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What's happening at Sonic Potions? A summary

julianjulian
edited April 2015 in General
Hello everybody,

I know my communications are lacking a little bit at the moment :(
Sorry for that. After this weeks Messe I will focus a little bit more on the forum and mails and maybe I even have a friend who is willing to help with the communication in the future, but negotiations are still running ;)

To shed some light on what I'm doing all the time I wrote a little summary on this years work and some small outlook on the future.
https://www.sonic-potions.com/News_2015q1

Also check out the great LXR videos by Jeremy Blake:
https://www.sonic-potions.com/node/84

Best,
Julian

Comments

  • mixrastamixrasta
    edited April 2015
    That's @jjbbllkk of the OP-1 forum, I like his stuff, even bought some from his bandcamp, thx for posting!
    And also thanks for the detailed overview of your work! And yes, I'll be at Musikmesse on Friday, I give you a call when I'm there, hope the old number is still actual.
  • jbdiverjbdiver
    I wish the trigger board could be redesigned to provide ground/noise isolation. That's the biggest issue I have with the LXR while working with modular gear. I've thought about buying more ground loop isolators, but the thought of connecting 8 ground loop isolators to the back of the LXR seems silly. 
  • julianjulian
    do you have the gnd loop problem on the modular audio outs???
    In certain setups I have noise on the LXR audio outs, but never so far on the modular O_o
  • egnoufegnouf
    Nice article and explanations julian!
    Its really cool to read your progress, your objectifs, etc :-)
    I appreciate.
  • jbdiverjbdiver
    Ground loops form when the trigger in/out jacks are connected to my modular trigger in/out jacks. This causes a high-pitched whine on the LXR audio output. I can eliminate this issue by connecting ground loop isolators to the cables between the trigger jacks and the modular. However, that's a real pain and I would need to buy almost a dozen of them. It would be better if this isolation were built into the trigger board.
  • julianjulian
    I have this problem on one of my racks and solved it with a cheap car gnd loop isolator on the LXR audio out.
    I will try to get a DC/DC isolator part with my next parts order for the trigger IO and see if that helps.
  • julianjulian
    I designed a small galvanic isolator PCB for the trigger IO and just ordered a prototype.
    It completely isolates the trigger IO with a DC/DC converter for the power and 12 optocoupler channels.
    let's see if it helps. I will report once it arrives.

  • djversus01djversus01
    @julian

    great recap / writeup, best of luck with everything!
  • tMttMt
    I designed a small galvanic isolator PCB for the trigger IO and just ordered a prototype.
    It completely isolates the trigger IO with a DC/DC converter for the power and 12 optocoupler channels.
    let's see if it helps. I will report once it arrives.

    sounds fantastic!! :) thanks for doing this julian.
  • ceaslessceasless
    @julian,

    Thank you for posting this. Things had been so quiet on the official firmware recently, I was beginning to worry that things might not be going well for you in some way or another. Reading the update it becomes clear that things are going great and that you've just been spread too thin to work on it much with all the other Sonic Potions stuff going on. Especially the cases sounded like a huge and painful timesink. 

    The house renovations sound like a lot of work, too, but I imagine much more satisfying than sorting through 100% reject batches!

    The new LXR mainboard's protection against USB hum is a really cool development as well. I've finally got a relatively isolated electrical setup, but that has been a showstopper for me before.

    And Adrian's case! Oh my! :D
  • julianjulian
    edited June 2015
    for the record, if you have problems with USB and groudn hums on any device I can recommend the cheap olimex usb isolator https://www.olimex.com/Products/USB-Modules/USB-ISO/

    It finally stopped the high frequency whining on my fast track pro usb soundcard. Probably the same chip I use for the new mainboards.

    a new firmware version with some small fixes is nearly ready (finally found the cause for the transient/click/pop problem when the filter is used!)

    and yes, you are right. Too many things to do and oh so little time ;)  And I was never good in organising multiple tasks simultaneously. I'm more of a compulsive worker and get lost in programming, or hardware design or emails and forget everything else.

    Somehow I feel I was mostly ordering components for the existing projects this year. As soon as one thing is back in stock the other is sold out ;)
  • controlvoltagecontrolvoltage
    a quick note for people with ground loops when connecting USB... this of course means that you have more paths to ground than are needed... so, one very cheap fix is to identify which of the four USB pins is ground, and cover that pin on one end of the USB cable with a bit of plastic tape.

    (GND is pin 4): http://cdn.instructables.com/FNV/6HC0/GTXK89IX/FNV6HC0GTXK89IX.LARGE.jpg
  • re5etukre5etuk
    that new case looks nice , i hope to buy it one day..
    i think i got my head around the lxr last night ..
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