PAiA FatMan Plus

The completed PAiA FatMan Plus
(Click for more…)

Well, there it is. It’s done. No, not the x0xb0x (photo gallery retired), that’s still waiting for the front panel, but the PAiA FatMan Plus.

Today the new panel overlays came in from a guy in Ypsilanti named Chris Lowell who owns a sign shop there called Lowell Sign Designs, Inc. I met him on ladyada’s tea party as part of my posts about the < a href="http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/v/stuffivemade/x0xb0x/frontpanel/">redesigned x0xb0x front panels which I’ve been working on. Earlier in the week I sent him my final design for the PAiA FatMan Plus front and rear panels. He gave me a great deal on printing them and they arrived today. They are inkjet printed vinyl with Lexsaver over them, so they don’t look quite the same as the Lexan-only panels from MaverickLabels.com, but they still look good.

If you are curious, here is a high resolution scan of the front panel, and here is the rear.

With having a working synth and acceptable artwork, I set to finishing it all up. First I pulled the panels, then I cleaned them up and painted all the edges which could or would be exposed with a nice black paint pen. Next I applied both overlays and cut out all the holes. The holes for through-hole parts didn’t need to be perfect, so I just generally followed the metal at the edge. For the countersunk holes for the corner screws I didn’t cut all the way to the edge, that way the fit around the hole would be nice. The rear holes were a bit tricky, but I think I managed.

Then it was time to get on with the final assembly. I refitted the rear power switch to ensure it was solidly mounted, mounted and connected the LEDs, reinstalled everything else in the rear panel, fitted the rear panel, bundled all the wires so it would fit nicely.

After screwing the case shut for (hopefully) the last time, I gave it one final test with a MIDI keyboard before calling it finished.

And now? It’s done*.

So, what was this mess in this case (yes, I like the rusty metal look too, it was just unusable and non-functioning) a few weeks ago is now this not-mess in this enclosure. Thanks to the Hard Sync and Subharmonic Generator additions, it’s capable of producing even more interesting sounds, too.

If you are interested, there are more photos of my PAiA FatMan Plus available here (photo gallery retired).

And now, with this done, I go to bed.

Goodnight.

* There are a few more tweaks I may make, like replacing the optoisolator (it may be causing me some problems responding to very frequent MIDI commands) and possibly some range adjustments, but those will come later, if ever.