We made our own Eurorack modules. From scratch!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 сер 2018
- At last! I can finally share this story! It has taken two years to get here.
Have you ever wondered how a Eurorack module gets made? In this special episode, we go step-by-step through how Strange Science Instruments (my startup) built its first two products, completely from scratch!
If you like modular synths and want to learn more about these products, check out the following videos:
Detailed overview of M4 Advanced Stereo Mixer:
• M4: Advanced Stereo Mi...
Detailed overview of F1 Module:
• F1: Stereo Lowpass Fil...
Find out more at: www.strangesci.com
If you enjoy these videos please consider supporting this channel on Patreon! Even a $1 a month goes a long way :)
www.patreon.com/leomakes
I’m interested in the in-depth circuit layout and component selection follow up you mentioned. Great video!
John Jameson - Me too me too!! Absolutely would be so insightful, helpful and BADASS...
Do it do it do it do it
Same here. I think the circuit layout is the most interesting part.
Same here! 🤩
During all video I looked at that burn spot on the table. :)
Kirill HA! The great Dremel mishap of early-2018. When a certain someone accidentally drilled a hole clean through his ESD mat (and workbench) whilst routing a hole. :)
That cumbersome jerk
I've had a recent mouse problem and my subconscious was evaluating that spot as a mouse or rat dropping.
Perfectly explained! I worked at a PCB manufacturing facility doing various menial tasks to get a peek at this process. I would get SO excited when a eurorack project would come through.. even if I was just the guy scrubbing flux residue off the finished boards.
Primary takeaway: Pick & Place machines are finicky, SHOCKINGLY EXPENSIVE beasts!
I love how proud you are of your product.
Passionate, very likable and of course well thought out.
I'm looking forward to the next module.
Congratulations on bringing your idea to fruition. It's definitely a process! I worked in an electronics factory for a hot minute, I loved their solder fountain machine!
I really love this. It's been a dream of mine for years to design and release eurorack modules, and now I'm taking my first steps into electrical engineering. Thank you for the video, it's incredibly motivating. Break a leg, friend.
Great video. As a producer I often wondered how our tools were created from initial idea to final product. Thanks for the insight.
Although I am not new to this I learned one or two from this video, for example the population and soldering process, thanks.
Great content and the modules look absolutely beautiful. Great work!
Seriously, thankyou so much for posting this. Very interesting for someone who hopes to build a synth company of his own. I'd love to see a video that goes more in depth on the circuits/components you went with. Cheers!
Thank you very much for sharing this. One, it is fascinating to learn about all that goes in to it. Two, it is really nice to hear someone speak about something that they are truly passionate about, and followed through on. Bravo sir.
two year, quite a long time, but while I am designing my own synth I do see that everything just takes time.
Thank you for sharing. That was a great video which shows how much care, ideas and knowledge goes into only one product.
very cool, nice to see full product lifecycle .
Thanks of sharing this, great to see and hear how it all came together.
Thanks for watching, Ben!
Fascinating! Gimme more, Leo. :)
Thanks for sharing this!
Man, that is sooo cool! Inspiration is over the head! Keep it up.
Beautiful video, thank you for sharing!
A brilliant video. Thank you.
This was a beautiful and super helpful video!
Extremely interested! Please make more of these videos!
That's great. It sounds hard but, not impossible. Well done for sharing this.
Really fascinating, thank you!
This has been mad insightful! Thanks!
Thanks for making this. I've spent a lot of time in 2018 going through this exact process. I'm somewhere between prototype and CAD right now. Wish me luck. I look forward to the day I too can say that I'm ready to ship.
Nice video Leo :-) Its so Clear the way you explained this process.
Thank you for making this very enjoyable video ❤
This is a great video (other then background music too loud). Its really cool that you walk people through the process. Very clean end result.
Wonderful video, thank you.
Thank You!.. Great video for me.
The response switches are a lovely touch!
Great video with very nice music.
Very informative and entertaining too.
Very interesting, Thank you for this :)
edit: Please continue! Would love to learn more.
4:55 BASED
Lovely Leo!!
Thanks Prophei. And thanks for providing feedback during our various beta tests.
I know it'd be really boring for a video, but I'd love to hear more about the certifications you mentioned.
This is wonderful! Thank you. I'd love to hear more about the certifications required.
your channel is AWESOME
Great video. Don't have a need for these (yet, just starting to learn about synthesizers and Eurorack), however would almost like to buy them just to reward your efforts, your attention to detail, and for doing this video 👍
Very inspiring, I started my journey into building synth modules (some from schematics, some from scratch) and every step of the way has been filled with terrible failures. (lost some valuable CA3080 chips because of shorts in a prototype circuit)
I am thankful for my errors, because I learned so much. Beautiful panel and PCB designs by the way. Even the stripboard circuits are attractive in their own right. I don't think I'll ever be on this level of design or production, but motivational nonetheless!
Good luck and keep making videos about it please!
It seems like you’re well on your way. Keep going!
Thank you for this! I am also interested in the components and circuit follow-up video. You didn't mention the total time it took from idea to finished and shippable product.
Brilliant to know! Would love to know why each part is chosen and how the design takes shape. 👍
Fantastic vid..thks from France...(small country somewhere in europe)
Nice film.
Thanks for watching!
your channel is going to blow up
13:29 lol "not the beer". I've been trying to get used to the new definition IsoPropyl Alc, but I keep thinking about the beer.
Frontpanels made by Schaeffer? Great explanation!
Nice video - it does a great job explaining the process. If you don't mind sharing, what are the companies you are using for the PCB fabrication, the board house (pick and place), and the front panel manufacturer?
Thanks a lot for sharing this! good to keep an overview and mention the phases.. for me personally, the phase 'Idea to Electrical Engineer' would be the hardest one. Cause thats going to cost me without anything being viable yet, you need favours (f.e.your brother) along the way.. or, die hard training :)
It can definitely be expensive if you just want to hire and engineer to deliver the design. What you might try is finding a good engineer and becoming co-owners in the business. That way you can really focus on product design/business/marketing etc. and let the other person focus on engineer/manufacturing/etc.
It works well if you can find a good business partner.
I would love to build myself a little tube distortion/saturator box one day.
On the strip board prototype, what sort of voltage regulator are you using?
I’ve been trying to make a mixer with +/- vcc for the op-amps but have failed to find a regulator that supplies this. Any tips?
Hey Steeve this is Teo from Strange Science. I've been using some eBay bought cheap-o dual-output power converters for the prototyping. For example, see
www.ebay.com/itm/5V-6V-9V-10V-12V-15V-24V-Positive-Negative-DC-DC-Boost-Buck-Converter/183522672409?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131231084308%26meid%3Dd8157f02ff70434aadf124475b3fa813%26pid%3D100010%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D113008071548%26itm%3D183522672409&_trksid=p2047675.c100010.m2109
Not exactly the one I was using but should do the trick. The output from these can be noisy and not very well regulated so you may want to follow these with positive and negative linear regulators.
amazing timing youtube, the mixer is pretty much a module I was thinking about diying
Great video! What company in germany make the faceplate? Thats some great work!
Great video, super informative! Love every component part as objects, amazing stuff. Especially the laser cut stencil, do you have any laying around? Or perhaps you know where to get some, would love to frame them. Thanks!
Stencils usually get made by the PCB assembly house as part of the process and the house holds on to them in case you need to re-order parts. I had ones made for me so I could learn how to work with paste and reflow ovens. I got them from OSH Park in the US. There are places in China that will do it for cheaper.
Thanks Leo! i will see if i can manage to get a hold of them, in the meantime i will also hear your module (i'm just getting into modular bits and am quite lost..)
Can you tell what compagny made the face plate? It looks good and want to contact them for api 500 series modules aswell...
Great video... Well explained.. 👍
Thanks for watching. We worked with a company called Shaeffer AG in Germany. Their US branch is called Front Panel Express. The quality of their work has always been excellent.
Best of luck with your 500-series products!
@@LeoMakes i took a look at the website . I guess germany is the best choice since i live in the netherlands... thank you again for taking the time to reply.. 👍
irrelevant the topic and what you are producing but the video is A M A Z I N G!!! ;-)
Inspiring for the production side, always asked myself if Trough Hole stuff were made by hand (and it is actually). Immediately subscribed
Not digging the emotional music mood by the way
Thanks for watching (and subscribing)!
Not true. Tons of through-hole boards use pick-and-place / reflow solder. DIP ICs and leaded resistors and capacitors usually can be inserted and soldered by machine. However, there's a few reasons why this board wouldn't. 1) the through-hole parts are very big so they're not compatible with pick-and-place. 2) The through-hole parts have plastic and would melt in a reflow. 3) There's very few through-hole parts so it's not worth the cost of setting up a 2nd through-hole process for the board. 4) If a board has both surface-mount and through-hole components, it gets much trickier so the flow for one doesn't mess up the parts from the other because of different reflow temperatures, etc.
p.s. - back at a previous company I worked for, I used to love watching the pick-and-place machines. It's amazing how fast they go.
Yeah, great content, I've often wondered how these are mass produced.
But also that cheesy music is over the top & out of place. I would think music created via these modules would be better marketing.
Look up wave soldering. Through hole doesn't necessarily have to be hand soldered, but it can be. Kind of depends on the volumes in question I'd imagine. For smaller runs like a lot of really boutique synth stuff, it might just be more worthwhile to have the boards made but assemble and solder them in house.
/Rambleramble
@G Yes I got into it as the video evolved. I find beat oriented music to be too distracting in these kinds of informational videos so this was a nice fit. I think it is a good choice and a great way for this talented person to share another side of his creativity. Well done.
Who are you using for panel production?
www.schaeffer-ag.de at the moment. May switch to their US subsidiary (frontpanelexpress.com) in future runs.
Ah... thought it might be FPE based on the engravings. They do great work. Just down the road from us in Seattle. Your panels look great!
beautiful units, but next time you do a run of the front panels, make 'em the same (logo positioning etc) puhleeez! killing my ocd.
The quality of your videos has been extremely high from the jump. I can’t wait for newer content.
Informative and thoughtful video, thanks for posting. What do you use for schematic and PCB layout, if you don't mind me asking?
You say 'milled', but isn't it really just laser-cut and embossed? That strikes me as cheaper.
M4 is a winner module, btw. I can't believe these were such a long time in coming, kudos.
And, to make these easier to annotate in the future, it's just pronounced 'sodder' (the 'L' is silent) :-)
Dreux Donelan It’s pronounced ‘solder’ in the UK. It seems it’s only North America that say sodder
Dreux Donelan solder HAS an ‘L’, so should make annotations easier*...
FWIW, I’m a yankee and I too pronounce the ‘L’ and appreciate it when others do as well. BUT I certainly don’t care at ALL when say it with the silent L...
I’m pretty sure the OP knows what he’s doing and does not need to you to tell him how to pronounce a word he very clearly & obviously has a very solid understanding of and experience with... Not like he actually brought a *real product* to life from conception to incubation to realization or anything... Ohhh waitttt....
Sorry for being rude, but to someone who clearly knows what they’re doing, your comment can only be interpreted in a negative way or at the very ‘best’ be off-putting..
This is a blessed piece of art... you’ve beat the Strymon Magneto at their own game
uh what? lol
Magneto Cancels!
Cool video, i enjoy it, except for the background music,
Great looking units. That mixer is most definitely not skiff friendly. 😢
Thanks! We did our best to keep the depth down as much as possible but 62mm was the limit with all the electronics and layout that we wanted to use. It will fit many cases but, as you say, skiffs may not have enough clearance.
not like the old days of laying things out by hand and etching, a real time consuming artform.If anyone is interested Texas Instruments has a free download of cicuit board software.
background music too loud
great video but the music was too much. felt like you were selling me funeral prearrangements.
Could've done without the background music TBH
US BASED COMPANY... BLABLABLA
Yes! We design and manufacture our products in the US, where Strange Science Instruments is based. I'm not sure I understand your comment.