Friday, November 13, 2009

Mux and buttons on Matrix editor DCO board

Just a little progress report on the Matrix Editor.
I finally manage to gather energy to solder wires on to two potentiometers so I could test the functionality of the analog multiplexer.
I also tested the buttons using the little "button board" I had made earlier.

And, what do you know... It worked!


Yes, I know. My keyboard... Try to ignore it.


The green circuit board is my DCO1 editor prototype that I built. The white breadboard is just for controlling the digital lines (adressing, databits, R/W, latch) and I also have a small +3.3V voltage regulator there to power the potentiometers.
They will be using 3.3V since that is the highest voltage the microcontroller can handle on its A/D input.
Up to the left are some buttons I soldered to a board just to have them fixed somewhere so they are more easy to handle and attach using the ribbon cable.
They have built-in LEDs but I was too lazy (and it didn't really serve any purpose) to connect them so instead I'm just using 8 3mm LEDs pushed down into the socket next to the ribbon cable.
Ok, I didn't make 8 potentiometers and try with all of them but I tried two and switched the adress on the mux a bit and watched the output as I turned the pots.

I guess that concludes my test of the DCO1 editor prototype. So, it's time to start planning the prototype build of my main board (or motherboard or whatever) that all editor modules will be connected to. Of course I will only make a simple version that supports two boards. I need to make sure my way of thinking works anyway. If it does it should be no problem at all to scale it up.

Hm, perhaps I should try to add an LCD to the DCO1 board, not because it should have one but because I need to test if I can make it work and program it right.

I am not sure what the other board should be though but I'm considering the sequencer. I guess it the only real new thing (once I get an LCD working) to try since I've gotten pushbuttons with LEDs and potentiometers with LED array feedback (will be done in software) to work already.

So, I haven't decided what to do first. LCD on DCO1 board or controller board to connect microcontroller. We'll see :)

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