FCB1010 Re-house project

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: ...and since you have all those extra FCB parts you don't need now... :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

We can get started on my project...

SuperFCB.jpg
 
hole said:
How are the PCB and 'brain' mounted?
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The PCB houses the "brain", if you look you can see the UNO chip. There are 3 mounting studs on the PCB, it was quite a hassle getting them lined up. There is a 4th bolt/nut through a transistor heat sink, I had to leave this out for now and bend the transistor legs so that it would fit. I'm pretty sure that this powers the relays for the switch outputs, which aren't needed for my purposes.

I noticed in testing, that clicking a program change button I was hearing the mechanical click of the relays. I'm thinking that if these are set to either "On" or "Off" in the FCB's presets then it will send their state. I'm going to set them to "No Change".

guitarded said:
Looking good!
how heavy is gonna end up being compared to the original FCB?
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It will be somewhat lighter I think.
 
Well, I got this working finally I reckon. The internal wiring really wasn't difficult. But then I screwed up making a 5 to 7 pin midi cable, didn't discover the fact till hours later..... ended up redoing the internal phantom power mod I'd installed in the AxeFX, then found out my DMM was screwed up, finally got around to checking the cable. Which I'd already soldered twice because I grabbed the 5 pin shell for the 7 pin plug and it wouldn't fit. They aren't fun to solder.

So, after getting power to the unit it fires up and appears to be working. I wasn't sure about wiring the expression jacks, while testing I found out that when it was wrong the FCB would reboot when you insert a plug . Apparently it lost it's internal memory during this process. I ended up going back through all of the UNO initialization procedures, getting SysEx enabled and finally able to download my saved config.

Then I try to upgrade my firmware to 9.3, hours later after trying several programs, midi interfaces, and pc's it would not work.

Good news is, the mod works and it seems the Behringer mainboard is pretty durable to keep working after this abuse :)
 
Tried to get a couple pics showing the LED's, I find some of the colors don't show up well. Diffused Red, Yellow, and Green look anemic next to the bright versions. Violet looks like a washed out blue, Orange is too close to Red. I think it will look and work best to use the same 5 colors for both rows of switches, all bright LED's - Green, Yellow, Red, Blue, White
mc1k.jpg

mc1l.jpg
 
Why the engineering decision to use different colored LEDs? ;)

Looks good. I could use it for sure.

Where are all the switches soldered to? Directly to the PCB?
 
LAYGO said:
Why the engineering decision to use different colored LEDs? ;)

Looks good. I could use it for sure.

Where are all the switches soldered to? Directly to the PCB?
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Thanks. It makes sense to me that the colored LED's will be easier to keep up with in live use. After trying it out, there is no point in trying to get 10 different colors, many are too similar or not as bright. There are 5 bright colors that work well: Green, Yellow, Red, Blue, & White. I'll make both rows the same.

The main PCB has two multipin connectors, similar to those used in computers, one to each row of switches which are mounted on two large PCB's. I tried to source these, as it would make it simple to mod and return to stock. But I thought WTF, and just cut all the wires. Many of them were long enough barely to reach the switch or LED. I can post the pinouts if you're interested, and parts list.

I was somewhat disappointed in the LED bezels I got from Small Bear, some fit tightly while others would not. I ended up putting hot melt on all of them just in case.

One minor item that I lucked out on, when measuring for the MIDI I/O board I didn't allow enough room for the bank up/down switch housings - that is, to mount the MIDI board the same way as it is in the FCB. However, flipping the board upside down works fine and has the added benefit of oriented the MIDI plugs to be "right side up", the same as on the AxeFX. And since the MIDI board is on the opposite side of the display in this mod compared to the FCB, it makes the MIDI OUT jack the one closest to edge.
 
did you have any trouble with the 2 switch jacks? they look like a tight squeeze to fit next to that upper, right button/LED...
 
guitarded said:
did you have any trouble with the 2 switch jacks? they look like a tight squeeze to fit next to that upper, right button/LED...
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No, fortunately. The only problems I had was, I measured the switch holes wrong and had to make them bigger. Lining up and drilling the holes for the main PCB/Display was a pain. The MIDI I/O board I also miscalculated, but it works better upside down ;-)

GM Arts said:
For my DIY controller, I found that normal intensity LEDs work best - they're still visible outdoors. I had a high intenstity blue and it's just too blindingly bright looking down on the board.
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Well, with the voltage supplied by the FCB the high-brightness ones look ok - blue is quite bright, lol. These are the 5mm LED's from Small Bear Electronics, they only offer "diffused" in red, green, and yellow.
 
This is the wiring. I unplugged the relay switch board, and cut the leads to the expression pedals. I also removed the lead to the expression pedal LED's, for my purposes they are always on in every patch. The leads from the power supply go to pins 1 & 3 of the MIDI out connector, just like the available phantom power mods except they were mistakenly called pins 1 & 5 - it is the two outside pins. So, the main PCB and the MIDI I/O board are all that is needed from the FCB.

There are two large PCB's that house the upper and lower row switches and LED's. These each plug into the main board with a 14 pin multi-connect. Pin 1 is the red lead. Momentary switches don't have positive/negative, but the switches have diodes feeding their outputs. The diodes are available from radio shack, 4148, and look the same as the factory ones. They have a black band at one end, this end solders to the switch. The other end of the diode is what I label as +, while "-" is a common feed to all switches. Note that "SW6" in the top row is bank up, "SW6" in the bottom row is bank down.

Bottom row

1 - SW1-2-3 LED +
2 - SW4-5 LED +
3 - SW5 LED -
4 - SW4 LED -
5 - SW3 LED -
6 - SW2 LED -
7 - SW1 LED -
8 - SW1 +
9 - SW2 +
10 - SW3 +
11 - SW4 +
12 - SW5 +
13 - SW6 +
14 - SW 1-2-3-4-6 -

TOP row

1 - SW1THRU 5 LED +
2 - SW5 LED -
3 - SW4 LED -
4 - SW3 LED -
5 - SW2 LED -
6 - SW1 LED -
7 - SW1 +
8 - SW2 +
9 - SW3 +
10 - SW4 +
11 - SW5 +
12 - SW6 +
13 - SW 1-2-3-4-6 -
14 NA

Expression Pedal - these 3 leads are attached to connectors on the main board. The red lead being pin 1, it goes to "tip" on the jack. Pin 2 goes to "Ring" and Pin 3 goes to "Sleeve." I think this is correct, I will verify next time I open it up. The second exp jack I wired for a switch instead of a pot, it's different and require a 100k resistor in line. But it works perfectly, value toggles between "0" and "127".
 
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I have mostly finished my own FCB1010 rehousing. Thanks for the inspiration Tubetonez! The unit is very compact, almost unusable for stage use, but it is perfect for me for home practicing. I have changed the LED display to a bigger, brighter one. It has the Uno ROM, so the buttons in the upper row are stompboxes. The new enclosure is a Hammond steel chassis. It is now awaiting the Axe II... :)
 
DanielRigler said:
2cf5e7a.jpg


I have mostly finished my own FCB1010 rehousing. Thanks for the inspiration Tubetonez! The unit is very compact, almost unusable for stage use, but it is perfect for me for home practicing. I have changed the LED display to a bigger, brighter one. It has the Uno ROM, so the buttons in the upper row are stompboxes. The new enclosure is a Hammond steel chassis. It is now awaiting the Axe II... :)
Click to expand...

Now that looks cool!
 
Looks cool, but man you got too much time on yer hands...lmfao
My FCB1010 is just fine, actually prefer the large foot pads over toe tappers.
 
Nice project. I use an FCB also...same issues.

My BIGGEST issue is; The LED display is so dim, that stage lighting and outdoor gigs wash it out!

Removing the red filter make it worse. It just has to be brighter. Maybe changing the dropping resistor on the display will increase current and stay within the limits for the existing display?

I use the Eureka chip, and it's mandatory to see if I have inadvertently, changed the button modes.
 
Daniel,
Can you post the manufacturer and part number for your large display that you used?

I think offsetting the switches might make it more stage friendly?
 
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