Drone optical Hi-Hat controller

[monospace]

I'm asking because the VH-10 cymbal has a fairly ingenuous way to stop the wobble when the pedal is fully down: the underside of the cymbal has a convex area (a bulge, if you will) that fits snugly into a concave area (a "cup") on the top of the controller base when the pedal is pressed down, which greatly reduces the wobble when you're playing closed hihat, very cleverly recreating the feel of playing a real acoustic hat.

I did a quick test with a CY-13 on a regular hihat clutch, and I found it pretty much unplayable in the "closed" position. I'm going to have to think of a way to create a modified clutch to simulate what the VH-10 is doing.

[Rob]

Is it possible to power that Drone hihat from the eDRUMin USB host port? That would solve your power issues.

[lalo]

Indeed it is, now when I unplug the edrumin and plug it again the mac detects it immediately, I don’t need the usb host so this is a good use for it, if you are already using it and want the drone well you will need a usb hub

[Rob]

Great. I still would like to know the maximum voltage that thing outputs is. The pedal input is not designed to accept more than 3.3V. There are some protection diodes there so it won't likely damage things, but it's still not clear to me why it prevents the device from booting properly. I wonder if that Drone will still function properly if you only fed it 3.3V. A voltage divider formed with a 100 ohm and 200 ohm resistor would do the trick. I've got some equipment arriving in a few days and I'll do some tests next week it figure what's going on.

[lalo]

Yeah I’m still waiting for Mike’s response, maybe ebay is blocking my messages since this is the only way I can reach him.

I discovered another thing today, while playing the sun was coming in and out of the clouds here where I live and the drone suddenly behaved erratically, I couldn’t trigger splashes anymore so I recalibrated and still the same, reset the pedal input and calibrate it again and without me touching the pedal the red bar was moving as the sun was in and out! So I shut the curtains and then I was able to calibrate it again properly… so not good for outside gigs unless you put something to block sunlight…

[Rob]

Ya....that's a bit of a design oversight. If it has its own light source, you can probably block the ambient light to get consistent results.

[mprinz]

Hi,
that is one of the reasons why I went with the hall sensor.
And I thought I would only work consistently with rather short distances of 1 to 2 cm.

Is the voltage to distance dependence a linear one?
It feels like it doesn't need to be proportional, because I am fine with the hall sensor.

I few month ago I was thinking of an Arduino ultrasonic hihat controller.
But I didn't try that.

Manuel

[lalo]

Well it´s really just direct sunlight changes, I have a set of this nanoleaf lights on the wall and the controller doesn’t get affected….
As for the distance, I have it at 3cm and it’s pretty consistent. No missed chicks and reliable splashes.

[monospace]

I did a quick test with a CY-13 on a regular hihat clutch, and I found it pretty much unplayable in the "closed" position. I'm going to have to think of a way to create a modified clutch to simulate what the VH-10 is doing.

So it didn't take long for me to realize that what I needed to stabilize the cymbal in the closed position was.... a bottom cymbal. That way the cymbal can sway freely on the clutch when the pedal is open, and when it's closed it will rest on the bottom plate... In this case, a literal plate. I remembered looking at some plastic dinnerware at a local Target (a US department store) last weekend, and it struck me that it would make for a perfect "bottom cymbal." Bonus: it comes in black, and it's only 50 cents. So I drilled some holes (center one for the hihat rod, bigger one for the cable) and added some rubber tubing to reduce the impact, and here it is. It works perfectly, and it looks great.

JPEG image-AFDC9B83E6D6-1.jpeg (235.9 KiB) Viewed 760 times

My Drone trigger arrives next week, I'll report back on the electronics when I get it. But I'm quite pleased with the physics already.

[lalo]

Nice hack, reminds me of the IKEA paper towel holder to hold a mac when using a external monitor.
The latest beta works great with the drone controller, remember to hit the hihat a couple of times when starting up if you have "CC only when hit" activated otherwise you wont get splashes