Delay.
I just hate crimping Cat5 connectors though. And I don't have my crimper anymore

[tysonlt]

I just ripped the socket out of an old adapter and used some network cable I had hanging around. I've never even seen a crimper

[CodeMonk]

How did you cut a square hole in the Repeater enclosure?
Dremel?

[tysonlt]

Ha ha, you don't want to know!



When one only has a drill bit, one must improvise.

[CodeMonk]

Been there
One small drill bit and 20 holes later...success.
Then anyway.
My Dremel burnt up (Literally, flames and everything) a few weeks ago
Dumb-ass me was cutting some metal that was freshly (12+ hours or so) painted.
Fumes.
Boom!


But hey..look where I am.
We take sh*t apart and fix it here.

[tysonlt]

Where do you work, monk? And are you a coder like me?

[CodeMonk]

Hehhe...
Well, I used to be a coder. Name gave it away huh?
Originally my nick/alias/username/whatever, was going to be Code_Monkey (you know like how an auto mechanic is called a grease monkey), but the chat network I was using at the time only allowed 9 characters. So I became a Monk instead of a Monkey

When I coded, I lived in or near Reno, Nevada.
Mostly wrote system utility type programs, which were my favorite to write, DB coding is soooooooo boring to me. I wanna dig into the system and make it do odd things. Kinda like now, only I dig into stompboxes.
Backup, screen capture, maintenance and such mostly though.
Mainly wrote in Delphi. Did C/C++ when needed (mostly libraries).
Also did freelance tech and network work. Would write programs to help with that.
Backup programs where the most popular. I had a skeleton backup program that I would customize as needed.

Lots of days and nights spent at the office.
More than a few times, the boss would say "good-bye" as he left for the night. And again, "good-morning" when He came back in, while myself, I was there all night. Then I would go home at lunch and sleep.
But I really, really enjoyed that kind of work.

Here is an overhead view of where I "work" :



Its a horse boarding stables I inherited from my dad.
I try to keep it running.

[tysonlt]

Interesting, that's the opposite to me... I was never into the system stuff, I mainly did corporate databases. Yes, plain DB code is boring. I passed the time by making frameworks and libraries that others could use. That was fun, especially writing rails-type systems that you poke a db schema at and it spits out standard DB screens... ended up working for the justice dept over in south australia working on prisoner management stuff, as well as some credit card processing stuff for a private firm. It was all good fun.

I used to love the all-nighters. Never did a straight through, but would sometimes leave at 3am, sometimes arrive at 3am. Great fun, but a young-man's game!

Like you I am now an ex-coder. Gave it all away to become an English and History teacher. This is my first year and I absolutely love it, one of the best moves I ever made. (5 years of study was a bit stressful though.) Now I try to build little effects for fun and relaxation... started with simple patch bays to clean up my pedal board. Now I am trying to get my head around CMOS so that I can build a PIC-based midi controller and looper. The PIC part is easy for us of course, but I'm still learning the electronics side of things. I *think* I have recently figured out what biasing is!

Nice place. I would love to live on a property like that. Except I would want to be like an English noble, taking walks, instructing the servants...

[CodeMonk]

Interesting, that's the opposite to me... I was never into the system stuff, I mainly did corporate databases. Yes, plain DB code is boring. I passed the time by making frameworks and libraries that others could use. That was fun, especially writing rails-type systems that you poke a db schema at and it spits out standard DB screens... ended up working for the justice dept over in south australia working on prisoner management stuff, as well as some credit card processing stuff for a private firm. It was all good fun.

I used to love the all-nighters. Never did a straight through, but would sometimes leave at 3am, sometimes arrive at 3am. Great fun, but a young-man's game!

Like you I am now an ex-coder. Gave it all away to become an English and History teacher. This is my first year and I absolutely love it, one of the best moves I ever made. (5 years of study was a bit stressful though.) Now I try to build little effects for fun and relaxation... started with simple patch bays to clean up my pedal board. Now I am trying to get my head around CMOS so that I can build a PIC-based midi controller and looper. The PIC part is easy for us of course, but I'm still learning the electronics side of things. I *think* I have recently figured out what biasing is!

Nice place. I would love to live on a property like that. Except I would want to be like an English noble, taking walks, instructing the servants...

The bolded part made me laugh.
Strange huh?
Not really.
I also spent 6 years working as a Correctional Officer (Prison Guard) (Maybe we weren't on the same path, but we took a few of the same roads it appears )
But I did that before I got into the computer stuff.

I missing writing code sometimes.
Every now and then though, I will have the need for a small file utility program (usually parsing or something) and will punch something out over the course of a day or 2.
BTW...have a look here:
http://tucows.newnova.com/win2k/preview/71621.html
Wrote that. Was popular back in the day, got great reviews everywhere, but competing with WinZip was uhm....well...didn't work out 100% for me.
In the end, I just didn't have the time to update and Maintain it.


Oh well.

Time for me to push some caffeine down my throat (its 1:30am and I just woke up : ))

[tysonlt]

Ha ha, wow. Being an officer would be beyond me. I just wrote code with Prisoner and Officer objects!

Up early huh? Normal starting time?

If ever I come to the US I know where to visit!