Just a quick concept with not too much thought behind it:
LED rings are great but seem very clunky to implement. You either need a single board (Ã la Fairlightii) with through hole LEDs or surface mount, which introduces panel problems (i.e. one needs a transparent case). Or you design stackable daughter boards like FantomXR, a good idea but adds to the cost.
An alternative might be to light the encoders directly. For example, Sparkfun have these encoders with a switch button and two common cathode LEDs (e.g. red+green). Currently $2.66-$2.95 depending on quantity.
I have to admit I don’t have a lot to go on from the software side, but I imagine one could get some pretty intuitive colour mixing by changing the levels of each red and green LED. If we consider that there are usually 16 LEDs per ring, a possible 2 bit scheme could look like this.
Green Red
0 0 OFF
1 0 green colours
2 0
3 0
3 1 orange colours
3 2
1 1
2 1
3 3
1 2
1 1
1 2
1 3
0 1 red colours
0 2
0 3
Of course it might be swapped around somewhat, but it’s a general idea to start.
Interested to know how this might work from the software side because I think for bling factor and hardware implementation it could be quite worthwhile. The colours also enable other possibilities, like a VU meter scheme, LFO phase, simple on/off switch or 4-state parameters etc.
Or you design stackable daughter boards like FantomXR, a good idea but adds to the cost.
It’s all about the quantity. I don’t think that this is very expensive if I order 1.000 pc of pcb assembled LED-ring-PCBs. But what should I do with 1.000 pc?
Its quite interresting. Then a year later i desided to make a Matrix modul and a encoder mounting pcb. Its not yet on Github because i was to busy and still waiting for the big sister with ledring to arrive but you are welcome to use it…
The parts laks documentation as well because of time but im working on it…
Im mot able to ship cheep because everything in switzerland is so expensive, as well as the parts.. I buy them for almost double the price that sparkfun sells them from the supplyers in switzerland…
If you have any question regarding them please fell free to contact me or have a look into the schematics of 8enc on Github.
It wil help to visualize the Bank. I didn’t realize it until now because i got stuck with the Motorfader modul. I try to make a remote for my software mixer. So in one bank it will be the Gain and in a other maybe the panorama and so on, i think the color will make it more visual in what mode i am while turning the encoder…
For a more complet feature request, the solution cold be to assign RGB LED’s to a Ring (i think It is not possible yet to assign a look of a Matrix in RGB way…) and then give it to the RGB LED of the encoder.
great idea… that would make a lot of easier…maybe not on the programming side… i think as soon you learn how to read that colours it works great.
as expirience the alps caps are a bit big… so the saved space between the encs is away, but have no alternative in moment.
For the programming I suppose there are benefits in avoiding matrix routing (also easier for PCB routing, just use separate DOUT pins for each LED). And for the space, couldn’t we use Waldorf-style clear knobs? I imagine some room could be gained over the LRE8x2, even by staggering the encoders (i.e. offsetting a row horizontally).
BTW, if someone would like to do the programming, I’m keen to do the PCB, maybe for a “Wilba-style” all-in-one MIDIbox CV v2. It might include 16 encoders with switches, CLCD, 4xGLCD and a few extra buttons. If not, maybe this would be a good place for me to start :).
Yes, my tests resulted in a distance of ~30mm to the next encoder to get enough space for fingers and cap. My 8Enc pcb has a 27,5mm grid. With 11 LEDs in the Ring and the RGB colored Encoder.
My grid on the encoder PCB is 29mm. This is because I want to add OLEDs underneath it and they have a width of 27,3mm. My encoder pcb can be stacked with a SMD LED-Ring (0805) which has 16 LEDs.
Maybe I’ll add the support for those RGB-Encoders.
Just thinking about this a bit more, RGB encoders are known (and by the way: supported by MIOS DOUT to 7 levels + off, so no I2C buss/chips needed), but perhaps a bit too expensive. To make matters worse, it looks like a lot of them are common anode *facepalm*.
Another idea is to find a way of making a “collar” that sits over the shaft with the knob on top. On the PCB side a few RGB LEDs would illuminate this “lightpipe”. So it could work out a bit cheaper and more flexible this way.
See this “Star Knob”, a bit big, but the concept is about right.
The idea having a color of the cap as indication of where you are seems a bit.. odd.
For personal use. Ok. But how to describe for others where, say 50% is?
For led-rings the now discontinued http://mayhewlabs.com ledring, using a tlc5925 would be a great start.
With some redesign you can get a boardlayout that is not even near the " bulkyness" of the original.
I My self started to layout a board with a couple of encoders and surrounding led-rings. Guess what takes the most of the PCB-space? The leds of course. So the obvious soulution would be a slimmed led-ring PCB mounted to the “main board”
I would say that we don’t know how it will work until somebody (i.e. me) tries it. You have 256 colour levels with RGB LEDs but only 16 with the LREs, although you do have a positional indicator. Remember that exact values can be read out on the associated LCD. So hopefully I have some time to design and test after the BLM is out the door.
Interested to see what you come up with, both in terms of electronics (see FantomXR’s work above) and also the “engineering” side (panel spacing, getting the light through etc.).
Interested to see what you come up with, both in terms of electronics (see FantomXR’s work above) and also the “engineering” side (panel spacing, getting the light through etc.).
Well, the electronics bit will probably be more or less the same as the mayhew-labs ledring.
My idea is to have a ~270 degree arc, aprox. 5mm wide cut out in the panel, and then insert a piece of cnc-cut plexi. that will serve as “lightpipe” and diffusor (if wanted)
Hi
If your working with Eagle i have a lib where i tested different angles and sizes…
Hope it helps..
Most helpful.
I’ve realised that 16 leds obviously makes it impossible to have 9,12 and 3 o’clock positions.
So either I skip one led or makes the arch having one extra led on one of the ends.
Is 16 enough? (Fairlightiii used 43 mm spacing on a 342 mm PCB)