I have never been hotter to void my warranty! Excellent instructions - thanks!
Terry
I have neither the technical ability nor the DIY skills to undertake such a mod - I’m very impressed!
That’s flippin great! How much weight did you shed by ditching the transformer?
Very clever! Nice piece of DYI - and looks very professional, too!
I still need my FCB 1010 as an old-school MIDI board, so for the time being, it’ll stay as it is, but I’ll definitely save this for my “interesting projects” box!
Cheers,
Torsten
That’s flippin great! How much weight did you shed by ditching the transformer?
The transformer and other items are around 250g. I’ve probably added back in just over that.
That makes sense- for some reason I figured it would be bigger but no, it wouldn’t be would it.
That’s fantastic, just what I need to do with mine, thank you for sharing. Does it make any difference what version firmware or ROM is in the unit. Mine is a stock pedal with a older firmware.
Regards
Chris
Firmware shouldn’t make any difference. This is a stock pedal, bought a few weeks ago, and immediately dismantled!
One thing I found during testing this week, the pedal sometimes failed to power up correctly when I used my 5m long USB cables from rack to pedal. It worked fine with shorter cables.
I’ve therefore made an alteration by connecting the USB +5V red cable to the LEFT hand pin where the regulator goes instead of the RIGHT hand side. Then I mounted a small switch into the old grounding screw hole next to the USB socket. The 2 wires from this switch connect to the LEFT hand pin (where the red cable is as well) and the RIGHT hand pin where the regulator went.
This does 2 things. 1. It means you can switch the pedal board on after the USB power has been applied to the hub. 2. It puts an existing 1000uF capacitor in parallel with the power to the FCB board. This helps keep the voltage from sagging while powering up. All works fine after this alteration.
I can take a pic of this altered connection if anyone wants.
Here are a couple more photos
I tried a simpler mod and just fitted a 5.5mmx2.1 input socket which I wired to two of the pins of the voltage regulator. This lets me still continuje to power up using mains - or power up by connecting a USB power bank to me new input.
It works fine except for one thing … when I am running on 5v rather than mains the expression pedals do not generate steady CC values - they fluctuate approx +/- 3.
I tried recalibrating the pedals, but this did not help. I do not get this issue when I run using mains power.
Any suggestions?
Did you go ahead with this modification Terry?
No - I re-did my power strips so that there is always one nearby - had to for the 6-keyboard setup I use now. So that eradicated the immediate need.
When/if I pare down to two or three I might, but still need mains power for the NI S-88 so with that consideration likely not.
Terry
I just checked mine and it fluctuates as well unless on 0 or 127. I’ll check it with a very smooth power supply and see if it still fluctuates.
I figured out how to run on a 9v battery and eliminate the fluctuating pedal values. Full details here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xl4jlijNP9zBBV-5L8btycFVb7GMsrE6/view
That’s a nice simple mod. I like it. What is your battery life with an alkaline or rechargeable pp3? If you use the relay outputs that may reduce the battery life considerably.
One thing to note - if while replacing the battery you inadvertently touch the terminals the wrong way around, then you’ll short circuit the battery through the rectifier diodes. If this is just for a second while trying to connect the battery, then you may be ok with an alkaline battery. If you use a rechargeable, then you’re quite likely to blow those diodes, and then afterwards, the regulator and the electrolytic capacitor.
To avoid this, you might want to put a diode between the centre pin of your socket and the left hand pin of the regulator instead of just a wire. This will prevent any current from flowing if the battery is connected the wrong way around.
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Not sure of the battery life yet - still waiting on the battery holder for the single 9v battery. I have used it for about 10 hours so far on a set of 6 AA batteries that were far from new batteries and it’s still going fine. I will report back on that once I’ve flattened my first fresh 9v battery.
As for shorting out, I will be unplugging and unvelcroing the 9v battery each time it gets replaced rather than getting down on my hands and knees and doing it in situ while velcroed to the FCB1010 - so zero chance of a short.
Hey thanks for this build!
Have you had a chance to see how it does with the 9volt? Do the CC’s work?
Nice project. I want to do something similar. Can you tell me which MIDI-to-USB cable you used, as the cheap one I bought on eBay does not work? (The resolution on your photo is too low to read the label). Cheers.
Hello,
This is great. I can’t wait to do this.
I’d love to see a pic of this alteration if still possible. I’m going to mod mine soon and I’d like to include this but I’m a little confused to where the 1000uF cap goes.
Also did you move the original midi in and outs? If so how was that done. I’m sure it’s right there but I’m missing that part. Thanks!!!
Hi, the space on the back panel for the original MIDI ins and outs is now taken up by the MIDI Expression. The FCB1010 DIN sockets are on a mini PCB so I just removed them, turned them inwards and plugged the USB to MIDI converter into them. You can see the black and white DIN plugs in the photos.
The 1000uF capacitor is already there no need to add one. To bring it into circuit as a test then you’d just need to link the 2 outer pins where the regulator went with a piece of wire. Don’t link anything to the centre pin which is Ground. Sorry I don’t have a photo of the mod at the moment.
I’d try it without the mod to start with and see if you have any issues.