SEQ v3 & modular drum machine in progress. Hand silkscreened panels. Kinda dusty and messy right now. Pretty much just lots of mounting and wiring left…
LZX Industries is a personal logo I use for DIY projects. I wanted the designs to have a sloppy, “mass manufactured” sort of feel, in ironic contrast to the truth. 
Hey Lars, that is great looking screen-print on that modular!
What modules are you using?
Retro! Nice =)
If you know of any tutorials for screen printing panels, could you please post them? I’d love to try it sometime.
thanks
The modules are… microLARGE’s 808 clone – Snare drum and Bass drum. The Snare drum is built with a noise source input jack, so that i can patch in different/tunable noise sources (although I plan to have the standard 808 noise source on a different module as well.) Then the 909 kick PCB based on the 9090 project, found here:
http://www.analog-synth.de/synths/tr909/tr909.htm
The UD-1 and Clangora are Thomas Henry designs. UD-1 PCBs are available at the Thomas Henry forum over at electro-music. Clangora was in the Nov 2003 issues of Nuts & Volts – but you can find the article over on that forum as well.
The modular cabinet was built using the DIY designs at www.synthesizers.com – but I used poplar hardwood instead of shelving material.
The MB SEQ is tweaked out w/all banksticks, all 4 IIC boards, all the extra LED/Button options (except for Matrix display), and full AOUT & drumpulse outs (8x quarter inch jacks for CVs, 8x quarter inch jacks for Gates, and two 25-pin serial ports to cover the rest of the pulse outputs, although I won’t be wiring the second one up until its needed.) There’s an internal +/-12v 2A power supply, and this will feed the AOUT board and the core board. This has a standard IEC jack for connection via standard computer cable. (The +12vdc line going into the core board shouldn’t overload the 5v regulator, right? It’s got a heat sink.)
I have lots more modules planned…
I’ve only found one tutorial for screenprinting panels, but can’t find it at the moment. At any rate, my methods are different – and I’m using pro supplies instead of Hobby Lobby stuff. (Expect to spend close to $200 to get setup with ink, emulsion, screens, and everything else.) I’d definitely reccomend it though – but if you want a quick, easy solution and all you’d be using it for is a couple panels, probably not worth it. I needed to get a screenprinting rig set up anyway, for band merch, tshirts, posters, and so on. Since nobody buys CDs anymore, we’re probably going all vinyl & digital with our releases, so we want to hand screenprint all the vinyl sleeves.
I’d be glad to post a full tutorial myself, and will if there seems to be enough interest, but I don’t feel 100% qualified to do it yet. :) I’m still a beginner. It really is a pain in the ass, but I love the organic/imperfect look of the prints, since they are coming from basic shape/bright color designs I made in Photoshop. Yes, I’m very inspired by 70’s gear designs, oldschool sci-fi, and simplified postmodern art in general. 70’s synth logos and such work their way into all of my other design, too… so it’s weird actually designing for a synth. I have to admit, a lot of the reason I dove into DIY is because I’m so anal about aesthetics, and hated the way most of my gear looked on stage.
For now, there are TONS of great screenprinting tutorials out there… everybody does it different so plan to do several tests, read several guides, before getting a good print. For printing on the panels, I reccomend using Plastisol ink, I use a brand called Triangle Inks… it needs a bonding agent that’s mixed in with it to bond to hard surfaces (instead of t-shirts.) It’s very thick and goopy and messy, so prepare your work area appropriately… You need mineral spirits to clean it off of anything, too.
A quick breakdown of my panel-making process was this…
Design drilling template & silkscreen, get transparencies made
Drill the aluminum panel with step-drill after center-punching (this will be more perfect once I get a drill press)
Deburr, sand down, polish really well, wash off really well…
Duplikote automobile primer, 1 coat – let dry an hour, wipe off any dust…
Duplikote automobile flat black, 2-3 coats 15 minutes apart… let dry a few hours… this goes on really really smooth compared to Rust-O-Leum I’ve noticed.
Coat new screen with emulsion (I use a basic Diazo textile emulsion) and let dry an hour or two
Place panel design on screen, cover with a sheet of glass to hold it flush.
Expose to 500W worklight bulb for 10 minutes, bulb suspended 12-16" above screen.
Rinse out the design under hot water, use fingers to make sure every part of the design is cleared… let dry.
Cover parts of the design you don’t want to print w/packaging tape (I did this to get the two-color prints out of one screen)
place panel on a flat surface, place screen on top… have buddy hold screen down very firmly on top of panel…
place a line of ink mixed w/bonding agent (you want to mix it right before you use it) along the top of the design… use squeegee to pull the ink down over to cover all of the design your printing – don’t push down.
Very firmly push down to print the panel, top to bottom, slowly and with lots of pressure, holding squeegee @ 45 degree angle towards you.
Remove screen. I read once about a guy suspending the screen 1/8" above the panel… this isn’t necessary unless you’re using that cheap hobby lobby ink. If you do it with Plastisol ink, you’ll get a messier print. If the panel is small, your screen might stick to it… so using doublesided tape to stick the panel to the table/printing area, etc. beforehand is a good idea.
Immediately stick panel in an oven @ 200-300ish for 15 minutes or until ink is cured. It won’t air-dry, so this is important. The ink will smear even a couple days after printing, unless it is cured. And smeared ink ruins the whole point of a really clean-lined, bi-color screenprint.
Clean your screen VERY thoroughly with mineral spirits and hot water, let it dry… if you let ink dry in the screen you’ve ruined your screen.
Do second print, of any other color, repeat curing process…
Apply thin coat of satin polyurethane (I used a foam brush and the kind in a can) to panel… stick it in the oven a little longer… repeat doing this in thin layers until you have 3-4, then let it sit for a few hours before going back and polishing/buffing the panel. And you’re done.
Thanks for all the nice words, I’ve been itching to show it to you guys.
Thats a long post. :) You got me very interested in making that 909 kick. I didnt know there is just 909 kick design out there. Are there any rare components used in circuit. Any advice regards making 909 kick is appreciated. 
Thanks for the info.
I have the board etched for the 909 kick, and all the components in, but haven’t built it or tested it yet. Kind of building these modules in tandem with the sequencer, so it’s taking a while. (Boards are done for the Clangora, UD-1 & 808 kick though.)
As far as rare components, no – I found all transistors and ICs on Mouser very easily. Be sure to read the text at the link above before reviewing the PDF – it will give you the transistor & diode types.
I was really excited when I found this link as well, because the 9090 is too big of a project for me to tackle right now (and I’d rather build it modular-style anyway.) I’ll definitely post some soundclips and more pictures when I get it working. It looks like it’s going to be a pretty f’n sweet module. I REALLY wish there were PCBs available like this for the remaining 9090 voices as well… someday I’ll be adept at protoboarding from schematics I hope.
Kickass.
MP3’s, please
Very nice! What is the data wheel?
The datawheel is this:
http://www.okw.co.uk/products/okw/star-knobs.htm
They are expensive, but I got a free sample by filling out their form… now if they’d only sent me free samples of the 16 collet knobs with yellow tops I’d requested, too…
I also got two free MAX525s for the AOUT by making two sample requests a few weeks apart from Maxim IC.
Nice work!
lars, could you please post close-up high-res pictures of the screenprinting? (perhaps the most detailed parts). i’m still interested in having you do some work on my seq panel. everything you have there looks great so far. good work!
Ultra, you dont need to see Lars detail zoom to know the quality you can have using screen printing. You can have very small details using screens with greater "resolution" - density. Screen with density 120 will give you very nice small text. But some below 100 will give you very good results to. Screen printing can be very useful for DIYers but as Lars said, if you just want to use it for few panels for your projects, it probably dont wort investing the money. Screen printing makes sense if you are going at least some kind of series as it takes some effort to prepare the process. Doing it all for just 1 print makes not much sense. Sure, if you already have everything laying around as Lars, and using screen printing for various different things, situation is bit different. I would still advise you to use laser engraving for panel prototypes.
hey ultra –
I’m definitely still interested in doing screenprinting for panels, but through getting this all set up and spending a couple of whole weekends trying to get things to come out right, I’ve definitely realized that setting up a screen for a single panel isn’t going to be as cost/time effective as I’d originally hoped. If I set up some sort of service, it may be a 2-3 week waiting time type of deal, so that I can put multiple panels onto one screen and do them all at once.
I’ll be glad to post some higher-res pictures. The lines are super-clean, and detail work comes out very fine (I’m using a 220 mesh screen.) But, as you can see from the pictures, none of the prints come out the same as if you’d printed it on a laser printer… Occasionally some lines are a little thick, or there is a dot of ink in the wrong spot. The “Mastermind” panel is a very messy print caused by too much of the emulsion being rinsed out before I printed it. In this case, I wanted that effect, since it fit the aesthetics of the project. You can see cleaner, more indicative prints, in the module picture (The UD-1 came out perfect, the 8Z8 on the right, you can notice a couple of thick lines caused by the screen slightly moving during printing.)
Personally, I much prefer the “natural”, old school look of bright screenprinted ink on a black panel to a label design, but if you want a perfect, straight out of Illustrator looking legend for your panel, go with lazertran, decal paper or something like that I guess. Laser etching is great too I’m sure, but I wanted to go 100% DIY on this project.
So, yeah I’ll be glad to screenprint panels for any Midibox users (as well as buy, drill, paint, coat panels, etc), but just keep in mind the preface that you shouldn’t go through me unless that vintage screenprinted effect is really what you’re going for, because I won’t be able to guarantee that the screenprint is going to come out looking like a laser printer or a CNC machine. I’ll post more pictures soon.
Would be a nice way to restore the silkscreen on the acrylic panel of my EICO tube FM tuner, the effect looks quite similar to your panels.
this seems a good place for this.
here’s a pic of lars threatening his midibox seq with a cigarette at a dfw sdiy meetup.
he was controlling my mb-6582, which i managed to not get a shot of…
trademark blurry camera phone shot too,
there are some better shots taken by pristak (who organized the meetup) here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29424740@N04/
the seq rocks and the combo is killer
Hi,
I have been following your posts here and over at electro music and I just realised that maybe I can help you with this request:
I REALLY wish there were PCBs available like this for the remaining 9090 voices as well… someday I’ll be adept at protoboarding from schematics I hope.
I was wondering the same a while ago and somebody pointed me to the introspectiv group at yahoo. If you join up and check the files area the PCB layouts and schematics etc for the whole 9090 are there. From memory it’s a double layered board, so in the end I made a few of this guys 909 kick:
http://www.bionicdimension.de/_drummachine-909-bassdrum.html
Which will soon be finished
Dave
ps personally I’m not building any more modular drum stuff till the MPS is ready
Yeah, bugfight, we need to get together again to get the SEQ controlling all 8 SIDs…! I’m trying to get a studio set up over the next month or so, so I’ll let ya know.
Saturday was super-fun.
Thanks very much for the link, monokinetic – I don’t know how that slipped past me! I need to join that Yahoo group… I just got 9090 boards in the mail last week.
Cheers,
Lars
no doubt, all 8 going will rock.
i’ll remember to bring the right cables this time…
i’ll remember to bring the right cables this time…
impossible, the Law of Simone says that it is impossible to bring the right cables and that if you bring the right cables then one will fail 5 minutes before the show.
