Mr Pudding

After much tea and tantrums, soldering, unsoldering, resoldering, snipping wires, and the much more complicated task of unsnipping wires, I now have the choir manual sending coherent MIDI messages to the computer.  It sends NoteOn and NoteOff for notes 39-99.  My joy is only slightly marred by the fact that it should be sending messages for notes 36-96.  Fortunately, that can be corrected by configuring the MIDI controller. I’m just waiting for another bit of MIDI hardware to arrive and I should be able to get on and do exactly that.

Once I’ve established the precise method of configuring the choir manual, I can replicate it (hopefully with a lot less soldering) on the great and swell manuals.  Then I can start doing things with those pistons which have occupied so much of my spare time over the last few months.

Ok, so I’ve wired up the choir manual to the MIDI scanner, plugged the scanner into the MIDI controller, given that some volts, plugged it into the MIDI-to-USB converter, and I am now watching MIDI messages appear on my laptop screen.  They’re all in the wrong order, which is vexing and requires further consideration.  At the moment it’s a bit like this (from imgur, alas I don’t know the creator):

But the important thing is that I NOW HAVE MIDI MESSAGES GOING FROM THE KEYBOARD TO THE COMPUTER!

This pleases me greatly, and I am going to have a cup of tea.  With a celebratory biscuit.

Is 47 kΩ.  This illuminates without burning my retinas.

Having identified the correct value, I’ll do the soldering tomorrow.  Not in the mood tonight.

Only one post for this manual, because I can only think of one pun (and even that is obscure).

Here we see the choir manual with all the pistons soldered and tested.  Tomorrow’s job, if I have time, is to find the correct resistor for the LED solo division indicator, and solder it in.  These LEDs are particularly bright, even with a relatively hefty resistor (if resistors can be said to have heft).  The trick will be to find the right value to give a soft illumination, rather than being bright enough to read by.

The next step will be to re-solder the ribbon cables to meet the requirements of the MIDI interface board, and change the plugs.  Then it will be time to think about where to affix the MIDI components.

I am unreasonably pleased about discovering that I have another reel of the Right Sort of Solder.

I may need an intervention.

(Choir manual nearly done.)

Here is the completed great manual.  Soldering has much improved this time around.  You may notice a resistor soldered to the LED.  Ignore it, it is useless.  I need a bigger one.

One more to go, then I can start thinking about wiring them up to the MIDI modules.

Bit hard to work on this at the moment, as Mia has just died from cancer.  Went from limping a bit, to a terminal diagnosis, to dead, within 3 weeks.  A bit overwhelming, really.

Here is the underside of the great manual, prepared for soldering.

Taking a break from the unending boredom that is soldering small bits of wire to other small bits of wire (people still do this for hours every day?!), I have now attached the first new component to the console.  To wit and viz.  : –

It might not look much to you, but it’s a busbar to me.  This is where the reference GND/-ve/0V/wossname wires will be safely gathered in, and sent back to the -ve terminal on the 12V PSU.  First the keyboards, then the pedalboard, then the tabs, then… ah, but I get ahead of myself.

The helping hands turned out to be no help whatsoever.  Never mind.  The swell manual is finished (apart from the ribbon cable, of which more later), the contacts tested, and the pistons secured.  The soldering is bloody awful isn’t the best, but it does the job: all the pistons pull to GND when depressed.  I’ve learned several lessons during my painful attempts at soldering this manual, which I will apply to future efforts.  The two most important being: Solder isn’t expensive, so don’t scrimp; and, flux is your friend.  But first, more coffee.

Pictures are during and after.  Don’t look to closely at the soldering; I gave serious consideration to blurring it out, until I remembered that I was taking the pictures with a potato anyway.