Multi-Screen DIY controller

Hey there

The Faslink could work, but i stopped testing after the AxeFx started to blink... guess i had the power conductor (on my end the blue wires) connected to the Midi out. Luckily everything is still working.

I soldered the cables after i found this writing about the XLR wiring By fractal audio:

/*
If "I" were adapting FASLINK to CAT5 I would use each pair as a conductor. I.e. blue and blue/white tied together as one conductor, green and green/white tied together as another conducter. Then the drain wire (and maybe another conductor pair to ensure low resistance) connected to the XLR shield.

FASLINK uses two conductors plus shield (standard mic cable). One conductor is power. The other conductor is data. The shield is the common return for the two conductors.
*/

I guess this is diffrent in my situation as the arduino is using TX/RX. 1 Faslink Data conductor can send and receive, as the Arduino has this seperated. This still could work i guess.

I want to try to power the pedalboard from the Axe FX, so i will only use the power conductor and shield from the Faslink and send this throught the RJ45 cable (2 wires). The other 6 RJ45 wires i will use for midi in and midi out. I will make custom connectors and wire them to the RJ45 box. Then 1 RJ45 cable holds the midi in/out and power /shield. On the other end i will do the same. (And hope for the best).
So it will still work with Midi in and out, but with power from the Faslink and all wired with 1 RJ45 Cable.

Here is the scema i used for connecting Faslink to rj45 and to midi in and out. Cant figgure out if 4 = RX or 5 = RX will work.

I am going to leave it for now before i blow the Axe up.

Cheers

20210331_234347.jpg
 
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You can supply DC over the data cable with this trick
Hey there

Fractal audio mentioned that one conductor is power and one is data. I found out that he is right lol, but that almost turned my unit to mashed patatos.

I have to think about how to split the data on the Arduino end to Tx and Rx, it now goes over 1 wire on the xlr. Power is covered, just split the data part to the Midi connectors in / out and then i guess it could work with the Faslink XLR connection only.

But After my whole AxeFx unit started blinking, i had a little panic attack and it scared me off. When i regain confidence i will start over again ;)

Cheers
 
I would be hesitant to connect to the Faslink port, for the reasons you have just discovered!

I also think it would be non-trivial to reverse-engineer the Faslink protocol, if you're even allowed to.
 
I would be hesitant to connect to the Faslink port, for the reasons you have just discovered!

I also think it would be non-trivial to reverse-engineer the Faslink protocol, if you're even allowed to.
Hey there @tysonlt

Yes i have my doubts also about connecting to the Faslink. Maby not the goat in ideas after all.

My intention is to only use the power + shield from the XLR and embed the midi in/out signals over the RJ45 from the Axe side and then split it up again on the peddleboard side.
This way, i guess nothing can go wrong.

Still, hope not to be in any violation as i am only using that what is existing on the axe unit. Thanks for pointing that out.

Cheers
 

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The Binder Strikes Again S02E01
Binder S02E01.jpg
While I'm waiting to receive the 1.8" displays and the Due, I'm preparing the mockup for my Multi-Screen Controller

I am going to prepare 5x4cm, 1mm thickness, perspex bezels for the displays. To protect the displays, and to hide the imperfections of the rectangular holes at the metal box (I still have to figure out how to cut them), following this idea:

https://www.instructables.com/Home-Made-Bezel-Window-for-LCD-LED-Displays/

The perspex is painted in black on the rear side, with the exception of the rectangle to show the display.
 
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Oh wait a minute. 18 displays and the Nextion could be a problem with the power. Maby you need an external power for the Nextion?

@prongs_386 had calculated that the Arduino due can power the 15 screens. Dont know howmuch there is left for the extra 3 screens and the Nextion
 
Oh wait a minute. 18 displays and the Nextion could be a problem with the power. Maby you need an external power for the Nextion?

@prongs_386 had calculated that the Arduino due can power the 15 screens. Dont know howmuch there is left for the extra 3 screens and the Nextion

Thank you for the warning. That's just a copy/paste at the drawing. Lazy to delete the the displays for the 3 switches at the top row (the elements are grouped as a block) 😅
 
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Hey, I missed the last weeks worth of posts. Not sure what happened to my notifications :)

The idea of powering unit via the faslink is certainly interesting. You'd need to check the voltage that the dc is supplying with a multi-metre - I currently send 9v down and wire this to the power jack, but if they are sending 5v through faslink I guess you could wire that directly to the 5v pin on the due (bypass the 9v->5v regulator). The issue here is how much variation in the supply is introduced by the multi-plexing they'd be doing by sending data on the same line - most likely just need a capacitor here, but would need to understand the waveform to figure out what to use.

I'm not a pro at soldering the 7 pin xlr cables so I don't put too much faith in its longevity - would like to replace with ethernet.

@Axelman8 Regarding the software freezing up on load. Are you using my branch of Tysonit's library that includes the patch to allow other presets to be loaded? If using the standard released version this could run into an infinite loop while trying to load the names up causing the slow down issue.
 
Hey, I missed the last weeks worth of posts. Not sure what happened to my notifications :)

The idea of powering unit via the faslink is certainly interesting. You'd need to check the voltage that the dc is supplying with a multi-metre - I currently send 9v down and wire this to the power jack, but if they are sending 5v through faslink I guess you could wire that directly to the 5v pin on the due (bypass the 9v->5v regulator). The issue here is how much variation in the supply is introduced by the multi-plexing they'd be doing by sending data on the same line - most likely just need a capacitor here, but would need to understand the waveform to figure out what to use.

I'm not a pro at soldering the 7 pin xlr cables so I don't put too much faith in its longevity - would like to replace with ethernet.

@Axelman8 Regarding the software freezing up on load. Are you using my branch of Tysonit's library that includes the patch to allow other presets to be loaded? If using the standard released version this could run into an infinite loop while trying to load the names up causing the slow down issue.
Hey there Prongs_386, welcome back :)

I am using all the standard libriary's, so i guess i got the loop situation on my end. What should i do to fix this?


About the power:
I have a multimeter, it has a turning wheel and two points that i can connect but i have no clue how to use it hahaha, i used it on 1 way so i could see if my circuit whas working and thats it. I will investigate how i have to use this multimeter with voltage current. BTW, i only have 9V and 1.5V on the turning wheel. Maby i can find something about the faslink voltage on the forum.

Tap Tempo:
Currently i have been in contact with @Piing about the TAPtempo. I just started to investigate if a POTmeter could work for finetuning the tap tempo, because i cant get the tempo correctly with my feet (most of the time) and the AxeFx has a dial knob that works with the tempo, so why not on the peddleboard? I will keep the tap tempo on the button for sure, but the dial wheel would/could work as a finetune or just to set the tempo.

The power with Faslink is in the fridge (for now) The blinking of the whole unit scared me off somehow ;)


Cheers
 
Hey there,

== Friday update ==

I just edited the software with a new option for the TAPtempo.
Making use of the potmeter was not a good idea, very hard to grab the exact timing turning the wheel. So i did something else :)

On the number page, you can select a number to go to a preset. On this same page, you can now select a number to set the TAPtempo. Very cool stuff and works very good. Now i never have to deal with TAPdancing on the button to get it right :)

The button still works, so now you can select TAPtempo by the beat of the song, of just set the tempo with the numbers.

@Piing i have a new version if your interested.


Next on the list:
Channel A B C D selection in the effect page



Cheers
 
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Hey there,

== Friday update ==

I just edited the software with a new option for: AMP and CAB channel switching.

This is only added for AMP or CAB, not for effects, but so far it is working great :)

How it works:
In the effectpage there is a next page to AMP/CAB ABCD. On this page are the available AMP'S and CAB'S. Also the ABCD channel switchers are available.



Red colored text means available but bypassed. Green is active.
In both situations you can select the AMP or CAB and set the channel. If you select the same AMP or CAB again, it will toggle the state.

First selecting an AMP/CAB:
First selection doesn't toggle, it just activates it for the channel change.

NOTE:
Without selecting an AMP or CAB, the channel switcher wont do anything.

If you make an AMP/CAB selection it will be visible by the green border in the screen.
If you make a channel switch it will be visible right away because the program is updating the channel letter on the screen, but also by the green border on the selected channel, so you will allways know what AMP/CAB you selected and what channel your last selection whas.

All updates to the screens are realtime.
Too bad AMP1 is hard coded.. it is not returned from the AxeFx when the arduino query's for it. Hopefully this can be updated in the axecontroller libriary.

I am planning to make another video for explaining this functionality and some other functions that have not been mentioned in the previous video.

@prongs_386
Are you still working on your version? Would really want to flash it to try.



Cheers
 

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Great new features.

To be honest life has been more in the way over the last few months so I haven't done much with mine.

Basically I already have the features I want/need so I've just been playing guitar in my spare time rather than building new things - channel switching isn't something I would personally use without setting up scenes so I haven't bothered to build.

That said I'll still be tweaking over time, making it look nicer and then adding features when I want them. Would be great to integrate all your features into the one solution though. If I can help make it clearer how to add stuff into my solution rather than continuing to work on your own separately, then I'll definitely try to do that.

I do still need to resolve with @tysonit what we can do about getting the preset name loading into the main branch of AxeFxControl project.
 
Great new features.

To be honest life has been more in the way over the last few months so I haven't done much with mine.

Basically I already have the features I want/need so I've just been playing guitar in my spare time rather than building new things - channel switching isn't something I would personally use without setting up scenes so I haven't bothered to build.

That said I'll still be tweaking over time, making it look nicer and then adding features when I want them. Would be great to integrate all your features into the one solution though. If I can help make it clearer how to add stuff into my solution rather than continuing to work on your own separately, then I'll definitely try to do that.

I do still need to resolve with @tysonit what we can do about getting the preset name loading into the main branch of AxeFxControl project.
Hey there,

That one solution is a great idea. If it could be a modular type of approach then that would be great. Modular in the meaning of hardware, but allso functionality on / off settings in the .json file.
The thing is, i tried to understand your build, but i just didnt get it. I need to understand the basics of the passing value by reference and linking to objects or functions with the *alterisk etc.. also when to use -> instead of the .dot seperator is not clear to me yet, but i am still reading and trying to understand. Also, @Piing is starting his version, so who knows what the future has in planning for this project.

As i have mentioned before, i am planning to build a user interface for setting options for the pedalboard.
I have a java study that i hope to help me out building this interface In a universal way. As with the interface, i do have to rebuild the program with more variables to make the settings Possible.
This would really be a nice step towards DIY functionallity.

First my next step is to get the AMP-CAB names from the AxeFx to show on the screens.

Lots to do :) and playing guitar should not be forgotten.

Cheers
stay healthy
 
It will be great to combine all the programs into one. I will start using @Axelman8 version, and I will share and document all changes.

I have prepared the drawings to send my Hammond 1456RL1BKBU box to a Laser Cut shop. I attach the Visio and AutoCad files, in case somenone wants to use them. The original design is on Visio 2019, exported to dwg

01.jpg

Edit: file updated. Discard the old one
 

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Hey there....

** Friday update **
i have none at the moment. Still working on the ABCD channels to grab the name off the CAB and AMP.

@Piing
How is the enclosure coming? did you get it back from the cutting factory?

Cheers have a good weekend all
Stay safe
 
I will not get the enclosure from the cutting factory until next week.

In the meantime... enjoying Cygnus. I am stuck with the Friedmans since the first beta. Can't stop playing to change to other amps :p

Have a good and safe weekend
 
They've melted my Hammond box with the Star Wars Laser of Death o_O :eek:

Killer Laser.png

They say that they were not expecting that the power of the laser would reach the other side.

I've paid $58 for the Laser Cut 👹

Now I have to wait two to three weeks until they build a replica.
 
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