Hi folks! Took me a long while to start experimenting with this Isolated board, but I’m now getting to it.
I’ve picked up a RPi4, with a 5’ touchscreen LCD (USB+HDMI), and I’m reusing the AllInOne 2.0 that I had on my previous RPi3 Zynthian (connecting it to the 4 encoders, 3 MIDI DINs and now soldered to a 5 prong JST to allow me to get those lovely switches that popped up in the Zynthian world since I last messed around with the box!)
Advised by @flatmax, I set the automute to off in alsamixer, and that gets rid of some really nasty physical clicks after note offs - that makes it sound fantastic (Big thangs, Matt!). I tried the audio in, and while there’s no capture level settings on alsamixer, it works perfectly.
Some issues I’m experiencing:
- MIDI DIN IN isn’t working, i can only use USB. Leds work, MIDI through works, but nothing comes up in the log when using the MIDI IN. I read some other posts here advising to test different connectors, but nothing. I did one better, and swapped the Isolated DAC with my old (but working) Hifiberry DAC+. And this gets MIDI IN to work! so I know it’s something in the Isolated board side. I’ll go over the 40pin soldering quality (visually looks ok, but I have to be sure, I know), but I wonder if this board is using GPIO pins that Hifiberry DAC+ isn’t? Anyone knows if I can ‘redirect’ the MIDI in to another unused pin (and how? webconf somewhere?)
- The stack is ‘fat’
@mheidt, how did you get along with your board? I think @wyleu has the right idea if this has to get into a tight enclosure. I’m using a plastic Hammond box, and it’s rather messy, with RCA cables coming out through a hole - all very temporary until I’m happy with the whole system. But the HDMI cable is actually the major blocker. - Temperature. I’ve got no fans / additional heatsinks, so the boards warm up a bit - but nothing critical. I get the temperature icon only if I close the box completely - which I don’t intend to, leaving the base 5mm separated is enough to give airflow, without breaking any functionality / without looking terrible
- Power. I had a step down converter (to USB) that fed my Hifiberry old box without issues, now with this board it seems to cause undervoltage (the red icon on screen at least). For now I’m using a power bank straight to RBPi usbc ,and seems to work. So I’ll try a different approach, using a step down convertor soldered straight to the Pi, maybe with a ferrite ring to reduce the noise (i think i saw some posts here as success stories for that). Btw, the powerbank is very clean!
Of the above, my priority is to have my MIDI IN working via DIN - I’ll welcome any pointers to look into!
(Last, but not least - I’ve ordered some food for the ravens, just need time away for the day job for a bit and I’ll feed them accordingly)
Anyone else using this board? Would be nice to see some feedback for it in the forum.
Thanks!