Befaco PONY VCO SEMI KIT User manual

PONY VCO SEMI KIT - ASSEMBLY GUIDE – Rev. Oct 2022
THANKS FOR CHOOSING ONE OF OUR SEMI KITS!
What you have here is a semi kit, where all components are soldered in the boards and you will be doing
the nal assembly of mechanical components, testing and calibration.
HAVE FUN!
FRONT PANEL
Attach the front panel ca efully being su e that is completely pa allel to the PCB
To finish:
- Sc ew in the pa ts in this o de : A) Mini-jacks B) Pot
- Ensu ing all of the above pa ts a e flush with the panel.
- Put the knob on the potentiomete .
- Connect the power ribbon cable: The ed wi e (-12V) on the powe ibbon cable co esponds to pin numbe
one on the male powe connecto . The numbe one pin is indicated with a small t iangle on the male powe connecto
and a white line on the main PCB. A white o black line (o “-12v”) ma ked on you powe bus no mally indicates the
co esponding pin.
CALIBRATION
To calib ate the VCO we will need a a 0.5mm Flat Sc ewd ive , a Digital Multimete (6000 counts o mo e would be
the ideal fo a ve y p ecise calib ation but is not mandato y) and a Tune . Any audio inte face with a softwa e tune
will do the job. Befo e sta t with the calib ation p ocess, power p the mod le and leave it warming p for 15
min tes. Once done, we can sta t with the p ocedu e.
1- Take a look to the back of the module whe e you should see th ee T im-pots. The bottom right one is V-Ref, the
pper ones are Init (left) and V/Oct (right).
2- Pick you multimete and select DC Voltage mode (typically ma ked as V=). Connect the black p obe to a G ound
point (you can use the sleeve of patch cable connected to any othe module) and place the ed p obe touching the
point ma ked in the following photo:
You should ead a value a ound 2.5V. Adjust ca efully V-Ref t im-pot till you see 2.500V exactly. If you have a good
multimete (6000 counts o mo e) that shows you 4 ze os, you will be able to adjust this even mo e accu ately.
3- Place the F eq Pot to middle position, the Octave switch to the second position (C2) and the Timb e slide to
minimum position. Select the Sine wavefo m and put the Range switch on Semitone Range position. Double check all
the cont ols and if all is on its ight spot, go to the next step.
Du ing the next two steps, be su e to not move F eq and Timb e cont ols. As those cont ols affects the f equency, any
move on them will affect to you eadings.
4- Connect the output of the module to the input of you Tune and check the note that it shows you. Should be
close to C2. Adjust the Init t im-pot till you get C2 and 0 cents.
5- Move up the Octave switch to the fifth position (ma ked with 0 on the f ont panel) and check the Tune . The note
should be close to C5. Adjust V/Oct t im-pot ca efully till you get C5 and 0 cents.
Come back to C2 position on the Octave switch and check the tune .
If it shows you an accu ate C2 (between 0-5 cents), check the est of the octaves. You should get a C1 to C7 with
simila accu acy.
If not (which would be the most egula case), repeat steps 4 and 5 till yo get a good acc racy on every octave.
This p ocess is based on ite ations of steps 4 and 5 so don’t wo y if takes a bit to get the ight tuning. The numbe
of ite ations needed to get a good calib ation is diffe ent on eve y unit.
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PONY VCO SEMI KIT - ASSEMBLY GUIDE – Rev. Oct 2022
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