datadial_manual_v2

Add-on for musical instruments or other electronic equipment to

add a dial function for existing plus/minus button controls.

Disclaimer

All the information present in this manual is for personal use only. No commercial use is permitted without the prior permission from the author of this document. All content in this manual is

provided as is and without any guarantee on any kind, implied or otherwise. We cannot be held responsible for any errors, omissions, or damages arising out of use of information available in this

manual. The content in this manual contains COPYRIGHTED information and should not be reproduced in any way without prior permission from the author.

Copyright 2009 by Peter ULLRICH / Synthetics Productions - All rights reserved.

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General

Thank you for buying the instrument add-on datadial. The datadial has been developed as an upgrade for instruments that only offer plus/minus buttons as editing tool. If you want to change all parameters of a sound this can take a lot of time and will also limit the life of the button mechanics. The datadial elelctronics sit in parallel to the plus/minus buttons so you can decide if you want to use the buttons or the datadial. A simple setup routine allows you to adapt the pulse length of the simulated button presses to the needs of the instrument the datadial is connected to.

Package contents

You should have received the following parts within your datadial package:

1 datadial (ready built and tested for proper function)

1 manual (as a paper copy or it can be loaded from the datadial webpage at http://come.to/synpro under Music / Synth Add-Ons or you can use the direct link: http://home.pages.at/pullrich/m_music4.htm

What you need for the installation

soldering iron

solder

Voltmeter / multimeter

About 1m of thin isolated single or double core cable

Installation Attention!!! Prior to the installation of the datadial be sure to disconnect your equipment from the mains so that you cant get an electrical shock when touching parts inside your equipment that may carry dangerous voltages.

Mechanical data

The datadial can be mounted via M3 screws that can be fixed in two mounting holes that are placed in diagonal.

Electrical data

The datadial has been designed to work with supply voltages from 3.3V to 5V. Only a minimal supply current in the milliampere range will be drawn so it should be no problem to connect the datadial to the power supply of the equipment the datadial will be built in.

Prior to connecting the board to the power supply of your equipment you should find the connections where you can connect your GND and +5V (exactly: +3.3V+5V) wires. If you have an equipment where 5V TTL chips are built in (LS- & HCT-Series chips for example) you can connect the wires to the two supply pins placed in the corners have a look at the datasheet of the TTL-chip. You can find most datasheets in the internet under www.datasheetarchive.com just enter the chip number and you should be able to load a suitable data sheet in PDF format.

If you want to be sure that the voltage on the selected pins is OK, you should power up your instrument and measure this voltage with a voltmeter (normally you will use a digital multimeter these days set to voltage measurement). Be sure not to touch the high voltage part of the power supply!

If you found a suitable voltage then you should switch off and disconnect your equipment from the mains and start connection all the wires as shown in the following diagram:

Setup A little microcontroller on the datadial PCB encodes the encoder movements and translates them into key presses for plus/minus buttons for the target instrument. Normally the button of elelctronic equipment are scanned via a microcontroller to check which buttons are pressed. As every equipment scans its buttons with a different frequency the pulse and pause time needs to be adjusted to fit the equipment needs.

A special method for this setup has been implemented so that the setup can even been done when the datadial is already built in and your equipment mounted. The pulse/pause time can be set via a "safe code input mechanism and is stored in an EEPROM in the microcontroller on the datadial board. The default pulse width after delivery is of about 18ms is set (equals a setup value of 20).

How to set the pulse/pause time via safe code mechanism:

1.

Prepare your instrument so that you select a parameter that has a big value range (0 to 127 works best) and set this parameter to a value of 000. The number of milliseconds programmed will be output as a pulse train with the programmed rate at the end of the programming sequence - so if the programmed setting works correctly you can see the programmed value on the display afterwards.

2.

Turn the dial 1 times to the right (=ENTER )

3.

Turn the dial 9 times to the left (=CODE 9)

4.


5.


6.


7.


8.


9.

Turn the dial times to the left

10.


Now the selected milliseconds will be stored permanently in the internal EEPROM and the datadial will use this value from now on.

If the pulse/pause setting has been entered correctly the instrument should now count up to a value that equals the number of milliseconds (more exactly: times 0.9 milliseconds) that have been programmed before. So if you set a value of 35 the instruments display should show "35".

If a smaller value than the programmed value is shown then you should set a longer pulse/pause time as the actual settings is too fast for your instrument! Start again at step 1.

The pulse/pause time can be set in 0.9ms increments from 1 to 254 (equals about 0.9 to 228.6 milliseconds) the pulse and pause time will always be set to the same value as the instrument has to decode the pulses AND the pauses correctly.

Trouble Shooting As all delivered datadial units have been tested after manufacturing everything should be OK if you followed the instructions in the installation procedure. So if you can not bring the datadial to life and proper function you may have made a mistake or your instrument is not be compatible with the datadial. Check the following steps as they may help finding errors in the installation.

1. Be sure that the power supply is 5V and that the positive wire goes to +5V and the negative wire to the GND input. Otherwise the datadial can not work correctly. Normally the datadial should not be destroyed if it has not been correctly as a reverse polarity protection diode is built in.

2. Be sure that the supply voltage is about 5V as it is designed to works with this voltage. Anyway the datadial should work from about 3.3 volts to 5.2 volts. Voltages higher than 5.5 volts will destroy the datadial. If you have access to a multimeter you should check the supply voltage before you install the datadial to be sure that you will not destroy it.

3. If you tried a few settings without success you may have set too low pulse/pause values. Try to program a value as big as 100 milliseconds. Sometimes older instruments have very low keyboard scanning rates that require a long pulse/pause time setting and will limit the datadial maximum speed. If the setting of 100 milliseconds works properly you can try to reduce the setting (next time try 90 milliseconds for example) and find the minimum setting within a few tries. If you found the minimum pulse/pause time it would be wise to add 3 to 5 milliseconds for safety as the keyboard scanning rate may vary over time due to temperature and other causes.

Warranty

As the datadial is sold on a private base I can not give you a warranty like a company could do. If I would give warranty this would make the datadials more expensive. But every single datadial has been hand soldered, optical inspected (under a lens lamp and via a USB microscope) and has been tested for proper function in a test adapter (working with 5V).

No untested datadials or kits will be sent out!

If you have problems with the function of the datadial or with the installation I can offer you free email support.

Contact

Peter ULLRICH Am Platengrund 8 A-2345 Brunn am Gebirge AUSTRIA / EUROPE Email: [email protected] Webpage: http://come.to/synpro

datadial_manual_v2

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