SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Jan 31 2012, 03:21AMHi All,
I've been working on a controller for a while. Just thought I'd share it. It does a ton of stuff:
Standard Interrupter
Phased Interrupter (for twin coils)
ARSG Emulator
MIDI Input
Midi File Mode
SSVC / QCW Mode
It also has lots of user configurable settings for things like maximum permissible on time, frequency, etc.
I also have unique channel indicator lamps that are actually RGB LEDs. The LEDs display color changes with duty cycle.
Here's a video of the controller playing a MIDI file.
There are other videos on my channel demonstrating the other features.Here are some photos of the controller board:
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
mmt, Tue Jan 31 2012, 04:44PM
just finished checking your photos on flicker, Great job! truly universal interrupter, are you planning to sell these?
mmt, Tue Jan 31 2012, 04:44PM
just finished checking your photos on flicker, Great job! truly universal interrupter, are you planning to sell these?
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Wed Feb 01 2012, 04:30AM
Yes, I am going to sell these, in fact, I already have sold some to a "select" few. Call them beta testers. The controller can be upgraded via SD Card, so add that to the list of features.
Phillip Slawinski, Wed Feb 01 2012, 04:30AM
Yes, I am going to sell these, in fact, I already have sold some to a "select" few. Call them beta testers. The controller can be upgraded via SD Card, so add that to the list of features.
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
E.TexasTesla, Wed Feb 01 2012, 02:38PM
Very nice. Are those express pc boards?
Surface mount makes me go cross eyed. ;)
E.TexasTesla, Wed Feb 01 2012, 02:38PM
Very nice. Are those express pc boards?
Surface mount makes me go cross eyed. ;)
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
teravolt, Fri Feb 03 2012, 04:19AM
good work Phillip, do you have a GUI to create the notes on the SD or do you have to create the music files manualy
teravolt, Fri Feb 03 2012, 04:19AM
good work Phillip, do you have a GUI to create the notes on the SD or do you have to create the music files manualy
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Bennem, Fri Feb 03 2012, 09:22AM
Very nice work Phil!!
as always i'm in constant awe with your work.
mel.
Bennem, Fri Feb 03 2012, 09:22AM
Very nice work Phil!!
as always i'm in constant awe with your work.
mel.
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Fri Feb 24 2012, 01:16PM
Haha, no, they're not from ExpressPCB. I ordered them from Advanced Circuits. The boards themselves were designed using Altium Designer.
No GUI required. I don't use a proprietary format for music files. This plays SMF (Standard MIDI Files).
Here's a better shot of the board:
Phillip Slawinski, Fri Feb 24 2012, 01:16PM
E.TexasTesla wrote ...
Very nice. Are those express pc boards?
Surface mount makes me go cross eyed. ;)
Very nice. Are those express pc boards?
Surface mount makes me go cross eyed. ;)
Haha, no, they're not from ExpressPCB. I ordered them from Advanced Circuits. The boards themselves were designed using Altium Designer.
teravolt wrote ...
good work Phillip, do you have a GUI to create the notes on the SD or do you have to create the music files manualy
good work Phillip, do you have a GUI to create the notes on the SD or do you have to create the music files manualy
No GUI required. I don't use a proprietary format for music files. This plays SMF (Standard MIDI Files).
Here's a better shot of the board:
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
kwinchee, Tue Feb 28 2012, 11:19AM
This is really awesome man, Id love to buy one!
some really cool work!
kwinchee, Tue Feb 28 2012, 11:19AM
This is really awesome man, Id love to buy one!
some really cool work!
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Steve Conner, Tue Feb 28 2012, 11:56AM
Looks great!
What are those thingies connected to the main board by the white flex cables?
The display looks nice in the video, is it an OLED?
Steve Conner, Tue Feb 28 2012, 11:56AM
Looks great!
What are those thingies connected to the main board by the white flex cables?
The display looks nice in the video, is it an OLED?
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Feb 28 2012, 12:22PM
Thanks for the compliment. I plan to put these up for sale to the public very soon. I just recently knocked the major issues out of my SMF file player. I still need to do a demo video, and write some documentation, but hopefully that won't take very long.
The thingies connected via Flex cables are the Transmitter / RGB LED boards. Obviously the transmitter sends pulses to the coil, but you may be wondering about the RGB LED. The RGB LED serves as a channel indicator lamp. It is programmed to vary it's color based on the duty cycle of the signal being output. You can configure a maximum duty cycle in the software. The default duty cycle limit is 5.00%. As you adjust the values closer and closer to the maximum of 5% the color shifts from green to red, although you can reconfigure what the colors are for high and low duty. This duty cycle limiting is a pretty handy feature in practice. It helps to keep you from making mistakes, and really abusing your coil.
The main display is an OLED character display. It is a very nice display.
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Feb 28 2012, 12:22PM
kwinchee wrote ...
This is really awesome man, Id love to buy one!
some really cool work!
This is really awesome man, Id love to buy one!
some really cool work!
Thanks for the compliment. I plan to put these up for sale to the public very soon. I just recently knocked the major issues out of my SMF file player. I still need to do a demo video, and write some documentation, but hopefully that won't take very long.
Steve Conner wrote ...
Looks great!
What are those thingies connected to the main board by the white flex cables?
The display looks nice in the video, is it an OLED?
Looks great!
What are those thingies connected to the main board by the white flex cables?
The display looks nice in the video, is it an OLED?
The thingies connected via Flex cables are the Transmitter / RGB LED boards. Obviously the transmitter sends pulses to the coil, but you may be wondering about the RGB LED. The RGB LED serves as a channel indicator lamp. It is programmed to vary it's color based on the duty cycle of the signal being output. You can configure a maximum duty cycle in the software. The default duty cycle limit is 5.00%. As you adjust the values closer and closer to the maximum of 5% the color shifts from green to red, although you can reconfigure what the colors are for high and low duty. This duty cycle limiting is a pretty handy feature in practice. It helps to keep you from making mistakes, and really abusing your coil.
The main display is an OLED character display. It is a very nice display.
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Steve Conner, Tue Feb 28 2012, 12:56PM
Well, I guess I'd probably be interested too, I am getting a bit lazy in my old age.
Can it play several voices on one coil? I like that feature. My original interrupter had six pulse outputs, since the Roland synth I hacked up had six hardware oscillators. To play with fewer than six coils I just ORed the pulses together with diodes.
Is there any chance of releasing the source code so we can hack on it ourselves? As a coder myself I'll fully understand if you say no! But there are weird features that I'd like to have, such as a single shot button, and support for my driver board's remote DC bus voltage and fine tune adjustments.
Steve Conner, Tue Feb 28 2012, 12:56PM
Well, I guess I'd probably be interested too, I am getting a bit lazy in my old age.
Can it play several voices on one coil? I like that feature. My original interrupter had six pulse outputs, since the Roland synth I hacked up had six hardware oscillators. To play with fewer than six coils I just ORed the pulses together with diodes.
Is there any chance of releasing the source code so we can hack on it ourselves? As a coder myself I'll fully understand if you say no!
But there are weird features that I'd like to have, such as a single shot button, and support for my driver board's remote DC bus voltage and fine tune adjustments.Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Feb 28 2012, 01:18PM
Yes, it can play two voices per coil. I limited it to two because it tends to sound like total crap with more than two notes. However, I have coded this in such a way that I could add more voices per channel with minimal effort.
There is no chance of me releasing my code to the public (sorry). I don't even want to think about how many hours I've put into it. I started the project last May, and I've dedicated almost all my spare time to it.
That said, I would be willing to work with you to get new features integrated into the controller. I'm sure we could work something out. The beauty of this thing is that it can easily be upgraded at any time. You simply put an intel hex file on the SD card called fw.hex and you can reprogram the controller from the bootloader.
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Feb 28 2012, 01:18PM
Steve Conner wrote ...
Well, I guess I'd probably be interested too, I am getting a bit lazy in my old age.
Can it play several voices on one coil? I like that feature. My original interrupter had six pulse outputs, since the Roland synth I hacked up had six hardware oscillators. To play with fewer than six coils I just ORed the pulses together with diodes.
Is there any chance of releasing the source code so we can hack on it ourselves? As a coder myself I'll fully understand if you say no! But there are weird features that I'd like to have, such as a single shot button, and support for my driver board's remote DC bus voltage and fine tune adjustments.
Well, I guess I'd probably be interested too, I am getting a bit lazy in my old age.
Can it play several voices on one coil? I like that feature. My original interrupter had six pulse outputs, since the Roland synth I hacked up had six hardware oscillators. To play with fewer than six coils I just ORed the pulses together with diodes.
Is there any chance of releasing the source code so we can hack on it ourselves? As a coder myself I'll fully understand if you say no!
But there are weird features that I'd like to have, such as a single shot button, and support for my driver board's remote DC bus voltage and fine tune adjustments.Yes, it can play two voices per coil. I limited it to two because it tends to sound like total crap with more than two notes. However, I have coded this in such a way that I could add more voices per channel with minimal effort.
There is no chance of me releasing my code to the public (sorry). I don't even want to think about how many hours I've put into it. I started the project last May, and I've dedicated almost all my spare time to it.
That said, I would be willing to work with you to get new features integrated into the controller. I'm sure we could work something out. The beauty of this thing is that it can easily be upgraded at any time. You simply put an intel hex file on the SD card called fw.hex and you can reprogram the controller from the bootloader.
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Steve Conner, Tue Feb 28 2012, 01:30PM
When it's in QCW/SSVC mode, do the other outputs give PWM for DC bus voltage modulation or something similar? That would pretty much do the job if it were available in DRSSTC mode too.
And, how much are you planning to sell it for?
Steve Conner, Tue Feb 28 2012, 01:30PM
When it's in QCW/SSVC mode, do the other outputs give PWM for DC bus voltage modulation or something similar? That would pretty much do the job if it were available in DRSSTC mode too.
And, how much are you planning to sell it for?
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Feb 28 2012, 02:52PM
I send numerical values (0-4095) across the fiber. The fiber terminates at another MCU which then translates the values into a voltage. Actually, I'm still working on that part. I figured that the QCW/SSVC mode would be of least interest to most people, so that's been given low priority.
As to the pricing... I don't have FIRM numbers yet. I'm hoping to have that nailed down soon. I'm going to try and make it "affordable" without killing myself in the process.
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Feb 28 2012, 02:52PM
Steve Conner wrote ...
When it's in QCW/SSVC mode, do the other outputs give PWM for DC bus voltage modulation or something similar? That would pretty much do the job if it were available in DRSSTC mode too.
And, how much are you planning to sell it for?
When it's in QCW/SSVC mode, do the other outputs give PWM for DC bus voltage modulation or something similar? That would pretty much do the job if it were available in DRSSTC mode too.
And, how much are you planning to sell it for?
I send numerical values (0-4095) across the fiber. The fiber terminates at another MCU which then translates the values into a voltage. Actually, I'm still working on that part. I figured that the QCW/SSVC mode would be of least interest to most people, so that's been given low priority.
As to the pricing... I don't have FIRM numbers yet. I'm hoping to have that nailed down soon. I'm going to try and make it "affordable" without killing myself in the process.
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Thu Mar 01 2012, 03:34AM
Here's a video of a MIDI file being played on my DRSSTC V at low power.
Phillip Slawinski, Thu Mar 01 2012, 03:34AM
Here's a video of a MIDI file being played on my DRSSTC V at low power.
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Mads Barnkob, Thu Mar 01 2012, 07:02AM
I must say that amateur electronics have come a long way when products like this comes out, very nice work indeed.
I fear for the day where I no longer can keep to doing single sided boards without smd :)
Mads Barnkob, Thu Mar 01 2012, 07:02AM
I must say that amateur electronics have come a long way when products like this comes out, very nice work indeed.
I fear for the day where I no longer can keep to doing single sided boards without smd :)
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Thu Mar 01 2012, 12:19PM
I fear the day when I can no longer see the SMD parts that I so frequently use! I guess at that time I'll have to pull out magnifying lenses. I nearly need a magnifying glass to assemble my RGBLED/TX boards.
Those little MOSFETs are a pain to solder up with an iron and solder wire. They were the main driving force behind me finally getting a hot air rework station and solder paste.
Phillip Slawinski, Thu Mar 01 2012, 12:19PM
Mads Barnkob wrote ...
I must say that amateur electronics have come a long way when products like this comes out, very nice work indeed.
I fear for the day where I no longer can keep to doing single sided boards without smd :)
I must say that amateur electronics have come a long way when products like this comes out, very nice work indeed.
I fear for the day where I no longer can keep to doing single sided boards without smd :)
I fear the day when I can no longer see the SMD parts that I so frequently use! I guess at that time I'll have to pull out magnifying lenses. I nearly need a magnifying glass to assemble my RGBLED/TX boards.
Those little MOSFETs are a pain to solder up with an iron and solder wire. They were the main driving force behind me finally getting a hot air rework station and solder paste.
Re: SD Card Tesla Coil MIDI Controller
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Mar 13 2012, 11:34AM
I had some customers demo the controller at this year's WWT. These songs were all played from an SD card, no computer required.
Excerpt from Led Zeppelin - Black Mountain Side.
Eddie Van Halen - Eruption:
Rocky Theme:
Phillip Slawinski, Tue Mar 13 2012, 11:34AM
I had some customers demo the controller at this year's WWT. These songs were all played from an SD card, no computer required.
Excerpt from Led Zeppelin - Black Mountain Side.
Eddie Van Halen - Eruption:
Rocky Theme:
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