I’ve had some time to return to and investigate the wheel connectors on the MKE.
Remember that, when I tested the Novation wheels the range was minuscule. It turns out that the wheel receivers are calibrated to Doepfer’s own standard. It also accounts for the narrow range wheels have normally, due to the spring on the pitch wheel and the large diameters.
A closer look at the Novation wheels revealed 2 x 5K linear pots like so:
The Doepfers are 10K so I decided to use a trusty joystick, this time with the spring intact, to see if it could be used as a mini pitch-wheel.
The result was disappointing. At rest pitch was always at maximum, and moving the stick to one side again swept through the range an a narrow band. No, this won’t do.
To see if I could exactly define this range, I attached a standard 10k linear pot. Again, same result. Hmmm.
So, how could I limit the range of a pot?
Thankfully the answer came quickly and it’s such a simple fix it’s almost embarrassing…
…how about if I just twist the Novation pots in their housing? This way I could tune the range by hand. So, after cleaning the solder off the pins, I plugged the Novation wheels back-in, loosened the pots and re-orientated them.
First, the potentiometer tabs needed to be clipped-off. (I now know what they’re for – holding the pot in place!)
Then plugged-in (after removing the solder I left on the pins 😛
And, by Jove, it works like a charm!
The main caveat is when re-orienting the pitch-wheel pot – you need to account for the spring, so best to have MIDIox or other such monitor open to see when you’re at zero before tightening the nut. The pots are d-shaft, so in this case I could easily find zero.
Here they are with their pots newly-oriented and wheels re-fitted.
Everything is now up-and-running with the MKE. Superb!
Buoyed by this success, I’ve decided to adopt a modular approach to the 4×4 pole enclusure, wherein the synth section will be detachable from the Keyboard.
Because, who knows, I might want to build a 4xLadder Filter at some stage…
😀