Here I’m planning the placement of the power supply, and core boards.
Here’s where I think things start to get good. I was trying to figure out how all these things were going to be supported in here. I wanted to use plastic sheets, but I couldn’t find any place that sold them around here. Actually I didn’t even try that hard, I just happened across mini plywood while at the craft store. Plywood was perfect. It’s strong, light weight, and can be easily glues into strange shapes.
So after a little planning I built a large surface that would hold the power supply, a DIN, and a DOUT. Then I built a bracket that mounts to the right-most screw posts and supports a smash core board in the back of the unit.
The real hack here: I need a support that holds the big play/rew/ff/rec/etc.. buttons at the bottom. I’m not really feeling like replicating their board and then etching my own version. If I did that then why not just etch all of the internals and make my own all-in-one. Nah. I take the main board and chop off the lower section using a jig saw then wire straight to the button backs.
Don’t forget the encoder that I recently got working.
woohoo!
good work, k
this thing would make an excellent daw sw controller
Sweet hack! Blog this sucker already! 
Not sure what “blog this sucker” really means, but I will gather all the info into one place when I get done.. right now I’m too stressed. I now officially have two weeks to get this doing what I need it to do. More on that later :-X
For now, here is a tasty video of the current state.
Not sure what “blog this sucker” really means
I meant, blog it: http://www.midibox.org/
Or maybe wait till it’s 100% 
But it’s sure getting there!!
100% wait til it’s completed. There are going to be some pictures and video that go way beyond what this module is doing, and you all are going to want to see them. ;D
If anyone else is interested in tinkering with one of these, someone just posted on
that they have two MM-RC’s for sale in the LA area. The units are completely hackable and the hi-resolution encoder alone sells for $50 which was the price of the unit for me. Good stuff.
Mine is currently all wrapped up with 4 external relays and a primitive sequencer ready to control solenoid on a flame thrower that never got assembled.
Narwhal: Are you in “the LA area” yourself?
Yes I am.
Hey,
is anyone able to see photos or attachments in this thread? I’m logged in but can’t see anything, but maybe I’m doing something wrong.
I grabbed a MM-RC off ebay for cheap and would like to mess around with it, and the schematic and the pics would really be useful as a starting point..
Hey,
is anyone able to see photos or attachments in this thread? I’m logged in but can’t see anything, but maybe I’m doing something wrong.
I grabbed a MM-RC off ebay for cheap and would like to mess around with it, and the schematic and the pics would really be useful as a starting point..
The photos seems to have been lost in one of the forum conversions.
Here is my Flickr set on the MM-RC. I’ll see if I can dig up the eagle schematic that I was working on, but it’s on a PC laptop that I user very very rarely.
Some progress with my Tascam project:
I replaced the main pcb with a self etched one. I didn’t want to do it from scratch, so I just took the already existing designs, put them all on the board and connected them via ribbon cables. This also gave me the chance to try different connections easily.
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Core8
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DINX4
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DOUTX4
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Bankstick 2x
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PSU Section from original board
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2x ribbon cable connectors for the two control surface boards
I also put a Midisport 1x1 USB interface in there.
So I did a few tests: I uploaded
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MIDIO128 for big buttons (connected directly to DIN/DOUT) and the encoder (works)
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scan matrix example (works with the lower buttons)
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stribe project (leds light up).
so far so good.
On the hardware-side I only have to put the 7segment leds onto the pcb.
As a programming newbie I still have to find out how to put all these functions into one program. And how to make the scan matrix work with more than 8x8…
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Uups?!?
i can suddenly see all of Narwahl’s photos, for the first time!!
maybe it’s because I’ve added new pics to this threat?
anyway, great!
