Basic Zynthian Box

Building Zynthian
1

I want to build a zynthian but cannot afford buying all the parts from the website. What parts and connections would I require if I just want a screen (preferably 3.5 inches), the four basic knobs and a good quality audio output (I already own a raspberry pi). Thanks in regards

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Hi, welcome

you can try it just with your pi and a hdmi screen, see here

cheers

3

Thanks for the quick response, Im sorry if my title was misleading but Ive already tried that and am now looking for a more portable solution. Also the raspberry pi audio isn’t great as it keeps cutting out randomly.

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they are a bunch of solutions for better sound quality:

  • usb sound devices
  • rpi hats (look for pcm5102 or pcm5122 on some chinese website)
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also be carrefull regarding your power supply and your cable, especially if you want to plug some midi devices that should be powered by the raspberry .

Weak power can bring cracks and randoms cuts (xruns)

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Ok sweet. How about the dial knobs, would I be better buying it off the offical zynthian store? I also noticed that it connects to the zynthian screen directly so would I have to purchase that aswell? thanks

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once again, they are a bunch of solutions, but you’re getting away from the bare minimal !!!

  • rpi + hdmi display + mouse is enough for testing
  • more features and ease of use depends on what you’re able to tinker
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Sorry the title was misleading ill change that

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no pb, They are plenty of options in the zynthian shop, you just have to define what features you want and what you consider to be doable regarding your tinkering skills.

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maybe the succes case thread could give you some inspiration

Also, feel free to ask some more questions, they are nice persons around here that would be glad to help.

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with the encoder knobs, could I get them to work by just connecting them directly to zynscreen display v1.4 and then to the raspberry pi? Or would I need to get the all in one circuit?

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The enocders connect to the screen which in turn connects to the Raspberry Pi. That gives you a touchscreen, encoders with builtin push buttons and the four rubber push buttons (S1-S4). The touchscreen isn’t brilliant - it is resistive and a bit spongy so works best with the supplied plastic stylus.

The extra expansion board provides interface to the physical 5-pin MIDI connectors. It also provides the ability to expand digital and analogue i/o further by adding more modules. If you don’t need 5-pin MIDI or the extra i/o interfacing then you don’t need that expansion board.

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Thank you for the response!

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I build a Zynthian box using a touchscreen for rpi that cost 22€ and works great you have to tweake it but in this forum i found the solution.
I think that if you want to save money le best solution is to use with a RPI screentouch with a keyboard. For the output the headphone out works fine. This is a very basic cheap solution.

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There is of course a hidden cost … :face_with_monocle:

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Hi, I had the same goal as you, except that I didn’t intend to have physical knobs in the first place, so I went for a nicer touchscreen, then I realized the UI wasn’t so practical without knobs so I added encoders, which led to something similar to what you are looking for. I haven’t completely finished assembling it but the screen works fine, the audio board should make sound soon, and the one encoder I have hooked up so far works well too (so the 3 other ones should as well). Plus you don’t even need to solder anything!

Here are the parts:

If you already have the Pi + power supply + SD card, this should cost you no more than 70 extra euros to get you Zynthian running (and probably down to 50 if you go for a cheap 3.5 resistive touchscreen).

The design isn’t fully built and therefore tested, but I’m hopeful it’s gonna work fine. Quite busy these days but when I find a moment I’ll try to finish it and post something more detailed.

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Regarding hardware, they are a lot of options that are supported by zynthianOS and that Can fits differents needs … And this is extra cool. The most difficult is in my opinion to find/build a nice enclosure.

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I’ve made a pretty budget successful build with $5 spi screen (although it doesn’t have touch capability), $5 i2s soundcard (PCM5102), and arduino pro micro (about $4) to connect encoders. Kudos to @riban, who helped a lot with making arduino work with encoders, here’s a post on how to make it work.

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