I appreciate the time you take to read this...

I have been wanting to build a custom controller since (as we all know)
no one company can get what we want exactly right for each of us. The
Monome 40 was VERY close. Now that the kit is coming out, I am excited
at the prospect, but I am VERY confused by what lay before me. It is a
lot of money to dish out just to discover that I need a degree in
engineering to do build the kit or C++ cerification to apply the
firmware. Some folks make it seem as though any old fool (Me) could put
one of these together. Maybe so, but I need a bit more than "Anyone can
do it" to give me an idea. So maybe someone on here can help...

Copied strait from the Ableton Forums::

Man this is cool. Still confused about what goes into these types of
projects. No one has ever stated step by step what one needs to do to
build a controller. I would have NO idea what I would be getting myself
into.

They type of description that would be very helpful would look like
this:

Step 1: Make a drawing of what you want so you can make a list of the
parts you will need and the size it will be. This will give you an Idea
of the enclosure specs.

Step 2: Buy the kit. Buy other parts (LEDs and encoders
[www.LEDsAndEncoders.com]. Buy a soldering gun and X type of solder.

Step 3: Practice applying solder to 2 pieces of wire (or something like
that. Most "novices" don't wield a soldering gun too often)

**** Here's the part that is so very, very, VERY confusing *****

Step 4: Solder LEDs to PCBs? HOW? HOW MANY WIRES? HOW SMLL ARE WE
TALKING? WHAT CAN BE CUSTOMIZED? RATED ON HOW ADVANCED THIS STEP IS, ONE
BEING EASY AS TYING A SHOE, 10 BEING SLITTING ATOMS...

Step 5: Etc...

Step 6: Etc...

Step 7: Etc...

------------

Is there any programming or firmware installation involved? Does it take
a PC with a serial port to do this? A special machine?

If and when I ever get the info I can't glean from the forums related to
this stuff (it is all way too vague and leet for the likes of me), I
will be making a step by step blog of how to do what I did to make it
work... because no one has for some reason.


Can anyone help? I have tried finding this information on uCapps,
Google, etc, but as the web gets bigger, it becomes harder to find
anything I need.

Many thanks for your time.

Tone Deft's reply on the Ab forum (Very Helpful):

[quote="Tone Deft"][quote="apalomba"]ToneDeft, do you have an idea how 
large the 40h would be using the
larger logic kit buttons?[/quote]
I bought the sparkfun pads before they announced the whole kit.  In the 
pic I put in the first page:
[img]http://wiki.monome.org/Attachment/monome_vs_sparkfun.jpg[/img]
It looks like the 40h pads are 3/4 the size of the sparkfun pads.  The 
16x16 grid of sparkfun pads measures 7 7/8", call it 8", so a finished 
kit with those would be ~10" square.

[quote]I would love to be able to add tri color functionality, that way 
I could
color code different types of events. But being a total newb at dyi
electronics, I will be lucky if I can put together a regular 40h.
I hope when you get it working you can release some detailed docs
so we might try it.[/quote]
I plan on giving the plans to the monomes, if/when I work this out.  I 
don't need the hassle for a few bucks.  I know what to do in MAX/MSP to 
get an LED to dim in and out, I just can't try it yet!!  Once I know the 
hardware can handle that it's a matter of dimming 3 LEDs at once, IOW 
just do the same thing two more times.  Anyway, more on that as it 
develops.

[quote="kabuki"]No one has ever stated step by step what one needs to do 
to build a controller. I would have NO idea what I would be getting 
myself into. [/quote]
I think it's safe to say that this will be as easy of a DIY kit as there 
is.  If you get really hosed, send it to me, I can fix/build it if you 
pay the postage but I don't want to get into a position where I'm 
building 50 of these things, but I can help a few people.  [b]I 
completely encourage people to try it themselves.[/b]  It feels GREAT to 
use something you built and this is a great way to learn.

I get the sense that the monomes have spent the last 2-3 weeks debugging 
the kit and making up DETAILED construction tips, they know how you feel 
Kabuki, monome.org is a classsy group of guys, IMO.

Enclosure specs - Monome posted a .pdf of the grid that goes over the 
buttons:
http://wiki.monome.org/Attachment/monome40h_plate.pdf
You can take that to any machine or plastics shop (I plan on using 
http://www.tapplastics.com/ because there's a store near me.)  As for 
the case, that's up to you, the machine/plastics shop might be able to 
help you with that too.

Solder - Any kind of solder will do, stay away from ROHS aka 'lead free' 
solder, check wikipedia for what RoHS means.  This is a new solder with 
no lead that melts at a higher temp and is like warm peanut butter to 
work with.  You will have no problem finding other solders, just walk 
into Radio Shack and say "I want to buy some solder and not the lead 
free type" (that's lead as in Pb, not lead as in "lead me to the party". 
Soldering irons are $10-$20.  Again, just go into Radio Shack, say you 
have 1 project to do and you need a soldering iron.

This is a good picture of the size of holes you'll be dealing with
[img]http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/images/FT245RL-Breakout-01-M.jpg[/img]
That's a standard hole spacing and size, it is not small.

How many wires will you have to solder?  My guess... less than 50 wire, 
but remember, there are 64 LEDs, so that's 128 solders.  Those are 
simple as long as you remember to not put them in backwards (order extra 
LEDS!!) and you're patient to put them in straight up and down.
[img]http://monome.org/image/06_01.jpg[/img] <-- 40h w/the top off


Customising... that all depends on what you want to do, kind of an open 
ended question.  The shit I'm talking about with tri-color and stuff, 
you have to know electronics design and programming.  If you just want 
to use red LEDs instead of green, that's dead simple, just order a 
different color.

I'm sure the monomes will release all the details on what you need to 
buy and some tips on where to get it.

[quote]Is there any programming or firmware installation involved? Does 
it take a PC with a serial port to do this? A special machine? [/quote]
Nope, you will get a programmed part in the kit.  If you want to program 
your own you need to track down a C compiler/editor, the programming 
software, the libraries for the Atmega part software, the programming 
hardware...  It's nothing you'll need to worry about.

[quote="aplomba']Now what I would really love to build is a tri color 
40h with an XY touch pad
on it. Or maybe some ribbon controller. Do you think there would be
enough power left over on the USB bus to power any thing extra?[/quote]

There's probably very little current left over to draw from BUT the 
parts you mention are passive and require very little current 
(5-25mA???) so it's very doable.  I've put up some links showing how 
people have added a knob or a tilt sensor.


Any other questions?  Damn... I'm excited to start hacking on this thing 
and all I can do is talk about it, idle hands...

Trust that the monomes know that their audience are mostly electronic 
illiterate, they will do their best to guide you through the process.


How to solder
So you have
the PCB (the printed circuit board)
the wire
the solder

Put the wire against the PCB where you want it to stick
put the soldering iron at the joint where they touch so you're dumping 
heat into the wire and the PCB.
put the solder against that joint, but NOT touching the iron.
the key is to let the heat in the wire and the PCB melt the solder, this 
is usually 3-10 seconds, larger pieces of metal take more time because 
it takes longer for them to heat up.
After every few solders wipe the tip of the iron off by rubbing it on a 
damp sponge, any crap that builds up on the tip acts to slow down the 
heat transfer from the iron to the metal.
- oh, and the first thing you do when you get an iron is to get it hot 
and hold some solder to the tip to coat the tip in solder, this is 
called 'tinning the tip' and makes the iron last longer.

There's a lot of LEDs, that will take the longest to solder, maybe an 
hour if you stick with it.  The other parts... maybe another hour only 
because you'll be looking at the drawings and the parts and double 
checking yourself.  I'd say that the n00b could build one in 3 hours.


Anyway... hth, hang tight and remember that a lot of this is speculation 
on my part.[/quote]