Orgone Accumulator #2 Is Done!
Status: Recently Completed!
Yep, just like that, I'm finished with another Orgone Accumulator!
(Pop-out, porno-style angle)
After completing the first one for Phaelam, it was my turn to enjoy the sometimes harsh and dirty digital sounds of the OA...but first I had to build it. Easier said than done...but not that difficult, either.
I used a bunch of shortcuts in building this one because I was a lot more confident in what I was doing. The "Teensy Fortress" (Teensy 3.1 MCU and necessary pin-headers/sockets) is a good example of this.
("Teensy Fortress," in the middle; "Teensy Gate," on the side)
I still followed the instructions provided by the build-guide, but I found that, after soldering some of the surface-mount pin-headers, soldering the sockets to the main board helped with overall stability and alignment of pins. In other words, when you're done soldering a few pins of Teensy headers (and the SMD header), proceed to the main board. There, you can solder some pins of the sockets to the main board, then solder the rest of the pins on the Teensy, with full confidence that everything will be aligned.
The other components that needed to be aligned were the switches, pots, and jacks. I took a different approach to the jacks: 1) hold switch flush to board with one finger 2) take solder between thumb and forefinger 3) take soldering iron in other hand (I'm a lefty) and solder one pin from the top side of the board 4) repeat for the other switches and complete the job by flipping the board over and soldering the rest of the pins. (As you can tell, I don't have a pana-vise; "helping-hands" are more annoying than helpful. "Annoying Hands" is what they should be called. Yeah.)
I really didn't feel like screwing/unscrewing the pots over and over again, so I basically just inserted the pots on the board, put the faceplate on, screwed a bunch of them in, and soldered everything in one go. If you screw a bunch of the nuts in, this gives enough stability for soldering and will result in good alignment of the pots.
Jacks are similar. Put the jacks in the board, screw in some of the pot-nuts, turn the sucker over, and screw in ALL of the nuts for the jacks. From there, you can be assured of perfect height and alignment. (I'm using Kobiconn jacks, by the way.)
Testing went fine, calibration was a little more difficult for some reason, but overall, the whole thing went very smoothly. Even knob-selection was painless. For some, choosing the right knobs is actually the most important part of a DIY build. I guess I'm one of those guys.
The pink knobs just hit me as the ones to put on the waveform controls. Although the cream-colored button-caps clash a bit with the white Davies, I think it looks great.
So, there you go. I've already made a bunch more sounds with this unit. It's such a beast.
