Flesh-Coated Technology

Transhumanism, Futurism, Cyberpunk aesthetics. often nonverbal | they/she | trans enby | 30+ | pan/ace | autistic/ADHD https://linktr.ee/mostlycoragrace

[tanuki-kimono]

[Cyber Effect] astonishing modern raden (mother of pearl inlay) by Terumasa Ikeda. A nice pun on the classic Ghost in the shell ;)

Raden is a very old decorative craft (see video below), usually used on lacquer bases with floral or traditional motifs. It’s so great to see it used this way!

[chirasul]

we got a full redbox and now we're playing go fish with the redbox movies

[chirasul]

I would never pay money for a redbox. if you ask politely and are very very persistent (i.e. annoying) they will let you take it away

here's my dad and i taking it away

a redbox makes a wonderful addition to your patio

[fishmech]

for those wondering why they're free to take now, it's because the company that made those "chicken soup for the soul" books bought them a few years ago and then completely collapsed so bad they couldn't afford to dispose of or even take the blu rays and dvds out of their kiosks all over.

so any of them is free game because they're all located on other business' property and they usually don't want to have to pay to get rid of them either. so asking the store manager usually gets you the ok to pull it out and keep it.

[chirasul]

there was a period of time right after their bankruptcy where you could put in any debit or credit card and it would spit out movies without charging you. you could even put in like an expired or deactivated card, or a visa gift card with a $0 balance, didnt matter, they'd just start spitting discs out. a lotta people raided redboxes for movies for a couple months, with some people doing what me and my brother and my dad did here, taking the whole box and signs and marquees as well. because managers sure as hell don't want a big abandoned piece of trash on their sidewalk disappointing customers. BUT they're also often too cheap to pay someone to remove it. so they just sit there.

luckily there are no shortage of freaks like us who will just take them away on our own volition. we did it all "by the book", too: we set up cones and caution tape, disconnected electricity properly, used an angle grinder to grind down the bolts in the concrete so nobody would trip on them, then cleaned everything up afterward and sealed off the electrical panel so the store would know everything is safe and tidy. though they were hesitant when we were first contacting them, they were honestly very relieved and grateful when we finally took it away, especially once they saw that we "knew what we were doing" (we don't) and look like we've "done this before" (we haven't).

the fun part: the reason why this redbox, in particular, was completely full and unraided is because the computer hardware inside had failed some months before the bankruptcy, and a failing company sure as hell wasn't gonna send a tech out to our podunk dipshit city to fix it, so it was impossible to rent movies or take any discs out. plus, for who knows how long, people were returning old redbox discs to this machine and not taking any out, leading to a much higher variety of movies than your average redbox.

there is a thriving community of redbox hackers and modders out there, as well, creating open-source software for repurposing the machines and not letting their very interesting and robust disc-management hardware go to waste. this one belongs to my brother (who was very annoying persistent and did all the legwork of contacting managers and securing permission) who is a programmer by trade and will be hacking it into a family-access movie library, with whatever discs we want. i mean the machine is completely weatherproof and has a built-in AC unit, it would be such a waste to not try to turn it into something cool.

if we get another one, i'm gonna try to mod it into some sort of art or zine vending machine. the disc boxes are just the right size for small print art or stickers. would make a great "little free library" too.

remember: the rules are made up. act like you belong there and you can get away with anything. this applies to your own life

[nightvisioncyberpunk]

エンジェルコップ (A N G E L -  C O P / 1989-1994)

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #10: Version 2, A Prototype

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 03/19/2025 at 09:06:

With version 1 done and dusted, I had some time to sit and use it. And what I found was a lot of the buttons and such were too close together!

This was actually a huge relief, because as I was designing the modules, I was trying to cram them in as close as I physically could to avoid potentially having too much wasted space. So knowing I have the opposite problem means I can start to be creative with how I lay things out.

One of the other things I noticed, trying to use the buttons and switches, is that the case is too light! What I mean by this is, with it just sitting in a case on my desk and not affixed to anything, trying to press some of the larger switches, or move the sliders, is a lot harder than it should be. I have to sort of wedge my hand against the case in order to get enough leverage to move the toggle switches.

Something else I noticed was that it doesn't quite have the same "look" to it that a lot of military/HOTAS systems have.

I can solve all of these problems at the same time.

I was browsing Etsy, of all things, and came across some small handles for hand-made tables and drawers. It was clearly just a drop-shipper, but it got the idea in my head: little handles for each part! That way, I can have the leverage I need to press the buttons easily, and it will look more like the military/HOTAS systems I've seen around. So I went onto AliExpress, and started searching. I found lots of u-shaped rod handles that fit the bill, but only one or two sellers that were selling ones small enough to fit onto a 1U module, and even then only if I got creative with it (links in the Components section).

The problem is that the handles have a 25mm spacing between the M3 screw holes, and I only have 22.5mm to work with between the rails of a 1U module. So I started to brainstorm; what if I got 3D with it? Took some of the sandwich keyboard knowledge I have, combined it with a lil' bit of 3D printing know-how, and designed *two* PCBs that stacked together? One of the PCBs would attach to the handle, and the PCB beneath it would have a matching hole for the screw to fit in. The height of the bottom PCB would be enough to hide the screw, if I used the thin screws I used for attaching the Eurorack rails to my custom adapters, and it would let me play with a bit of depth as I could vary the PCB footprints such that their height differences could create some interesting vertical detail.

This is what I came up with:

Sponsored by PCB Way

It was at about this time that Liam, my lovely PCBWay representative, got back to me asking about future projects, since he seemed so happy with the previous logs I've made here, and I decided to ask about another sponsorship for this version 2. I threw the PCBs I designed into the fancy PCB Way button in KiCAD that I love so much (seriously, it's so handy), and sent them his way. Less than the estimated time later (an unexpected, but not unwelcome surprise!), the PCBs were at my door, and look! aren't they beautiful!

I did notice that top-right screw hole doesn't match, so I checked the PCB designs and indeed they were misaligned. Entirely my fault! I will have to keep this in mind as I design more modules, as now I have two PCBs that I need to keep aligned together, or things will start to get really difficult and annoying very quickly.

Since I was going for more of a military look, I also bought some more screws, this time going for flat hex M3 screws. Since I could only get three of them in there, you'll have to use your imagination a little bit, but here it is all assembled:

Attaching the handle was simple and just as effective as I thought it would be. Here is how it works:

They feel very chunky, and surprisingly sturdy. Who would've thought two layers of fibreglass would be strong! (sarcasm)

One interesting thing to note here is the switches are all ever-so-slightly mis-aligned in their recesses, which I'm not quite sure where that comes from- it could be many things. The two PCBs could be slightly offset in their screws, the nut could be off-center, the shaft of the switch could be off-center, or heck even the holes in the PCBs could be slightly mis-aligned (though my vague understanding of the tolerances involved in PCB design has me thinking this is the least-likely.) At the end of the day, it isn't a problem, since I included some tolerance in the size of the hole in the upper PCB for just this purpose, so all's well that ends well :)

Lights, lights!

The keen reader may have noticed that along with the misaligned screw hole (I'll have to ask Liam kindly once again to get a replacement sent out after I fix the PCB files, and maybe I'll see if Aluminium PCBs look good!) for which I cannot attach a screw, there is another hole. This hole is for panel-mounted LEDs to go in. It is a 6mm diameter hole, just like the panel-mounted switches, and I found several LEDs that fit this format on AliExpress (links in the Components section). I bought several of each, and here is what they look like:

I think I like the orange colour best (I am a certified Orange Enjoyer. It is second only to green, but green as a light can be too sharp), but I like the shape and size of the white LEDs' housing best. It's a pitty the seller I bought the white ones from don't sell that particular one in Orange, but I'm sure these LEDs can be replaced with similar-sized ones, if only I can find ones that are orange (or, gasp, even RGB!)

The holy grail of toggle switches

Before you get your hopes up, I have yet to find such a switch. But I have found the next-best-thing:

These are on-off-mom switches, or on-off-(on) switches, or switches that have three states: an 'on' state, an 'off' state, and an 'on' state that is momentary, ie: will return to the 'off' state when released. I have been searching for such a switch on AliExpress for quite some time, and finally found them. Unfortunately, they are slightly larger than 6mm! they are the infuriatingly-similar but not-exact 6.35mm switch. alas! Oh well, I needed a new revision of this PCB anyway, so adding another change to them is no biggy :)

All in all, I call this a massive success! I am very excited for where this is going.

That will be all for now, I have a new tabletop to polish and a new PC to build, and then after that perhaps I will fix the problems with this PCB, adapt the hole for the larger toggle switch, and ask Liam very nicely again.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #9: The Rest Of The Fucking Owl

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 02/21/2025 at 11:53:

Oh boy. This was a journey. Up until now, it had been smooth sailing; things I could do fairly quickly, nice neat updates I could make here and there, fun things to occupy my time. It was not to last.

Now, I'm not electrical engineer; I've not so much as even replaced a mains breaker. I'm barely literate. I dropped out of High School, I can't remember things well, and often repeat myself. My previous soldering experience includes one keyboard I made from a kit I bought, and one other PCB project many years ago. This project was ambitious. It was A Time. I had fun, yes, but it had its ups and downs. This update will attempt to highlight some of those ups, and some of those downs.

The first Attempt

Soldering the first component to the first plate was a big high; cutting the wires to length, trimming the leads, soldering it on. But it was tedious, and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to keep all the wires on top. What if I got to the end, and decided that actually I wanted all the wiring underneath, inside the case? That would be prettier, it would match the aesthetic of a proper buttonboard better, and it would be less prone to breakage. So after finishing this, I decided to change my mind;

The Second attempt

Thankfully, my brain is often bigger than I am. The headers I chose to use for the plates were the longer "Stacking Headers" AdaFruit have; they have a much longer male end, made for attaching several sets of headers together with PCBs between them. This meant I could use header leads on the undersides; solder one end to the component, and use the female end of the header to stick into the plate's header. This meant I could access them from the top, and also that I could unwire them without needing to de-solder them, if I ever decided to keep all the wires inside.

The Other Components

Repeating the process for the rest of the components, using one stripped end of the headers this time instead of soldering directly to the dupont leads like a dumbass, I managed to make some solid progress.

This took a few days! Maybe even a week or two. I honestly don't remember. I'm writing all these updates in retrospect, since I have ADHD and have no concept of doing things properly. Everything must be done in a rush at the last possible moment, or not at all. It took a while, regardless. My hands hurt. The tips of my fingers tingled. I googled lead poisoning and its effects comparing leaded solder with non-leaded to make sure I was washing my hands often enough, and ignored the "tingling extremities are a sign of acute lead poisoning" articles, since I knew, logically, that I was just sore from physical activity. I ordered some latex gloves online.

The First Wiring Attempt

So I wanted to test that everything worked before screwing it all together. That's okay; I made all the leads removable for each component, so I can just connect a breadboard to each component via the wires already soldered to them! I'm thinking farther ahead than even I knew. Except now I need to wire the controllers too, and actually while I'm at it why don't I try and fit all the wiring in the case? There's plenty of space in there, surely I can fit the breadboard and the extra-long wires all in there! Lets give it a go. Except I didn't consider the height of the dupont wires when I designed the 1U plates for the controllers:

No matter, I can solder male headers directly to the wires, at a right-angle, and make my own dupont wires! I'm a genius!

Yeah, that works just fine.

Connecting all the extra wiring together, on a breadboard, was easy enough. It's a *lot* of wires though! so much spaghetti. It did remind me of one thing I had overlooked, which is that many of the components need to be routed to 3.3V or Ground, and if I were to wire this up on the top, I would have no place to wire them up; I hadn't ordered any of the perfboard plates I designed, and I hadn't designed any power or ground buses into the controller board or plates, so I might have to try and shove all these wires into the case anyway!

Gotta get those wires grounded somehow, and I'm already half-way towards getting it all inside anyway, so once again I'm thinking farther ahead than I thought, and once again its turning out in my favour! I'm on cloud nine! I'm unstoppable-

ah. Yeah, that wont work.

A Crossroads

I've got two choices now; go full-ham, hand-solder the wires inside the case, learn how to connect things properly. This is the way I should go, if I want this to be something other people want to have in their house, on their desk. This is the way it *should* be done. I do not want to do this. It sounds tedious, complicated, permanent. Difficult. Scary.

Or: find a way to have a ground and a 3v3 bus on the outside. I look closely at my breadboard. I've never really paid that much attention to it; just taken it for granted. Now it is providing the one last thing I lack for this to work. I hold it in my hands, turning it over. The front is plain, serviceable. The sides are slightly warped; a sign I cheaped out on these when I ordered them all those years ago. AdaFruit have upgraded the ones they serve on their website now, with a metal base to stop the warping. Maybe I should order some. The back of mine are slightly mushy- there's a sticker here, two-sided tape with some intermediate sponge holding it together. The other side of the tape is untouched, ready and waiting all these years for something to stick to, but why would i- oh. I can just stick the breadboard to the back of the case, and- yeah that'll work. I use some 22AWG wires, colour-coded Red for 3v3 and black for ground, and connect some parts up to the breadboard for my ground and voltage connections.

Yeah that'll work nicely.

This was a fun process; cutting the wires to length, bending and smoothing them Just So to get them to fit along the gaps and spaces between the components. It's meditative, like vacuuming. Do you like vacuuming? I do. The repetition allows for the mind to wander and drift. Maybe you prefer some other activity, like folding the laundry, or washing dishes. Mine's vacuuming.

This Thing All Things Devours

So I finish wiring the thing up. I wrote the firmware as I was assembling it on the breadboard, and it was working then- but it's not working now. I don't know what I did differently. Obviously a lot; the wiring got completely gutted and re-done, but it took me a few weeks! I don't know if I have the constitution to figure it out. I don't own a voltmeter or whatever they're called; I should own one. How I've made it so far in my endeavours without one is a miracle. But what if I've just fucked it up somehow? Shorted a wire somewhere in the controller; those wires were awful close to the rails. I sit on it a while. A week, and then two.

A month.

I have Long Covid. I caught it years ago, but the fatigue haunts me. I can go weeks with nothing wrong, and I feel like I could lift the whole world on my shoulders, like I was never sick, like it's finally left me for good, and then one day I'll wake up and feel like shit. Like I didn't sleep at all. Like I ran a marathon during the night. One such event hit me during this period of limbo for this project. It was not fun. But every day, the Eurorack Button Board would be sitting there, on my desk, waiting. Patiently, like the immutable physical object it is. Everything decays, but the decay of things like this are on a timescale greater than that of life. It will outlive me. I will be long-gone, but the Eurorack Button Board will still be here, a testament to my aspirations. A monument to my failures and my ambition, my crudeness and my genius.

Sometimes you need to leave a project for a day in order to figure something out. Sleep on it, or take a walk, or read a book. With Long Covid, that one day away from the project becomes a week, a month. I persevered.

I open KiCAD one day; I think I've figured it out. I look closely at the pins of the controller's plate, and vertical mounted PCB. I had originally decided the pins should be somewhat related to the controller they were connected to; imagine the USB port of the controller to be on the left of the headers; the bottom row of headers on the plate would be the left row of headers on the controller, and so with the right. But in my excitement in the sponsorship, I rushed things; I got ahead of myself. I messed up.

I look at one pin on the PCB design in KiCAD, and its corresponding header on the plate is on the left; this is correct. I look at the other pin on the other side of the controller, and its corresponding header on the plate is on the other side! It's flipped horizontally. Oh no! I had tried all other combinations; what if the headers were both flipped horizontally, what if the headers were flipped vertically; the left one on top, and the right one on the bottom. No; The left one was correctly on the bottom, but the right one was flipped horizontally on the top! Of course, this wasn't a problem when I was testing things on the breadboard, since I was connecting directly to the side of the controller via the headers directly next to their corresponding controller pin.

I re-wire things up; One button works. I wire a slider up, it works too. I wire the knobs, the keyboard matrices, the toggle switches, the rotary encoders. They work. I launch a game- I bind the buttons, and the knobs, and the sliders; it works. I've done it.

Tomorrow (for realsies) I will take some final pictures and finish up the documentation. For now, my ADHD meds have run out, and I need to sleep.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #8: If It's Stupid And It Works, It's Not Stupid.

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 02/21/2025 at 11:34:

When designing the components, I wanted the USB controller to be a part of the design, instead of just hidden inside the case.

Part of the aesthetic of this project is to mirror the beauty of the Eurorack scene by making the chaotic wiring a part of the design, and that means the headers of the controller need to be just as exposed as the components I'm connecting to them. Since I also wanted to make sure none of the exposed sections of the design had anything poisonous on them, that meant I couldn't simply have the controllers connected flat on the plate with some headers. I briefly experimented with this, but they took up a comparatively large area, meant the attachment points would have to be underneath the controller, and meant I couldn't just have them side-by-side (since the USB connector would interfere with whatever was next to them). So a more... *complicated* solution was required.

If I used right-angle header connectors as a physical connection as well as an electronic one, I could mount the controller vertically *inside* the case, with the USB port pointing out the same as all the headers, and it would take up much less space! So this is what I went ahead with. Now with the parts in front of me, I wasn't sure quite where to start; the fugue state I designed them in long past, figuring out the correct assembly order such that none of the parts became inaccessible to soon proved challenging. I managed to get the two sets of female headers, and one half of the right-angle headers, soldered on, and the other female headers and the other half of the right-angle headers soldered on, so all's well that ends well! It sure was a lot of soldering! Gee I sure hope it all works out...

Once I had them assembled, I realized an error! A mistake! A design aspect I had neglected to consider! The headers overlapping the plate next to it I can work around, this part of the design has several blank plates on it for a reason, but the headers are exposed! It wasn't that big of a deal, but now that it was in my hands, I could see that the top section of the right-angled headers poked out of the plate, and would expose the toxic leaded solder to my beautiful fingies whenever I were to fiddle with this after its assembly! This I could not abide, and my quick fix was to just… throw some hot glue over them and draw on it with some sharpie to make it look not quite so bad lmao. This will, thankfully, be hidden behind all the chaos of the wiring once it's all done and dusted, but until then it does look quite comical compared to the quality of everything else so far.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #7: Adapter screws

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 02/21/2025 at 11:25:

So the nice thin screws for the adapter plates came in the mail! It turns out the cheap ones I got from my local hardware store fit fine anyway, but the new ones are a lot nicer:

Anyway, that's all for now!

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #6: The Dry Fit

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 02/21/2025 at 11:24:

Once all the components spent their time in transit and were all collected on my workbench, I decided the first order of business was to dry-fit everything together; it wouldn't do if any of the parts I ordered were off or mis-sized, either by fault of my own design or otherwise!

First up, the plates:

here you can also see a comparison between JLCPCB's default matte black, and PCBWay's default shiny black. I was a bit iffy about the shiny black to start with, but it's grown on me.

so far so good!

The next part is where it gets tricky.

In order to dry-fit the more interesting 1U and 2U parts, I'm going to need to assemble the adapters I designed. The screws for them haven't arrived yet, but I ordered some other not-quite-as-nice ones from my local hardware store, and they will do for now. I designed each of the parts such that they would be quite tight, but even so I did need to take a small file to them to get them to fully fit together. If I were to re-design them, I would add areas into the inner corners of each of the fingers to make sure the mill didn't leave too much material in between them. Thankfully, they didn't need much filing, and after a few attempts, they went together nicely. Lining the two parts up with some blu-tac to hold it all together while I work, I first soldered just one corner on, then the other, and when I was happy with the angle I finished the middle sections.

Humble beginnings.

PCBs have a bit of slack in them, and I took advantage of that as I worked the corners. I could finish one corner, check the angle of the plates, and bend the other corner into shape while the solder was hot, then simply re-heat the opposite corner to release the stress. I designed many separate PCB-Attachment sections into the design because I wasn't sure if one single large slot would work, in terms of being able to heat it all up with my soldering iron while the solder melted into place, but I also kept in mind that the very tiny (1.25mm) slots might be too small to bother doing individually. I played around with a few combinations until I found one that worked nicely for me, which ended up being sets of 3 soldered together with one set between each. This was much easier to solder, and not too finicky to deal with.

Lining them up on the table once they were done, I could get the screws tightened on the rails and make sure they were tried and true. The PCBs were nice and strong, and the rails light, so they didn't need much tightening, and all in all it was fairly painless!

I then put the rails into the case, and made sure they fit, and.. oh that's really quite nice, isn't it?

Maybe I will mention this in the Eurorack community, I'm sure someone would love a nice homemade alternative to some of the 3U-to-1U adapters, especially one as flexible as this! Just order the lengths you want, and solder it, and it's done! Perhaps I will do this alongside the publishing of this log update.

Anyway, now that I have the rail adapters done, I can screw in each of the individual electrical components into their respective PCB plates, and this is what that looks like:

Oooh isn't that just pretty! It's got the sauce, as the kids say. I'd post that to my aesthetic tumblr under #tactile. actually, I might just do that too brb.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #5: Ordering the Parts

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 02/21/2025 at 11:12:

This is where this project started to get interesting! (for me) I woke up one morning to a rather intriguing email from an interested party; they claimed they were a representative from a company called PCBWay, and were offering me a sponsorship opportunity. This had me excited for several reasons;

1) How did they find out about me? I had only just been uploading the project to github for a little while, and definitely had not advertised it anywhere on social media; do PCBWay employees just go trawling through new GitHub pages to find interesting things? I was curious. I didn't even start this Hackaday log until long after they'd contacted me. 2) I have never been sponsored for anything before. I'm just some shmoe, I didn't even finish High School! I've had the same job for a decade, I don't hang out anywhere exciting, I definitely haven't been hanging out around people of enough import to have sponsorships. I was excited!

So I sent an email back saying "yes please!", and here we are. Exciting! PCBWay promised to send me the PCBs I ordered for free, and in return I was to give them "some kind of shout-out or review". They were really quite vague about it, which I'm nervous about, but also that's pretty neat? Quite hands-off. Anywho-

The first PCBs I ordered for this project (see Log#2) were from JLCPCB, and ordering from them was... interesting. Manually generating the gerbers was tedious, but at least their documentation was thorough. The PCBs were shipped in a timely manner, and didn't have anything wrong with them, so I must have done the gerber generation properly, but it was still quite scary! I liked their colour options, and they even had thickness options which I toyed around with, since technically the Eurorack standard has 2mm-thick plates. In the end, I stuck with the default 1.6mm thickness, since I'm already designing 2U components so sticking perfectly with the standard doesn't really matter any more, and the extra 0.4mm won't really affect anything. There's plenty of extra space in the rails to accommodate the extra screw length leftovers.

I've also used OSH Park before (for different projects, many years ago), which was much easier (just upload the `.kicad_pcb` file), but were also more limiting; purple only, no thickness options, and no custom fonts! They do have the best PCB preview options of all of the ones I've tried so far though, so they're great for a first-timer. Nice large preview windows showing what either side of the PCB will look like! Very good for peace-of-mind.

PCBWay, on the other hand, is rather quite a lot more user-friendly compared to JLCPCB, and just as customizable; Not nearly as limited as OSH Park, and nearly as easy to use. After receiving the go-ahead for the sponsorship, I looked into how to order from them, and it turns out they have a nice little one-click button you can install directly into KiCAD that will do all the gerber generating for you, and open an order page in your browser with it all uploaded for you! very cool. I didn't even have to look for it very hard! I opened KiCAD, opened the Plugin And Content Manager, and searched "PCBWay", and there it was! Installed that with no trouble, and now there was a button in the PCB Editor that, when pressed, opened a browser window with an order of the current PCB design ready-to-go! Love that. I'm probably just going to keep using PCBWay just for that, to be honest. Can't get a more glowing review from me than "It Just Works", and boy howdy it just does. Neato!

I debated going with 2mm thickness for the PCBs this time again, but again the price was a factor- the 1.6mm thickness PCBs are just so much more common that their prices are so much cheaper than every other option, and again the extra 0.4mm for the screws won't be a problem. Sure I'm getting these ones for free, but Liam, my lovely liaison, doesn't have infinite patience, and I'm sure if I, some rando who happened to get his attention one day, came to him with a $500 bill for some random parts that don't even take advantage of any PCB traces or anything, I'm sure he'd laugh at me. So 1.6mm it is, and I'll be happy about it!

The parts took a few days to fab, and a few more to ship to me all the way in Australia, but they arrived much sooner than expected, and very nicely packed!

While this was happening, I also ordered the electrical components I needed from AdaFruit and AliExpress, and waited for them to arrive. No AdaFruit or AliExpress sponsorship for me sadly, and these were quite a bit more expensive than the PCBs would have been, so I was a bit nervous about it. My lovely girlfriend, breadwinner that she is, gave me some lovely birthday gift money to pay for these parts. Thank you jae! I love you with all my heart <3

I could probably have saved quite a bit of money if I ordered the parts from elsewhere, but AdaFruit is just so convenient. Their documentation of each part is second to none, and they have been reliable and convenient for me in the past. I took a risk ordering some extra parts from AliExpress, but I found some rather nice toggle switches there that would really make this project, so I figured why not. It was quite a boon to find that the switches on AliExpress fit the same hole sizing and bounds as the ones from AdaFruit; I suspect there's some kind of standard involved with this, but I'm no electrician so I just shrugged and took the win for what it was.

I also ordered two sets of rails from SynthRacks. I decided on a set of 32HP rails, and a set of 12HP rails. That would give me plenty of space for the components I wanted to play around with :) John from SynthRacks was very quick with responding to me, and the parts were shipped very quickly! Shipping to Australia from the UK was quite expensive (£45 for the rails, and  £40 for their delivery), but the end result was very worth it. I didn't even factor in any length variability into my design (I was too excited from the sponsorship and things happened very quickly), but thankfully they were exactly-to-length and I didn't have to worry about any of that.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

I made a buttonboard thing.

It's for playing games with, innit.

I'm also working on a better, upgraded version. Updates on that soon.

Originally, I posted the development of this on Hackaday. I'll be mirroring those posts here on this blog now.

Special thanks:

A special thanks has to go PCBWay, for providing me with free PCBs (and discounts on PCBs when I ask for too many of them, because this project is voluminous).

I would also like to thank my girlfriend, who gave me enough money to buy the first set of electronics I needed to make version 1 of this project. It was very expensive.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #1 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #2 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #3 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #4 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #4: The Hack

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 02/21/2025 at 10:57:

Since I'm trying to fit 1U (and now 2U) modules into a 3U case, I'm going to need some kind of adapter. There were a few I could find online by searching Modular Grid, but none of them were flexible enough or in stock enough for me to humor them as real alternatives. Instead, I decided I would make my own!

I had an epiphany one day, while designing some of the modules for this project. I was toiling away inside blender, doing what I do and hyperfocusing on what would probably never come to fruition, when it happened. I stopped what I was doing, sat back in my chair, and just like that, I had it. I moved my hands together, crossed each finger over the other; that was it! I would make a fingerey-sandwichey-thing with PCBs at right-angles to each other, and use solder pads to hold it together like glue. Just like one would with a laser-cut wood project! I'm sure there's a word for what this is, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to have this idea, but it felt magical to have come up with the idea on my own, even if it wasn't a unique one. I got to googling, and found some nice DIY Eurorack case rails made by SynthRacks. There was some thorough documentation (which I love), with lots of pictures! Very nice, I thought. There are even custom HP length options! Perfect. I couldn't find exact measurements of where the mounting hole would go, so I designed a slot instead of just a hole, for the screw to mount the rail to the PCB, and designed groves for the PCBs to mount to each other, and added some small surface-mounted areas for the solder to attach each part of the PCBs together. I found some nice screws on AliExpress with a recessed hex slot inside the shaft, so the screw had a much slimmer profile; this was important, since I wanted the adapter to take up only a single HP for each side of the adapter; this is what the alternatives I was looking at ordering used, and I didn't want to be shown-up by someone else! Here's what I came up with:

The PCBs attach together with finger linkages, and have holes for rails to mount to, and holes to be mounted to the rails of a 3U case.

I designed this 2U adapter too, since if I'm going down from 3U to 1U, why not 2U down to 1U too? This gives me more flexibility for mounting options, like here where I've only got one rail for the 3U adapter, so I can have 2U modules next to the 1U modules.

Here they are in place with an Eurorack case.

Now it was just a matter of picking the right HP lengths for the modules I wanted to fit in them, and Order the parts, and hope I didn't screw anything up, and that my weird hack actually works! No big deal. We shall see.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

I made a buttonboard thing.

It's for playing games with, innit.

I'm also working on a better, upgraded version. Updates on that soon.

Originally, I posted the development of this on Hackaday. I'll be mirroring those posts here on this blog now.

Special thanks:

A special thanks has to go PCBWay, for providing me with free PCBs (and discounts on PCBs when I ask for too many of them, because this project is voluminous).

I would also like to thank my girlfriend, who gave me enough money to buy the first set of electronics I needed to make version 1 of this project. It was very expensive.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #1 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #2 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #3 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #3: Design Specifications

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 02/21/2025 at 10:38:

Finding the parts to use, and making sure those parts fit witin the Eurorack standard was a fun and interesting challenge.

Following the Eurorack sizing guides from Doepfer and Intellijel, I could tell that I have only a certain amount of space in each module, if I want to be able to use a normal Eurorack case to keep it all in once it's done. Some parts, like this Motorized Slide Potentiometer would be quite fun, but sadly are too long for a standard 3U module; I would have to find (or make) a case that was 4U in height. I didn't want to go quite that far for this project. Other parts, like this smaller 75mm Slide Potentiometer fit just fine in 3U. Some other parts would fit in 3U, but there would be a lot of wasted space around them, like this Mini Analog Joystick.

Perhaps if I smudge the Eurorack format a little bit? keep 3U and 1U modules, but also have modules that would fit into 2U? I mean, if I'm putting 1U modules into a 3U case, I'm going to have 2U left over... and sure I could fill that with two more 1U modules, but why not just have some 2U modules? That could be fun!

I'm not here for an Artisinal Experience

I'd previously ordered some PCBs from several places for other projects, and knew intuitively that what I was after for this project could easily be made  and shipped to me for cheap as PCBs, and would quite easily fit the bill of requirements for an Eurorack module. by buying a Eurorack case, and filling it with PCBs-as-plates for the modules, and mounting the Electrical components directly to them, I could get away with a minimal amount of manual labour. All I would need do is solder it all together, and I wouldn't need to faff about with a custom 3D-printed-anything, or manually drilling holes, or any of that fun stuff. Just made-to-order goodness.

The Fun Part

I created some crude approximations of some components I found online (mostly AdaFruit, and AliExpress), and imported them into Blender. These will be my playing blocks. I then designed some rough outlines of the Eurorack rails. Making frequent comparisons to the sizes of the front face of the modules on the Doepfer website, and the sizes of the PCB on the Intellijel website, I could ensure that whatever component I designed around would fit in the spaces I wanted to put it.

I played around with positioning and sizing of the components, I came up with several sizes of module that fit each of the parts I wanted to use. This is what they look like:

Since I'll be wiring this all up by hand, I only really have to worry about whether there will be enough finger space between each component once it's all assembled. So long as the part fits, I can add more blank spacers between the parts if I find it's all too cramped.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

I made a buttonboard thing.

It's for playing games with, innit.

I'm also working on a better, upgraded version. Updates on that soon.

Originally, I posted the development of this on Hackaday. I'll be mirroring those posts here on this blog now.

Special thanks:

A special thanks has to go PCBWay, for providing me with free PCBs (and discounts on PCBs when I ask for too many of them, because this project is voluminous).

I would also like to thank my girlfriend, who gave me enough money to buy the first set of electronics I needed to make version 1 of this project. It was very expensive.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #1 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #2 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #2: First test PCB

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 11/10/2024 at 05:40:

The first PCBs arrived last week, as did the case I ordered from a local Music store!

Look how perfectly they fit!

Next steps will be designing more modules which support more types of Thing (as cool as Cherry-MX keyswitches are, they can't do everything).

Fingers crossed the next few parts fit too!

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

I made a buttonboard thing.

It's for playing games with, innit.

I'm also working on a better, upgraded version. Updates on that soon.

Originally, I posted the development of this on Hackaday. I'll be mirroring those posts here on this blog now.

Special thanks:

A special thanks has to go PCBWay, for providing me with free PCBs (and discounts on PCBs when I ask for too many of them, because this project is voluminous).

I would also like to thank my girlfriend, who gave me enough money to buy the first set of electronics I needed to make version 1 of this project. It was very expensive.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Log #1 is now posted, here.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

Eurorack ButtonBoard Log #1: But Why?

This post was originally written on Hackaday, 11/10/2024 at 05:31:

Two things are true:

There are many Buttonboard projects out in the 'web. I have but one problem with all of them: they're too permanent.

I'm a big fan of non-linear, modular workflows. I like being able to un-do things, or move things around once I've got a feel for them.

Maybe i want more dedicated buttons while I'm playing this game, or maybe i want more knobs or sliders for that game. Maybe i want some toggle switches while I'm playing this, but those toggles would be useless while i play that. There are so many considerations to keep in mind while designing a buttonboard. How do you decide what to include in yours? Why make the choice at all?

If you don't have to choose, you can do it all.

But why Eurorack?

Maybe it's because the format was on my mind, or maybe its because the format lends itself well to a modular workflow (because it is one), or maybe its just because the hardware is abundant and there are many cases and screws and other such hardware to choose from, maybe its because the documentation for said hardware specifications is abundant.

Maybe it's because the size is Just Right.

Take a look at this, an early mockup I put together of a complete 104-key keyboard fitting inside a standard 19" frame. 3U for the alphas, and 1U for the function row:

Look how perfectly it fits!! I'm sure someone who understands the Imperial measurement system won't find this interesting, but as someone who only ever uses Metric, this just feels so wild to me. Sure, the function row and ESC keys are pretty far away, but let's ignore that. A 1U intellijel-compatible module can fit a rotary encoder, a toggle switch, a cherry-MX or Choc-compatible keyswitch, or a rotary selector. A 3U Eurorack-compatible module can fit 5 (or 6) Cherry-MX or Choc keyswitches, a linear potentiometer, various toggle switches, rotary encoders, rotary selectors, etc.

There's also the question of why I went with an existing standard, instead of coming up with my own. Sure, if i went with my own standard, i could make the sizes better suit the parts I intend to use- an Eurorack module leaves a lot of 'wasted' space to the rails, and lots of gaps between parts as 1U is too small for some of the parts, and 3U is too large for some of the parts- but the alternative is i have to make my own standard. many people have tried to make their own standards before- but they've all of them ended up being way too over-engineered. I've seen projects that used pogo pins, and a microcontroller that has firmware to allow hot-swapping components, and custom 3d-printed shrouds, and- its a lot. It's too much. It doesn't have to be that complicated.

You don't need to have support in the firmware for hot-swapping components, because the only way to bind an action to an input in a game is to press the button, and if you can't press the button, you can't bind to it. There's no need to de-register the firmware for the button if you can't bind to it.

You don't need to 3d-print custom cases if you can use an existing case, and simple PCB plates.

You don't need custom pogo pin matrices to combine components if you just jam all the cables behind a façade.

And so, Eurorack.

Read more entries here.