Hi. I’ve forked an existing project to build a Model D MIDI Controller. It’s still not completed, but I’ve already received the PCBs for the front pcb and front panel pcb and I’m working on the firmware side. I’ll publish my progress here.
Why is this related to Zynthian? Well, first, I’m already a Zynthian user. Second, as part of the completely redesigned back panel, I’ve added a daughterboard that includes the rotary encoders that Zynthian uses to drive the UI. It could be attached to a RPi to connect the I2C, power, signal and interrupt notification.
The front panel has been designed with Kicad, where the silkscreen fonts can be selected, and sent to a chinese pcb provider (this time, allpcb - prices for first order are great - I’m not affiliated).
I find the finish in FR4 very professional. Nevertheless, as my intent was to add some rotary encoders to the original design, I’ll next design an “extended” front panel. This time my plan is to export it to svg and laser cut it. But the engraved fonts legibility is not good. Here’s a first design.
Fantastic project. I had the screen-printed front done by a Chinese company, but I went crazy… I had designed everything with Inkscape and saved it in a thousand different ways, but the Chinese wouldn’t accept any of my files. Then they sent me at least four finished projects (per photo), and the writing was wrong… but I ended up with two really beautiful fronts in the package. It wasn’t easy, but the result makes all the effort worthwhile.
