announcements

The good news is that after I received my new boards, I was able to put one together and everything pretty much worked reasonably well. Well enough to use as demo units. 🙂 So I have at least one more demo unit that I’ll be completing within the next month or so.

The not-entirely-bad news is that I did find some aspects of the board that I evaluated to be sub-optimal, so I’ve made a handful of changes and have submitted the design for manufacturing. I’m hoping to see those boards by the middle of next week.

This was my first ever project using Eagle cad, and I’m feeling pretty good about it. The learning curve was ok for me. I don’t have any professional experience doing this stuff, so I guess Eagle is easy enough. It’s a little tough at the beginning, but once you get into the groove of getting your parts created in a library, you’re good to go.

I pretty much took it as a given that I’d have some kind of critical bug or wiring error that I’d have to eat the costs of. The errors I found weren’t wiring problems, they were problems with drill sizes. All of the wiring was 100% accurate and functional. I ponied up for the autorouter, and I’m glad I did. I was able to move some things around on the layout, adjust some of the my fail-over pins and pads, re-run the autorouter, and was back to being in the fabrication queue with my board house within a couple of hours. Some people just don’t like eagle’s autorouter, but for me it’s awesome. I have something like 500 holes on my board and the autorouter did the job in about 2 minutes. Easily worth the cost. so I’m feeling like I can go ahead and work on the manufacturing optimizations I’ve been thinking about for pre-assembled units without having to worry about give up all of the hard work I put into the last functional layout.

So, some highlights on this round of boards:

• the board is now properly branded with the beatseqr logotype. Woo.
• I took a risk on putting holes on the board for the support legs on my faders, and they work great.
• I took a risk on putting offset pads on the board in order to use surface-mount board headers to interface with the arduino mega.. and they work pretty well!
• silk screening on two sides worked as I figured it would. I thought it through and reversed all the text on the b-place layer, and that was a good guess. I missed a bunch of stuff on the t-place layer that should have gone on the b-place layer, so that’s corrected in version 4.51. Lesson learned: change the color of the b-place layer… that will make it easier to see what’s on that layer.
• I put some holes on the board to line up with the mounting holes on the arduino mega, and they lined up perfectly
• Totally surprised, pleasantly, that my boards came back routed to my irregular shape, exactly as specified in my design. that’s a major post-production step that I just don’t have to worry about. I’m very happy about that.
• mounting holes for the project case lined up perfectly. This bullet and the one above are epic, because when I was using my board house’s own PCB layout program, I couldn’t specify the irregular board outline I need, and it wouldn’t let me put my mounting holes as close to the edge as I needed them. Both problems solved by going to eagle cad. Plus I can get silkscreening on the bottom layer at no additional cost, so heck yeah.
• all of the drill sizes that I ported over from my other design worked very well.

So … after a a few months of cooling the jets and learning eagle, I’m back to full speed ahead again.

Alright, so I’ve made some hard decisions. I decided to skip showing at Maker Faire this year. I decided to buy eagle cad. I decided to scale back my ambitious product road map. I decided to learn how to walk before I try running in Eagle. Basically, I decided that the pace I was developing beatseqr at was pretty tough to keep up, so I’ve decided to give myself some time to lay the foundation first.

But, I am making progress. Thank you to everyone who has expressed interest! I’m really encouraged by your feedback, and I’m chipping away at the tasks so I can get something ready for sale.

Hey so I’ve been working with Kickstarter.com to figure out a project I can do to help fund building more beatseqrs, and I thought since the holidays are mid-way through, I should just wait until after the new year to put it up and get it going. But, I’ve also been thinking that I could put my plan up here ahead of making it go live to gauge interest and make adjustments as necessary.

The short description of kickstarter.com is that someone makes a proposal to do some kind of creative project, and then offers different rewards for different levels of support from the community. The project has a target amount that it needs to raise in pledges from people in the community by a set time frame, or else nobody has to actually give the money they pledged, and everyone walks away. So, it’s an All-Or-Nothing kind of deal. If the project gets enough support to meet the target funding goal, then everyone who participated gets the reward for the level they pledged to. Pretty cool.

If you choose to participate, you’re helping to fund a project that is awesome. As an early adopter, you will get some cool extras to help you feel engaged in the project. I’m looking to raise a minimum of $1500, which would end up being only 5 assembled units. And, if we get over the target amount, I just keep building and building and building until everyone who participated gets what they pledged for.

So, here’s what the plan currently is for my beatseqr-on-kickstarter in descending order of pledge amount and rewards:

$1000 “give one, get one + training for two”:
Two v4 assembled beatseqr + case
one custom limited edition Acrylic/circuit board wall sculpture or custom painting incorporating prints made from parts circuit boards & parts
one chunk of a prototype Casting mold
1 year advertising tile space, significant funder page, or Artist page on beatseqr.com
One s.f. bay area training session in person for two people[restrictions apply: local bay area only, Saturday only, 2 weeks to plan, etc]
Up to two names on a future circuit board
two CDs or digital download releases of tracks made with beatseqr
two Patch, some Stickers

$750
any v4 assembled beatseqr + case
custom limited edition Acrylic/circuit board wall sculpture or custom painting incorporating prints made from parts circuit boards & parts
a chunk of a prototype Casting mold
1 year advertising tile space, significant funder page, or Artist page on beatseqr.com
s.f. bay area training in person [restrictions apply: local bay area only, Saturday only, 2 weeks to plan, etc]
name on a future circuit board
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a Patch, some Stickers

$500
any assembled v4 beatseqr + case
Custom paintings, prints made from circuit boards
Chunks of a prototype Casting mold
Artist page on beatseqr.com
s.f. bay area training in person [restrictions apply: local bay area only, Saturday only, 2 weeks to plan, etc]
name on a future circuit board
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a Patch, some Stickers

$450 Beatseqr, assembled, in a Wood case
A chunk of a prototype button Casting mold
Artist page on beatseqr.com
Custom painting or print made from circuit boards, beatseqr parts
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a Patch, some Stickers

$350 Beatseqr v4, assembled, in a black ABS case
a chunk of a prototype casting mold
Artist page on beatseqr.com
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a Patch, some Stickers

$300 Beatseqr fully assembled, no case
Artist page on beatseqr.com
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a Patch, some Stickers

$300 Beatseqr kit, with black abs case + silicone buttons and mounting hardware
Artist page on beatseqr.com
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a Patch, some Stickers

$250
Beatseqr kit, no case, with arduino mega
Artist page on beatseqr.com
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers

$200
beatseqr kit no case, no arduino mega
Artist page on beatseqr.com
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers

$150
limited edition wall sculpture
A coupon for $50 off a future purchase of a beatseqr kit or assembled unit
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers
Publicity on beatseqr.com

$75
Prototype circuit boards, signed
A coupon for $30 off a future purchase of a beatseqr kit or assembled unit
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers
Publicity on beatseqr.com

$60
Silicone button test castings, signed and mounted for wall hanging
A coupon for $30 off a future purchase of a beatseqr kit or assembled unit
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers
Publicity on beatseqr.com

$40
Beatseqr illustration Tshirt
A coupon for $20 off a future purchase of a beatseqr kit or assembled unit
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers
Publicity on beatseqr.com

$20
a coupon in the pledge amount good towards the purchase of a beatseqr kit or assembled unit
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers
Publicity on beatseqr.com

$10
a coupon in the pledge amount good towards the purchase of a beatseqr kit or assembled unit
a CD or digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr
a custom embroidered patch from a limited run
Beatseqr logo stickers

$5
Beatseqr logo stickers
a coupon good for the pledge amount good towards the purchase of a beatseqr kit or assembled unit
digital download release of tracks made with beatseqr

$1 donation:
My undying thanks and gratitude for your encouragement.

Your comments are welcome, please chime in!

Since I haven’t tackled a final silk screened top plate for version 4, I thought I’d at least lay out something in a graphic so you could see what this version of beatseqr does.

font: Masking Tape Block

We are coming to NEW YORK CITY in a little over a week! Come see us at World Maker Faire in Queens!

Here’s the first look at version Beatseqr v4.0 in the new case:

I had to look high and low to find sources for the right size project box. It’s been a big challenge to balance cost, availability, feasibility, and also consider the fabrication work flow when selecting this type of case. I’ll be honest in that I’d prefer to have super nice solid wood, or unibody aluminum cases. That would be friggen’ sweet. But… 1. wood cases are extremely time consuming to build. I *will* offer custom wood cases for an additional fee. And, 2. aluminum is expensive, and my tool set really isn’t appropriate to work with it at this time… so we’ll have to settle for our dreams for now. The case I’ve selected is a good candidate for custom paint jobs, and the way all of the parts mount to it is the easiest we’ve ever had. So this is a pretty good case.

After I located the right cases, I reformatted the circuit to fit onto the appropriate board dimensions for the case. I’m still unable to offer the circuit boards as open source designs at this time, but I’m hoping to loom more into that in the next year or so.

Next, I had to work out a set of CNC gcode to reproducibly route all of the mounting and component holes on the circuit boards.  The complications here were in the increased precision I now get to.. enjoy (?) working with, due to the new cases and strict requirements for mounting holes. Previously, mounting the board to the case involved custom drilling holes into the top panel, towards the very end of the process, and now the entire process has flipped. Now I work from the case on down instead of circuit board on up. It’s something I didn’t really think about until I started seeing all of the repercussions once I had my new boards and was cutting holes in the cases. But it’s pretty good now.

Then finally, I’ve been spending a bunch of time dialing in the CNC gcode for the case, as you can see below:

Here’s the aftermath on the blacktoe after several trial and error runs on layout designs.

Here are a few photos of “close but no cigar” runs. You can see that the early tests had holes in the wrong places.

Check out this video of what the cutting process is like. Sorry for Mr. Shaky Cam. I ordered an iPhone 4 tripod mount, so I’m hoping the quality of my videos is going to improve soon.

Okidoke. It’s taking me a while to get my act together, but I’m getting there. I have three kits available. They are kit serial numbers 1, 2, and 3.

The kit includes:

1. circuit board
2. eight 10k faders
3. two 10k potentiometers
4. thirty two LED Tact buttons (16 red, 16 green)
5. sixty four 100 ohm resistors
6. 9 various values of resistors other than 100 ohms
7. 16 x 2 LCD screen from Modern Device
8. LCD driver board kit (assembly is required) from Modern Device (where you will get the assembly instructions, BTW)

Things *not* included:
* Arduino Mega
* enclosure + hardware

Price is $249 plus shipping, payment via paypal, shipment via USPS if international, UPS if within the USA.

I even made two videos showing how to assemble the kits, so watch these before you do anything else. Make sure these totally makes sense to you, and you have no reservations about your ability to put this kit together. It’s not a particularly hard kit to put together, but there is a lot of repetitive soldering involved, so you’re the right candidate if you’re already comfortable with soldering, and you already have all of the tools you see in the videos. You’re also already familiar with the arduino platform and ALSO completely realize that this kit runs on the ARDUINO MEGA, and NOT any other variant. If you don’t have an ARDUINO MEGA, you NEED to BUY one. 🙂 I’m using every single pin on the mega. I couldn’t squeeze this much functionality out of a regular arduino… it’s just too awesome for the little guy.

You have to file down the headers because of where I chose to place the arduino mega. This is sort of cumbersome but it’s also how I was able to keep beatseqr from being any larger than it already is. The Roland TR-808 is cool and all, but c’mon already.. that thing is huge. Plus every square inch of circuit board costs big bucks, so squeezing the arduino into a shield configuration works well enough. I’d maybe try another tactic in the future, but this kits works today. I sold Beatseqr serial number 8 based on this kit.

Ok, so: 1. you read all of the above? 2. you saw both videos and aren’t tripping out? 3. you saw that you need an arduino mega? 4. still interested? email me steve at beatseqr dot com.

I am pleased to announce that MIDI sync out is working in Steppa as of version 0.5! Now you can sync your Beatseqr to any MIDI hardware or software that can receive MIDI clock, which opens a whole new world of possibilities. One scenario to imagine is being able to playback melody or bassline patterns that you previously created along side on-the-fly created drum patterns from Beatseqr. This can really be helpful if you use Beatseqr for live performing like we do for Haptic Synapses. We tested MIDI sync with software like Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live as well as hardware like the Korg ESX-1…fun stuff!

Also added to Steppa 0.5 is the ability to sync to an audio click track. I know the technique sounds very old-school, but it works….well enough for Haptic Synapses and Antacid Crew to use it to sync all kinds of hardware (old and new) at their last jam session together at Mighty in San Francisco. So how do you like them apples?

Keep an eye on http://beatseqr.com for links to the new version and developing info about Steppa.