While I have no plans to add labels to my synth, I could use color-coding on the outputs by using black nuts, but the standards for the sizing of nuts are
Best I can guess, the noname jacks I have probably use the “3/8-32UNEF-2B” standard, whatever that means.
Do I have some wiggle room on this? M6 nuts seem pretty close, would they do the trick?
Two additional things:
Customs don’t screw around in my country. Buying outside the EU means huge fees even on small orders. If you recommend a shop in the UK or Thailand etc, it might be useful to someone else, but not for me, I’m not paying €40 of processing fees on a €5 order. (Aliexpress is an exception, they collect EU taxes themselves)
I 3D print everything I can, but 3D printing nuts is not an option here, I need metal or nylon for solidity, there’s no solid PCB behind my plates, it’s protoboards + point-to-point wiring. If the nut fails, the jack falls.
I know it is of no help for already printed faceplates.
But you could put a recessed ring around your jacks, and paint them with paint markers like Posca (cheaper ones will probably do in a recessed ring).
Dozens of colors available !
Or, use the shape of the ring : round = input, square = output, losange = trigger/gate out, etc…
This may fit better with the multicolored panels.
Ah neato! There’s so many ways to spell it out and so much spam results I never found that vendor from web searches.
I still wonder if you can get away with using something close enough for this purpose (or if my unidentified jacks actually use these! i saw the reference on a similar datasheet). some Aliexpress vendors have a lot of colors in sizes that almost match
I often use POSCA markers on 3D printed stuff, PLA takes well to acrylic paint, but for pieces subjected to mechanical stress, I’m not sure it would resist, even with a sealant. Filament color changes are not an option either, because having too few layers of the first color produces unsatisfactory opacity and a different color tone than the knobs, and weakens the prints that already have retaining notch on the back, so I keep color changes for small grooves.
I didn’t consider anodizing, how practical would it be to DIY? It seems hard to do a large amount of pieces at the same time, and won’t it alter the dimensions of the thread? And can it take the mechanical stress?
Not too difficult to anodize and bluing is just like staining. Aluminium takes several colours, steel wont anodize but will take a stain. You could do a bunch at a time and the layer is so small there is no affect on the threads.
If you do electrolysis then threads need to be covered. (plasticine or a sacrificial bolt.
Some of the chemistry for anodizing is dangerous so do take care.
With the right primer you can electroplate plastics at home easily.
Electroplating is not terribly difficult! I have the feeling most of the people on this forum have a 5v power supply in some form or fashion floating around.
I was considering gold plating some things since I am going for golds and browns with my synth… but yeah. Little known fact that gold is expensive.
Despite what I said about 3D printing not being an option, and having had poor experiences trying it out in the past, I thought it might be worth reconsidering.
I used this recent generator:
I made the nuts 16×5mm for UNEF-3/8. Turns out this generator makes much better threads than whatever it was I tried last time.
It can do hex nuts, but I know I’d OCD about making the spokes line up perfectly, so I went with knurled instead.
I’m printing them as detailed as possible (the best my printer can do is 0.8mm layers).
They’re surprisingly good! Even printed in cheap PLA, they grip almost as good as metal, and since I made them twice taller than metal nuts, there’s a lot of grip surface.
Since I’ve decided on the size I will use in my system, I also designed a little tool to fasten them.
