bsom - butterfly-fueled robot loves you

So, I’ve been trying to build a Polywhatsit effects processor from the December 2001 issue of EPE Magazine. I ordered the PCB’s from the magazine’s US website, sourced all of the parts (even the weird one), bought a new USB PIC programmer board on eBay, and started looking at unique housings. Flash forward two weeks: The boards arrived from the UK and one of them is incorrect. They sent me half of the Polywhatsit and the board for a project that uses an ultrasonic sensor tx/rx pair to create sounds. (I might actually end up building it…) I emailed them and they responded immediately and apologized for mixup and promised to send out a replacement board (2 more weeks!) Also, I managed to find that crazy BCD-switch by calling Allied Electronics and pointing out their UK website has it but their US site does not. I was told there would be a long lead time, but not how long. So far, they haven’t even charged my credit card. Then, my USB PIC programmer arrived. Nice looking piece of kit with snazzy software. While looking online, however, I found that what I bought was a bootleg version of the KIT150 PIC programmer and software. Had I realized that before I bought it, I would have paid a little extra to get the official version and support the original designer. Too late now, but lesson learned. And then I found that the code for the Polywhatsit is written in some weird flavor of PIC assembler called TASM that is, more or less, extinct. Luckily, EPE Magazine has a download on their website to convert TASM files into MPASM. The conversion was 99% with some minor tweaking needed by hand. So, overall, this project has become a big PAIN IN THE ASS! But I will finish it now if it kills me! I’m also designing some cool MIDI trinkets concurrently, so when the Polywhatsit pisses me off, I work on the more rewarding MIDI trinket designs.

Well, not exactly a datasheet, but I did find some interesting information about the Panasonic EVQ-WTEF2515B encoder currently listed at Electronic Goldmine. I scoured the web looking for data on this item and finally found it in an old Digikey catalog. Digikey was kind enough to publish data about the encoder in their catalog and I was lucky enough to stumble upon it. I’ve posted it here just in case anyone else is out there looking for it.

Would you pay $30.24 for this part? I don’t want to, but since the only place I can find it is RS Electronics in the UK and I need it to build the Polywhatsit, I might have to bite the Euro-vs-US Dollar bullet and spend money I don’t want to. Where did $30.24 come from you ask? The part is listed at €3.50…plus an additional €16 for shipping to the US! Damn it, why don’t any US parts dealers have this!

Well, most of the parts for the Polywhatsit are a breeze to source with the exception of one: the 8-position BCD rotary switch. The originally specified part is a weird one. I’ve only found one supplier who lists the exact part and they are in the UK. If anyone is curious, here is a link to the part. I’ve yet to find a US/Canada dealer that has this item, so I have attempted to order it from RS in the UK. We’ll see if it ever arrives. The worst thing is that it is made by C&K Electronics, which is carried by all of the major parts dealers in the US, but they don’t have this particular flavor of rotary BCD; they mostly have the small, PCB-mount ones that you adjust with a screw driver. Blech! I need knobs!

I was browsing through some old copies of EPE Magazine and came across a project from December 2001 called the PIC Polywhatsit. It is a PIC-based effects processor that offers some interesting sound effects such as Pitch Multiplying and Reverse Tracking. EPE still has the circuit boards (one for analog and one for digital) available in their online store. It requires some strange parts, like an 8-position BCD rotary switch and a 32k SRAM chip, but I think I can track these things down. I’m currently researching the parts and if none of the seem too difficult to source, I think this may be my next project. Too bad the PIC code is in ASM, otherwise I’d like to fool around with the effect algorithms and parameters. I’m not too handy with ASM on a PIC…

I finished this a while ago but I’m just now getting around to taking photos. This is my Weird Sound Generator constructed using the printed circuit board available from Music from Outer Space, a custom face panel from Front Panel Express, an old piece of military test equipment I acquired for $3 at a ham fest, and some nice aluminum knobs from Electronic Goldmine. Unlike most folks who build the WSG, I didn’t put it in a plastic VHS cassette box or anything silly like that. I prefer to house my electronic projects in classic test equipment boxes. Extra images: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Since I’ve been looking for Arduino sound, synth and MIDI projects to tinker with lately, I’ve started remembering all of the little chips and trinkets I’ve bought over the years and stashed in drawers, knowing that someday I’d get around to actually using them for something.  Tonight, while rummaging through one of those drawers, I found a white box with a Soundgin chip and a receipt from Soundchips.com.  I ran for the laptop to see if they are still selling online, and they are!  I’ll have to play with this Soundgin soon (never even opened it!) and possibly order a few more things to play with…

Man, for $0.99 each, I wish I could find the datasheet for these. I want to use them with the Arduino but I’m not sure of the pinout. I think I’ll order a bunch and try to figure it out. If I get it right, I’ll post my results. Side note: Come on, Panasonic! I know it is a discontinued product, but do you have to wipe clean your website and remove all mentions (and datasheets) for discontinued products? The only thing I could find on their website was the notice that the product was discontinued. Poo.

TonePad started taking orders for a new effects project based on the FV-1 chip from Spin Semiconductor. The project, cleverly named “Reverb Digital,” allows the use of the FV-1 reverb DSP chip with guitars. The chip seems pretty cool, with 3 built-in ADC inputs designed to read pots for realtime adjustment of parameters, integrated stereo ADC and DAC for audio, and a free IDE download for developing your own effects. Now for the bad news: It is a surface mount device (sorry breadboarders), the language used in the IDE is akin to assembly, and they cost $17 each in quantity one from Small Bear. OK, that last item isn’t so bad. Spin Semi show a development/evaluation board on their website, but I haven’t been able to find anyone selling it so far…

I found NKC Electronics by accident while searching for Arduino kits on eBay. I ordered their USB Arduino Decimilia-compatible “Freeduino” board kit and assembled it a few days ago. I’m impressed! It works great and they pre-solder the surface mount FTDI USB-to-Serial bridge for you. They kept the form factor for Arduino Shields along with the cool feature of sizing the board so it fits in an Altoids tin, complete with rounded corners. Assembly was easy enough for me, but I could see some stumbling blocks in the instructions on their website that could trip-up newbies. So far, I have the unit talking happily to my old uLCD (no longer in production) from 4D Systems and a surplus PS/2 Glidepoint Touchpad originally destined for NEC Laptops.