Success Cases

This AliExpress keyboard has a surround led which colour can be changed based on key entered. It is programmable.

I have reasonable good 3d printer and I can design the key with a label that would be printed with white or translucent pla but details required for v5 labels with letters will not be possible to achieve with standard printer nozzle size of 0.4mm. Hence, the alternative option is to buy black keyboard and stick a v5 label on it.

Don’t worry. Ideas are two a penny at this stage and can be rejected if the solution isn’t one.

There has been a bit of discussion on RGB switches with appropriate logos and it seems there isn’t a easy specific solution at the moment.

… Did you already put the AliExpress link somewhere? Do you have a picture next to a Zynthian?
It look great,it can be a remote for all of kind of stuff :grin:

Full Keycap Sets - WASD Keyboards offers this kind of service, they say it is a “unique” UV printing process. I think they are the oldest online store doing this. I don`t know if their prices or quality are what you need…

And, if you want to 3D print the whole thing, just in case you didn’t see this:

here is the one similar on AliExpress.

I am not using it with standalone zynthian because I have built many zynthian minis that already have 20 buttons. I have integrated this keyboard to zynthian that only has encoders that I built for my midi pedal:

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Could you supply a little more detail on what the right hand screen does - is it another Zynthian, or a second attached screen, or a second independent cpu wuth screen - what is it running - a tuner or…? Thanks in advance.

Right screen is a totally different device. It is a capacity screen with esp32 microchip that I programmed using arduino libraries to monitor fatar 13 note pedal matrix, render screen using lvgl library and send midi notes using midi protocol that I implemented using arduino serial library. It is not necessary because fatar pedal comes with primitive midi controller that can be plugged to zynthian on the left. I thought that it would be clever to implement chord playing too that can be set with root note and a harmony mode but then I realise that you can put midi chord fx in front of zynthian instrument that can do the same.

I talked more about this pedal on this post.

Also zynthian on the left is using zynthian minimalistic PCB that add midi, 4 encoders and audio out to raspberry pi. I explained more about it on this post:

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Your colored combo looks like a flag from some far foreign pacific island :shushing_face:

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I like this one a lot! :slight_smile:

My Zynthian (in development), in a lunchbox jar lol
I’m also building a controller with Arduino Mega and semi-weighted keys.
I’m using a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of RAM, a DAC PCM5102, and a Sandisk Extreme Pro 64 GB SD card.
If anyone is interested, I bought this display on Aliexpress with the DSi cable: 5-Zoll-DSI-Display fĂźr Himbeer-Pi 5 800x480 LCD-IPS kapazitiver Touchscreen mit Halter fĂźr Himbeer-Pi 4 3 4b 3b 3b - AliExpress 7




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Time to share my new “Zynthian V5touch” embedded into Novation X-Station 61. (Unfortunately, you can discover some ugly glitches at closer look - I am just terribly awkward at cutting and any handwork generally.)

The Pi5 is mounted in a former battery compartment at the bottom of the device, which I leave open to get at least some air for the passive coolers. The Pi5 is wrapped in the common passive cooling case like this one (but I bought it cheaper somewhere else) and an additional aluminium cooler is mounted at its top (that is the one you see at the picture) - everything mounted upside down, of course. The outer cooler aligns almost perfectly with the bottom of the device. At first, I tried to add a small fan inside to blow towards the cooler (see the four small holes behind the opening) and improve the air flow, but it seems unnecessary with the second layer of passive cooling (I prefer absolutely quiet solutions). The usual horizontal position of the device is far from optimal, of course - the low rubber feet give it a minimal distance from the shelf it’s usually standing on.

Eventually, I also embedded the Hifiberry (RCA connectors on the left). The X-Station can also be used as a soundcard, but I have had some strange issues using it with Zynthian, so that I rather use the Hifiberry for output.

The two flat USB cables connect (and power) the Waveshare QLED touchscreen and the X-Station. A full-fledged 5A power source is necessary to also power the X-Station.

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Hi @wanthalf !

This is really cool! Congratulations for this nice integration.
BTW, is your V5touch branch updated with latest oram? I mean, have you merged the latest updates from oram to your branch? I would like to see the best way of merging your work in the mainstream.

Regards,

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Congrats, very nice build even with glitches :wink: and thank you for the detailed explanations.
Did you use some thermal paste betwenn the two cooler parts ?

Yes, I am trying to keep the branch up-to-date with all updates to Oram. That applies also to the webconf fork, which does not have a separate branch - it is just called “oram” in my fork as well.

Not a paste, but a thermal pad - 1.5mm to compensate for the different height of the Pi5 cooler case and the still slightly higher USB connectors. The upper cooler is larger, so it covers all of the Pi (except of the GPIO which needs more space for the dupont wires) - and a bit more that that.

Well done. It came out nice.

One more useful observation: the wires between the Pi GPIO and the Hifiberry are relatively long (10-15cm?) and wrapped around the Pi. Occasionally, I used to hear minor artifacts in the sound.

But the cooling case has two parts: one larger at the top and a smaller one at the bottom of the Pi. After mounting also the bottom part (I needed to get some longer screws to fit the (rests of the) battery compartment bottom between the Pi and the bottom cooler), the artifacts disappeared and the sound is clean all the time. The bottom part of the cooler obviously works as a proper shielding against the EMI noise from the Pi.

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Hi.
This is my newest gizmo: A homebrew Zynthian-5.1-ish Frankenstein…
Tech specs:

  • Pi5 8GB
  • 8’’ 1280x800 10-point capacitive touch with hardened glas surface and optical bonding (no chirping, no hum :stuck_out_tongue:)
  • HiFiBerry DAC2 ADC Pro (intended better Burr-Brown / software still in development)
  • headphome amp with analog volume (no deafening surprise with earpiercing levels after load!)
  • multiple analog audio input types
  • MX brown keys
  • laser engraved and inlayed ABS keycaps
  • RGB keyboard lights according 5.1 specs (wiring is V5, with two MCP23017 and WS2812B LEDs)
  • Bourns rotary encoders
  • laser-cut knobs
  • MIDI-trio
  • SanDisk Max Endurance 32GB (for trying out multiple Oram)
  • NVMe 256GB (even boots from it until update or webconf)
  • Laser-cut 5mm acrylic case with internal thermal management and passive radiation cooling. 300x125x40mm
  • Totally modular inside :smiley: (still digesting a wire beast)

The device gets hand warm all over under heavy load, but does not produce a hotspot below the Pi5, thermal reports something between 54°C and 57°C under sunshine, so cooling seems to work.

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Nice one! What kind of display is it exactly?