17 November 2011

SammichFM (Part 7)

The next step in the process of building the SammichFM is the painting of the letters for the front and back panels. The idea is that you put paint on the paper that is on the panels and then peel it of to reveal the letters. Somehow that is not really my thing :) I always end up having paint everywhere. Maybe I'm to impatient I don't know. But somehow I also do manage to get it of with some thinner and don't screw up that bad, so it kind of looks OK I think.

The most tricky part is that the inside of letters like 'P' stay on when you peel of the paper and you have to get that of somehow and if the paint is not completely dry yet, you smear it out. Ah well now you are warned at least ;). On the right is a picture of the back panel. As you can see it has two audio outputs. You can assign any of the four parts of the synthesizer to an output, so it is a real multitimbral synthesizer actually. Quite  more than I expected when I started to build it.

And here is a picture of the fully assembled and fully operational end product. The SammichFM :) On top you can clearly see the buttons to select the 4 parts of the synthesizer. So you really get 4 for the prince of 1. Looking back on this project I think it is not a beginners project. Especially the soldering of the SMD components is quite challenging and not suitable for anyone without proper soldering experience. The rest is fairly simple, so maybe get some help if you want to build one for yourself and you are not so experienced.

And here is one final picture: a nice family portrait. On the left is the SammichFM and on the right its sister the SammichSID. Nice shot I think :) I personally like the blue leds and blue backlit display better on the SammichFM. But to conclude this series: These synthesizers are very similar in looks, but very different in character. The SammichSID is way more analog sounding and fat, but the SammichFM is very complementary I think.and they make a nice set together. OK now I'm going to work on the movie and hopefully I'll be able to show that any time soon.

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