Dimension C Build Report

[DiyFreaque]

Thanks!  As far as your late great Dim C goes, I know better than to say build another one (unless you want to put it in a bigger box, rack it like I did or have the original PCB trace/parts) - Holy moly Boss crammed the parts into that thing!  I couldn't imagine trying to put it into a stompbox.

Take care,
Scott

[DiyFreaque]

It is finished.....

I received the package from Jeff Pontius today - he mounted the boards into the rack enclosures and the Schaeffer panels, and he did an absolutely wonderful job.  It's as a pretty as a flower (wish I had Ton here to take pics of it - I just can't do it justice).

Be that as it may, I did take some pics of it and loaded them to a new page on my site here:

http://mypeoplepc.com/members/scottnoanh/birthofasynth/id12.html

What a long road this project was, but I'm glad I did it.  Thanks to Mike Irwin, Mark Hammer, Stephen Giles, Ton and numerous others on this forum for giving me the brain food to realize this project.

Cheers,
Scott

PS  Now, where do I put the @#$! thing?  

[Andi]

I am in awe - that is an incredible project and a fantastic piece of work!

[Mark Hammer]

Nice.

I like the lettering you used on the panel,  Silk screen or, gulp, the last sheets of white Letraset in the world?


I also like the lettering on the fridge in the back.  Very nice.  I wish I could use that for MY boxes, but alas, they don't stick very well to aluminum.  Hmmm...maybe if I used a LOT of clear laquer.... :lol:

[ExpAnonColin]

Sadly the first time I've run across this thread

This is up there with the storm tide for "excellent DIY racksynth projects I need to stompboxicize".

I can't believe you did it without PCBs!  Amazing!... but that means that it will be that much harder for me to make one for myself

-Colin

[puretube]

   

[Vsat]

Congratulations! Nice work, Scott.
Cheers, Mike

[DiyFreaque]

Thanks, guys!  Jeff is purely responsible for how nice the thing looks.  It kind of clashes with my not so good looking stuff.

Mark - The fridge alphabet is what my lab assistant uses to jot down ideas on the fridge between bouts of playing with his army men and gameboy.  It's a rare font that I picked up in Oulu, Finland, complete with those Finnish characters that don't exist in the English language.  Might make nice lettering for a future stompbox/rack unit.  

Actually, the Schaeffer panels are engraved, so no Letraset was harmed in the making of this unit.

Pat - wish I would have made PCB's for it!  Actually, when I was mulling over the front panel wiring diagrams for Jeff, it hit me that I could easily have made the LFO range switch go up in range as well as down (I've got two lower freq ranges than the original Dim C LFO - the switch works for the Modes as well as the LFO Freq and Depth control).  So, if PCB's were made, I'd put that in.  I could have done it without altering the original LFO circuit too terribly much too using the same switch that I used to select the lower ranges.  But, by that time the panels had been done and I just didn't want to go there - it was time to put a fork in it and call it done.  The slow LFO ranges are really nice for gentler, more subtle sounds and work really well for slow TZF sweeps, but a faster range would have been neat for more off-the-wall kinds of sounds.  No matter, the external CV will do all that anyway, but it would have been neat.

And speaking of putting a fork in it and calling it done, Einstein strikes again.  The CV input jack determines if a CV or a manual voltage is used to set the delay time of either one or both delay lines (manual control comes in handy for asymmetrical TZF and also for nice subtle static comb filter effects).  The part I specified was wrong....I screwed up and specified a three conductor normally closed ring when I should have specified a three conductor normally closed tip (those @#$!! Mouser catalog illustrations threw me off).  So, the upshot of that is everything works as designed except the manual delay control - it has a limited range because the current limited voltage that's supposed to be normalized to the tip lug of the jack is instead normalized to the 'ring' lug of the jack.  The 'ring' lug provides the ground signal when a mono jack is inserted to throw on offset to the CV internally so that bipolar 10Vp-p CV's can be used.  For unipolar CV's, a stereo plug could be used to access the full sweep from 0 to 10V input.  But, anyhow, the external CV still works because the ring still provides the ground when the plug is inserted, but if the plug is not inserted, the +9V is applied to the base of the switching transistor rather than the tip lug of the CV jack.  Doh - now I have to be veeeerrryyyy careful when I change that jack (I'd just die if I scratched the panel on this thing).

Everything else is working just great, though.

Take care,
Scott

[Joe Kramer]

Superb work Scott!

I propose a DIYstompbox Hall of Fame, and nominate the DIM C as its first inductee!

Congratulations on a big job well done!

[StephenGiles]

That is an amazing finish indeed. Probably too late but I found my Eventide Instant Flanger manual, just a couple of pages with graphs missing.
Stephen