I wouldn't worry about brand new signal diodes not working. As far as semiconductors go, they're extremely simple devices - just as long as you don't manhandle them to the point of breaking the glass they should be fine. A very nice assembly, the only concern about not going the PCB route is potentially vibration cracking the solder joints but you've made nice mechanical connections before soldering so everything should be fine long term. Incidentally, when I was taught to solder by my Grandfather who was a radar tech in the RAAF (and later continued as a civilian contractor to the RAN), I wasn't allowed to put the iron anywhere near the work until the mechanical connection was good. I image he would've been pleased to see the way you've done it!
I know a few people who do manual placement of THT components and they don't do testing during manufacturing. They have their diagrams and are simply expected to make no mistakes. At the end of a production stage there may be ICT (In circuit testing) or AOI (advanced optical inspecting) if the customer pays for it. If any errors are spotted, the components go back to be repaired and tested again before shipping.
@@RotarySMP EDA software usually comes with features that spot mistakes. They detect if you don't adhere to the various manufacturer specifications, and also logical errors like two traces crossing each other on the same layer/side.
@@RotarySMP Used Altium Designer and EAGLE in the past. They are both expensive. KiCad, easyEDA and Altium CircuitMaker are free options. Altium CircuitStudio is a reasonably priced option. I do think that KiCad is completely fine. Many makers are using it, and seems to work reasonably well. Like, it's not a shit-show like FreeCAD compared to paid options.
I see you acquiesced on the Advent candle holder design 😀 - efficiency is seldom appreciated when fashion is the design driver 😂😂 . Merry Christmas to you Mark 🎄🎄👍🎄🎄
If your interface does not need you to press more than one button at a time, you don't need diodes on every switch. Regular computer keyboards do not have them. You can test this by pressing more and more keys simultaneously: you will find that some combinations allow you to press quite a few before pressing more keys has no effect. Gaming keyboards (as well as other gaming controllers like gamepads) use either an oversized, sparsely populated matrix which is cleverly designed to allow any ten keys to be pressed at once or have diodes.
I didn't use diodes on the Maho panel, and also suspected that they are overkill here, but was unsure so I used them. You are right that a CNC control panel is "typed" on in y much slower and methodical manor.
I guess you could use the diode test feature on most multimeters as you press each button, the meter should show 0.2-0.3V or 0.5-0.7V depending upon the diode type.
One smal but major error on your matrix schematic: The switches connect between a row and a column. When wired as shown, a signal can only go to the second row if the button on the first row is pressed simultaneously. Happy Christmas!
As an electronics guy I really don't envy that job! Ouch. And all the matrixed wiring is only part of the job, then you have key mappings and potential issues with double keypresses (ie; hold down one key while you press another). Good luck! (And by the way your hand drawn key matrix diagram is totally wrong, the rows and columns shoukd be contiguous with each key+diode placed diagonally between a row and column, I'm sure you worked that out by this time)
Oh, I guess the wiring on the boards will be right, but might have screwed up on the hand wired ones. Double key presses are not a big issue on a CNC controller, at least that is my experience with the Maho, where I didn#t even use diodes. You dont really type much, just press single function buttons. The 7i73 automates some of the firmware set up, but there will still be one line of assignment code per key. I did the same on the Maho, and it is not too difficult.
Yes, that's right, the hand-drawn circuit diagram is not quite right. I also realised my 2 panels with the 7i73. Without the diodes. Even 2 buttons pressed at the same time are recognised correctly and you never have more on a CNC anyway...
Thank you for a great year (well, several years) of thoroughly enjoyable content. Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
My brother and I have been building CNC machines for years now, and we used to say "all I have left is the wiring" thinking that we were nearly done. Now we say "all I have left is the wiring" and mean we are only about half way through the job.
Thanks for confirming that John. The homebuilt aircraft scene has a mile stone where the project looks like an aircraft. They call it "90% done, 90% to go!" 😆
I defiantly would have made a pcb all that wiring would drive me nuts. big thankyou to Roel for the early charismas present:) Merry Christmas to you and your family
Hi Luke. It would have been 7 PCB's, plus still a lot of wiring, to connect them and the encoders. I just hope this works. Merry Christmas. Give my regards to you Dad.
To clarify, given a chunk of memory, finding item x in an array of items is easy. ItemX = MemoryBase + (ItemSize * Index). The Intel x86 CPU has an instruction that does this exact thing for accessing arrays. If it started at one, you would have to account for that. It also is better for loops because of several reasons.
Im sure you did it for simplicity, but your circuit diagram for your 3 x 3 matrix keyboard was wrong. It showed that output 1 was wired into one terminal of sw1, and the other terminal of sw1 was then wired on to the first terminal of sw2 and so on. The way you drew it, you would need to hold sw1 on AS WELL as sw2 in order to ever register a press on sw2, because theyre wired in series. In any case, i understood what you meant, but thought Id better mention it. Have a very merry christmas and keep the excellent videos coming.
Lol obviously you didn't need my explanation, as you went on to wire it correctly as its clear you've done plenty of times before. Sorry if my comment came across as condescending or rude, that really was not my intention, but reading it now, it's badly worded. Sorry about that. I meant my closing remarks wholeheartedly though, I genuinely do look forward to your excellent videos, thank you so much for making them. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and I'll take this opportunity to bid you a happy new year.
@@daveash9572 Thanks Dave, I didn't read your comment in a negative way. I appreciate when people point out my mistakes, and that wiring diagram was a clanger :) I just plugged in the the thing for the first time. - The three encoders work, but the sense is reversed (just need to depin and swap the A and B channel wires.) - Only one LED can be on at a time. I though the 7i73 can power enough per pin, but it seems to be a max current for all pins. Oops. - two LEDs dont activate (reversed?) - The matrix is not working. Now for trouble shooting hell :(
Slept in this week, woot! Merry Christmas. I haven't built a keyboard, but I'll put it on my to do list. I did knock out a bushing, err a ring... as a gift in a few hrs on the lathe. It was great to spend some time on it, However, I did add a bunch items to the todo list by noticing little things to fix. Have a great vacation! ~Mike
@@RotarySMP Merry Christmas, yes, time away from the video games and general cleaning of the house. I think I need to move the shop closer to the bedroom, so it gets noticed before the computers, when i first wake up. =D
Ha, I feel like I've recommended the PCB thing before, but I wouldn't have in this situation ;) you could start milling your own boards though, might be a cool project
It would have either been two very large and weird shaped PCB, or seven different PCB's which still needed a lot of interconnecting and wiring, or this. I just hope I can get this trouble shot and working.
Suggestion for next year's Christmas ornaments: Have you seen the set of our Solar System Planets? I don't think it comes with a Sun but it has all the Planets, I think screen printed with the actual photographs and an attempt made to make them proportionally sized.
It took me ages to do the wiring, but I suspect with my knowing little about PCB design, and it needing seven boards, it would have taken me much longer.
you got to rebuild interface board on your own ... i just give up by this time ... machines from '80 without schematics .... its a days of tracing wires
Not sure I understand your comment. I have schematics for both the Maho and the Schaublin. And I make schematics of my wiring changes, so I can trouble shoot them in the future.
We had a Thai exchange student when I was a kid. I remember him going out one morning to photograph frost. Not a big thing in Bangkok. Merry Christmas.
@@RotarySMP I've joked for years here that Winter lasts about a week around Xmas time, I'm from Brisbane originally and I seriously hated our winters there, mind you, a 4 or 5° morning feels cold anywhere, but the temp here, 120 km SE of Bangkok never gets that low, but when those icy cold winds blow out of China it can feel pretty damn chilly.
I am sort of missing the point of this. It looks like great wiring but a lot of work. I would have used one of those 'duino boards (e.g. Mega) with lots of input pins and encoded the keyboard into i2c or even USB. Actually, you can buy i2c I/O expanders. Merry Christmas!
This Mesa 7i73 integrates directly with the other Mesa cards I am using with a single Cat 6 cable, can read out the three encoders, the matrix keyboard, and run the 12 LED's. I dont lnow of any Aduino with so much IO, but it would still be just as much woring to connect it all.
@@RotarySMPAh, I see, in that case this seems the more sensible choice. I thought the matrix wiring will run through to the cabinet. Best wishes for Christmas!
Hi Nikolai, I need to open i up and find out why it is binding. Luke repaired a whole job lot of old gauges, so I was meaning to take it with me when I went to Malta and have him take a look at it.
Thanks for your generous offer Artur. I thought this would be too complicated, with either two very large and weird shaped PCB's, or seven smaller ones.
Well done Roel I doff my cap to you. Thanks for all your great content this year looking forward to next years projects. As a 71 year old ex sparky you I remember lacing cables in control panels and fault finding was a real pain. I found the point to point wiring of German panels far easier. Happy Christmas Re ken
I would test each subassembly on completion particularly if access is limited after final assembly. It's not normal / worthwhile to test new electronic components before fitting since they should be tested by the manufacturer before release. 👍
Hi Mark Merry Christmas ! What a great package from Roel ,that chuck will make things so much easier. Since you asked about component testing👹 at my old job we would check every wire ,resistor,switch,motor,etc for its important parameters before use and then check again after soldering ,crimping or whatever we did to it . Of course we were building a nuclear reactor inspection tool, so there certain standards to live up to. A few of my co-workers had worked for P&W ,needless to say they had the same sort of standards as well. There is nothing nicer that tidely done point to point wiring and lacing. PCB's are obvious for volume work , but for one off or custom why bother? Finally thank you for providing us with our Sunday morning entertainment.
An addendum/unsolicited idea. in an earlier episode you super glued the switches to the printed frame. Now that i've seen the switch pcb's I see that there are diagonal screw holes. would it be an idea to remake the frame so that all switches are on pcb's and screwed to the printed frame instead?
I’d like to also know how the electrical engineers work a circuit board. Once I build a complicated board without testing anything, and it just wouldn’t work. I went over it a bazillion times but no luck 🤦♂️. So finally I built a completely new one from scratch.
We work on them one bit at a time, and always check your power supply/section. Measure each component in any signal chain not working, see that it's as expected, move on. (Skipping ahead is allowed, but then skip back if you got weird results at the goal) Working in halves, 1/4, 1/8ths and similar divisions is also a good idea just to narrow down and exclude faults faster. Can be very difficult if you don't have schematics etc.
Merry Christmas Mark! Switch and diode testing: 1. Test all the switches once they are installed in the panel. For extra points for the paranoid, test them before installing in the panel too. But a visual inspection for broken or loose parts is usually all that is needed then. You want to test after installing in the panel in case case distortion is going to make the switch fail. 2. Run the wires from the switches and diodes off to the termination area, but don't terminate yet. Bundle and tie loosely, occasionally, and only if absolutely necessary to preserve sanity. These cable ties will come off and be replaced later, so don't sweat them. 3. Once everything is loosely wired, strip the termination ends of the matrix wires, and start testing. Since wires are still loose it is pretty easy to fix any mistakes. 4. Once everything is verified, pretty up and lace the wiring. 5. Make the end terminations to connectors or screw headers or whatever. 6. Double-check that you got the wires in the right place on the end termination. 7. Once the controller is live, run a software check to be sure that everything is correct. It doesn't hurt to do a double-key check on a few selected keys, like joystick down while pressing some other button. Make sure results are as expected. I'm sure you already knew 90% of that, but you did ask... :-)
I really appreciate that. I really didn't know what sort of testing procedure experienced people would do. I felt I should be doing more, but had no clue at what point, and how much.
RotarySMP: Mocking people telling him to spend 5 bucks and an evening to make custom PCBs for the wiring job. Also RotarySMP: spending a month to wire it all by hand and still doesn't get it done.
I didn't mock anyone Markus. I have no access to or experience with a PCB layout software (other than the free version of eagle I tried about 15 years ago). I wired up a guitar valve amp before, so at least I knew I could do this, even if it takes a long time.
@@RotarySMP I can recommend KiCAD as an addition to your open source tool chain. It's a little quirky, but nowhere near as challenging as QElectroTech to get your head around! I use it primarily for PWBs (Printed Wiring Boards) rather than PCBs but am slowly trying to sneak in to that playground....
Which software would you have done this in? Eagle had a half euro card restriction on the free version back when I tried it, but are there better options today?
@@RotarySMP easyEDA and KiCad are the two free options. Altium has some free or at least cheap offerings as well - with CircuitStudio. I used Altium and Eagle in the past. I probably would just pay the $500 for CircuitStudio if I was to do EDA regularly again.
Merry Christmas Mark! When I worked in an electronics factory making police lights and sirens, we would test after soldering, as some components could be damaged from the heat. We rarely tested as we went, just had a test at the end.
Hi Mark merry christmas . For a bit of perspective on PCB vs point to point wiring , to this day CNC machines that have proper physical pushbutton switches,dials,etc are point to point wiring. this is on the builder suppled side for e-stop etc. The control builder (fanuc,siemens,heidenhan,meldas,etc) key panels are however, PCB membrane switches with overlaid key caps or soft cover just like a tv remote. So you are in very good company wiring as you are
You are probably right. Problem is that I know so little about that world, that I would not know where to start finding that person, specing what I want done, etc. I remember eagle has a 1/2 euro card limit of PCB size in it's free version, and the commerial one was expensive. This project would either need six or seven boards, or two big wierd shaped ones. And given how much time it took to learn FreeCad, I was not in the mood for learning another software right now.
@@tinygriffy Thanks a lot for the offer. It would have been either two very large, odd shaped PCB's, or seven which still needed a lot of interconnecting, or this. I should have polled you experienced guys wisdom earlier. Sorry about that.
