project to clone Ed Sheeran's Chewie II

[jovid196168]

Also I plan for the logo to be laser cut. I've had someone suggest a TFT display But most of the tft displays are 3.3V and the arduino is 5V. But I've been told I may have to upgrade the processor to a mega or an arm to get enough memory and I/O pins to do what I need. Might get stuck here.

[slacker]

Yeah I would say you probably need a Mega to do what you want. Counting all the buttons and LEDs on your drawing you're close to running out of pins on a smaller Arduino, there are ways to expand the number of inputs/outputs using additional chips but these days it's often easier just to switch to a more powerful processor. I don't think you need to worry about running out of memory, you're not trying to do anything particularly complicated, it's just reading some switches, turning some LEDs on and off and sending the MIDI data, pretty easy stuff for the Arduino.
To answer your question about the screens, the big one just needs power and a suitable video cable back to the PC that is running the Mobius software. How exactly you do this depends on the screen that you buy and what video ports you use. I'm not sure about the smaller one, the big one looks like it is just duplicating the Mobius GUI that would be displayed on the PC but do we know what the little one is displaying?

[jovid196168]

That's what someone else told me too, I'll have to buy a Mega. I have the buttons sorted and the midi port too. Need to sort out the LED's and the screens and that should be it. I just can't get my head around the screen like how to power them through the circuit and also connect them. The big screen is showing each track of the mobius. The the little screen is also showing mobius I think but in a different view. Showing the track audio wave of the current track in progress. You'll see it if you look at Ed Sheerans performance at the grammys shows it clear as anything. I've been looking at LCD screen tft panels. But a lot seem to be for raspberry pi but I think you are able to use them with other chips.

[jovid196168]

I really need some help with these screens. I understand that it can be just out in place and used as a regular tv and plug a hdmi/vga cable from my mac to it. But what I can't get my head round is how can I connect it to the whole circuit to be able to use a power cable that plugs into the wall. This guy has managed it https://youtu.be/aoKB9ooUxwo http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Chewie-Monsta-Ed-Sheeran-Loop-Pedal/?ALLSTEPS

[slacker]

A lot of those screens are designed for in car use so they run off 12 volts, so the easiest thing to do is get your screens and work out how much current they need and buy a suitable 12 volt power supply. You might be able to find an old laptop supply that will do the job or you can buy something like this https://www.rapidonline.com/powerpax-sw4380-desktop-power-supply-unit-60w-12v-dc-5a-c14-to-2-5mm-554671. Then you just need a suitable socket on the case to plug it in and run separate cables from the socket to the screens, the Arduino can also be powered by 12 volts via its DC jack so you can power that off the same supply removing the need for a separate 5 volt supply.

[jovid196168]

So I'm going to need three dc jacks really then? 1 for the smaller screen one for the bigger screen and one for the whole unit? Just the guy who made the original on the instructables used only one dc jack to power the whole thing up including the screen.

[LiLFX]

Why would you need three DC jacks? The Arduino has a built-in regulator and you can feed it 12v DC.

[slacker]

So I'm going to need three dc jacks really then?

No you only need one DC jack socket that you plug the power supply into, that's would be  "power plug1" on the schematic in your first post. Then from there you run wires to the two screens and to the Arduino,

[jovid196168]

Yeah I saw that on the original schematic. It's just I really don't know how to do that. I've been doing lots of research. But I can't seem to fin anything about that. Like how and where to connect it, at the moment I'm building it on breadboard then eventually hope to put it on a perf board or something

[jovid196168]

Sorry I'm still quite new to all of this. I'm still learning that's why I thought you'd need 3 but now I understand and wondered for a while if I could use the built in regulator. Thanks for your help I appreciate it a lot!

[jovid196168]

I have been trying to research how to connect the screens. Would I use something like a tft driver board for the lcd screens? Sorry I just can't get my head around it.

[slacker]

The screens you want are basically just small portable computer monitors, they will have built in HDMI or VGA ports. Just buy ones with the correct ports for your PC or Mac, if you want two screens your PC/Mac will need to be capable of driving two screens displaying different things. Then you just connect power to the screens, as we discussed above and plug them into your PC/Mac using HDMI/VGA leads, the same as you would any other monitor.
There's no connection between the screens and the Arduino, there's no need for driver boards or anything else.

[jovid196168]

Alright, how do I connect them to the 12v regulator then so I only need one dc jack to power the whole thing

[LiLFX]

You don't need a 12v regulator. Buy a 12v power supply that can supply enough current for the project. Your Arduino has a built-in 5v regulator so you can power it off of that same 12v power supply.

[slacker]

Alright, how do I connect them to the 12v regulator then so I only need one dc jack to power the whole thing

You don't need a regulator. Here's a simplified diagram of what you want.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B45V-V1ycMU9VTBwWjdlZWF4aFU/view?usp=sharing

[jovid196168]

I understand but what I really don't understand is how to connect it all. I can't see the diagram slacker. Might be because I'm on my phone. Sorry to be a pain to everyone

[jovid196168]

I can now see your diagram, that has helped me out a lot. But I have one question. How do the two screen dc jacks connect together and then connect to the arduino. Thank you so much for your help. Really helped me out here, what type of screen should I be going for? Been looking a lcds tft screen panels. But I know there are many other options.

[slacker]

How do the two screen dc jacks connect together and then connect to the arduino.

With wires

For the screens you want ones like in the instructable you linked to in your first post.

[jovid196168]

I drew a diagram on the fritzing forum to try and understand the connections from each screen to the arduino (drew it on my phone, I know it's not the best). is this correct? using a dc jack lug to wire each power lead from each screen to it. http://www.bgmicro.com/PWR1168.aspx.

Also one of these dc jack barrel male adapters were mentioned to connect to the dc jack of the arduino and soldered to the lugs http://www.batteryspace.com/connectoradaptor55mmx21mmbarrelmalewire15long.aspx.

Think I've ran into a problem though, Because I need each screen to show different. And there is only one hdmi port, I'm still unsure what the smaller screen is going to show. I know that Ed is using ableton and using a vst called mobius which is dragged to the bigger screen. But I am not sure what the second screen is using? it could be another vst showing the current waveform of the track or possibly still using mobius but has been rewrote maybe. As the view of each track looks completely different, instead of the circles spinning around they are bars that move up and down.

[jovid196168]

I have built my pedal on breadboard and it works with mobius, got a lot of help from Ed who built the sonnit pedal. I now want to add the led's for each track I had a go yesterday and managed to get the LED to change colour no problem by pressing the track button. But there is more to it than that. Because the pedal is controlled by mobius and it would be hard to keep track of where the pedal is at. At the moment the pedal has:  record-play,stop, undo, mode, clear, track1, track2 track3 and track for. I hope to add a bank button later on but I've been looking into midi bank controllers. I need each track to light up green when that track is in play mode and is currently playing. And each track to light up red when in record mode and is recording. I think I'll need to make some mobius scripts to be able to keep track of where the pedal is in and what mode it is in. Could anybody help me out or suggest something?