Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Arduino + Gameboy + MIDI = Arduinoboy !!!










How can you plug your Gameboy to a drummachine?
Can you play your Gameboy with a MIDI-keyboard?
Is it possible to control your Gameboy with a MIDI-software?

The answer is easy: Arduinoboy.

Arduino is a widespread open-hardware platform and there are countless projects around which only need to be downloaded to your Arduino-board. You only have to solder the peripherals you need.
I is late but I'm finished my first Arduino-project.
It took about 6-8 hours of work including housing, soldering and bringing it into service.

Here are the first pictures of my Arduinoboy:
























































At least a picture with the Arduino and my Korg ES1 sampler.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

The "Tiny Boxes" concept

To keep all electronic components inside the NOIZEBOX modular, I go and get some empty plastic-cases and start soldering/assembling.
Now I like to present you an overview of all finished components:

The "Power"-Amp
Consists of two amplifier kits with 2 x 12 Watt (if the weather is fine =). The PCB's are mounted inside an amplifier-case from a defect car-amp. The stress-test is still not passed.














The "Little Brother"
This is a small amp compared to The Power-Amp but powerful enough to drive the car front-speaker in the middle of the NOIZEBOX.














The Preamp
For adding audio-sources with weak output I have this mono-preamp. On the Picture there is a piezo-microphone attached which works fine and really sounds lo-fi =)














The Equalizer
Consists of a old Kit from Conrad-Elektronik bought before the millennium. The Equalizer has fantastic features like treble, bass, volume and pan. Everything in full stereo of course. Wow. I can't keep my hands off. =)














The Condensator-Mic-Preamp and the Isolating Transformer
This tiny boxes are also very useful. The Preamp(on the left side)has a big microphone-jack.
The Isolating Transformer (on the right side) is passive (without any power-supply). He avoid ground-loop humming which should not occour on this battery-powered system - but anyway.

Recycle, Reuse, Repair, Retro





I had the idea while cleaning-up my room filled with car-hifi, defect amplifier-kits, unused preamps with loose wires around empty speaker-cases.
Why throw everything away? Why not build something new out of this "teenage electronic waste"? There were this big speaker-cases with rolls on the bottom and the car-hifi-speakers which inspired me to build a new, portable speaker-system. Roll's makes you mobile either car-amplifiers. Just a small lead-accumulator and there it is: The little NOIZEBOX.

Everything can be build quick & dirty and without additional cost.

On another day I cut-down the big empty speaker-case to a transportable size.
Enough space for the battery, amplifier and some additional electronic devices.
For easier transportation I've bought some small handles at my local building center.
Take a look a the first pictures of my NOIZEBOX:















A view from above shows where to put all the electronic devices inside the NOIZEBOX:















Behind the speakers, there is enough space for the accu and car-amplifier.















And the the trouble begins. I had to buy a lead-accu and I did. But I did a mistake and took the 6V accu which is not suitable for a 12V amp(Remember: Accu with 3 cells = 6V - see the picture above). The store won't take it back, so I have to buy another one *argl*.