Doug DeHaven This entire project started with and old fried Peavey Pc 1600 MIDI board. I got it for free for the main processor board was fried from some previous life, it was not salvageable. The previous owner started to take it apart and lost the back of it and the screws. It sat around for almost 7 years, than I got the idea to make it into a DMX lighting board!
Here is what it would have looked like new,
Next step was to reverse engineer how the old board worked, the processor section was already missing ( RED connectors ) So i set about following traces. I found a way to ground reference every button, and to setup a 0-5V reference for each analog slider pot. I than wired up an Arduino MEGA for the project it supports 16 analog inputs and plenty of I/O for all the buttons.
I also purchased an I2C LCD display to replace the old non lit display. I just flipped the old display upside down to use as a mount for the new one. Next I removed the knob encoder, and purchased a quadrature encoder to use in its place, this was a perfect fit and will interface with the Arduino well.
Here is the wiring and testing stage.
Now that I knew it would work, it was time to build an enclosure for it! This would be no easy task, for I had to design one from scratch to fit the new components.
Next was to see if everything would fit, it was a complex angled shape, so would be interesting.
Looks like this may just work! Dumb luck that the old MIDI port and spacing was the perfect size for the power and USB ports to fit. Could these have been square and a perfect fit? yes.. but was not worth the extra hassle on my end to make ti that perfect. I will cut some vinyl in the future to cover this.
The wiring is not 100% for I plan to add some more features down the road, like audio mic. So for now this will do!
Making the bottom removable was interesting, I welded on some nuts to be the mount for the bottom panel, so it can be removed for service. I used the old bolt holes on the Peavey to mount the new extended chassis walls.
Here is the finished product, all painted and mounted up. Even stuck on some rubber feet. I like how it turned out for a evenings worth of work.
Whats next? lots of programming to add all the features I want, but that is the ‘easy’ part, the physical box is now done. I will update this page as I add more features to the board.
Any questions comment below!
Parts list of items, I think they are as close as you can get for many of the parts I used where old stock.
LCD I2C Display:
https://www.amazon.com/Display-Module-Backlight-Arduino-MEGA2560/dp/B07T8ZG5D1/
Rotary encoder knob:
https://www.amazon.com/Magic-shell-Encoder-Development-Arduino/dp/B07QCSQQLB
DMX Arduino shield:
https://www.amazon.com/Gheo-Electronics-Tinkerkit-Master-Shield/dp/B00L1FO33S/
Arduino Screw Shield:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JM8RWS9/
Arduino MEGA:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H4ZDYCE/
