hey my brothers and sisters, mainly dropping in to connect with the community, i made need some help along the way, but im excited to get involved in the kosmoverse!
started building today, few questions arose
i see on the VCO BOM it states 1.8k for one resistor and 4k7 for another one, they are both 1k8 and 4.7k respectively right? just a glitch in naming convention?
also, i cant get hold of any 100nf capacitors (disc ceramic) would the polyester boxes be functionaly the same?
weeeeeee, im so excited, just ordered the wood to build my case too!
100 nF ceramic caps are ridiculously common, you should have no problem getting them. They’re the same as 0.1 µF so you might look for that nomenclature. In principle poly boxes would work, I guess, but they’re larger and might not fit in the provided footprint. Mostly the 100 nFs are used for bypass and ceramic is fine for those, save the fancier caps for the audio path.
Yes, nanofarad = 10^-9 farad and microfarad = 10^-6 farad. If you want to be technically correct the f is capitalized in the abbreviation (but not in the full word: F is the symbol for farad) and u is actually Greek letter µ but most people don’t use a keyboard that has µ readily available so u is commonly used.
Very much this. When I’m buying I always cross ref just in case so I buy the right value. And if I have seen the values be used interchangibly, I white the other value in my baggie. @fluxpavilion, if you want to source parts, we have a thread with a load of cheap commonly needed parts for convenience.
Also be sure to check out the threads listed with BOM in the title. We usually have existing threads about a lot of the kosmi modules, as well as a few of the stripboard layouts. Feel free to make a thread if you have any issues, take a look first if you see a thread!
If you are planning multiple SSOs maybe consider this build similar to this instead:
Some people- including me - spend a lot of extra time with SSO project because it is hard to debug. Maybe looks simple, but when something is wrong good luck with finding the case quickly : )
As fredric suggested there is possibility to make bank of 6 VCOs with CVs using simple and cheap components DIY repositories
Regarding debug I’m pretty terrified of having to do that on any of them tbh, I really have no idea what I’m looking at there.
I have a voltage meter but don’t know how to use it, what an amazing way to learn though! That’s my attitude
Another quick question, there are a few component holes (?) That have a sort of disconnected outline on the pcb and they are more tricky to solder than the rest, is it because they are basically dead holes?
Oh and I’m currently building two of the VCO’s
Plan is to build all 12 of Sam’s monthly Kosmo releases in my own Kosmo box
I would guess that those are connected to the ground plane so they are more difficult because they suck up more heat. Kinda the opposite of dead holes, actually.
SSO refers to the “Super Simple Oscillator”. Be warned, a few people have expressed some difficulties with that one. Learning to use a multi-meter is useful. two things to start: learn to measure voltage, and learn how to use continuity test.
Continuity tests basically checks if one thing is connected to another. You do this when there is no power supplied to the circuit. Usually the meter will beep to indicate that they are connected. it does this by sending a bit of electricity through both ends.
Checking voltage:
Most of the time, you are going to use DC voltage. if you put the leads on backwards, it just means it will show up negative (if the polarity was positive originally).
If you need some help beyond this thats fine, multi-meters are a bit different depending on make/model so we can help if you send a pic of it if you require.
