tony_cb
Member
Some time ago I saw the Fxunits RAC12 MKII which looked like a really useful controller.
Then I saw Piing's discussion about his knob controller which he had not finished and also the great midi information by Nero which yek put on the Wiki. So I thought I would have a go at making an Arduino Mega based hand controller.
I have now finished the prototype and here are some photos:
This prototype is a full-blown version with 8 rotary controllers and displays plus 4 push buttons for on/off controls. It also has a main LCD display, push buttons for selecting different sets of controls, push buttons for programming which parameter each of the rotary controls affects and FRAM memory to remember all the settings when the power if turned off.
The cost of all the electronic components was about $70 US (from eBay China/Hong Kong suppliers!)
If someone wants to build a simpler (non-programmable) unit with say 5 or 6 rotary controls and one LCD display the component cost could come down to under $30.
However, I haven’t included the cost of a 19” rack box to mount everything. The best I’ve found so far is $35 so this adds quite a bit to the overall cost.
I’m not a professional programmer and I spent a lot of time finding the best Arduino libraries for the various devices and make sure that they didn’t conflict with each other. Also, I spent quite a bit of time getting all the Midi information to and from the Axe-Fx without losing bytes due to buffer overflows etc.
To help anyone else on the forum that is thinking of doing the same thing I’m happy to share the Arduino sketch and wiring information.
I’m putting a video together to show how it works and I might need a second video to go through all the details of the wiring and programming.
Then I saw Piing's discussion about his knob controller which he had not finished and also the great midi information by Nero which yek put on the Wiki. So I thought I would have a go at making an Arduino Mega based hand controller.
I have now finished the prototype and here are some photos:
This prototype is a full-blown version with 8 rotary controllers and displays plus 4 push buttons for on/off controls. It also has a main LCD display, push buttons for selecting different sets of controls, push buttons for programming which parameter each of the rotary controls affects and FRAM memory to remember all the settings when the power if turned off.
The cost of all the electronic components was about $70 US (from eBay China/Hong Kong suppliers!)
If someone wants to build a simpler (non-programmable) unit with say 5 or 6 rotary controls and one LCD display the component cost could come down to under $30.
However, I haven’t included the cost of a 19” rack box to mount everything. The best I’ve found so far is $35 so this adds quite a bit to the overall cost.
I’m not a professional programmer and I spent a lot of time finding the best Arduino libraries for the various devices and make sure that they didn’t conflict with each other. Also, I spent quite a bit of time getting all the Midi information to and from the Axe-Fx without losing bytes due to buffer overflows etc.
To help anyone else on the forum that is thinking of doing the same thing I’m happy to share the Arduino sketch and wiring information.
I’m putting a video together to show how it works and I might need a second video to go through all the details of the wiring and programming.
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