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Kate

@katef.bsky.social

4.6K followers 550 following 5.3K posts

she/her If I unfollowed you, it's because you keep posting things without alt text

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 5h

rest in peace, friend

my post, December 2020:
me: i have no chance of getting a queen, i think any long term prospects are doomed
opponent: You couldn't be more wrong
me: what!
opponent: unless you're talking about the chess game
opponent: in which case yes this one's over

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 5h

worse, some people make pcb modules with no ground planes. i have one where if i wave a piece of metal in the air above it, it changes sound. wild stuff

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 5h

the patch cables on the front? they're all shielded, the jacks are TS. the yellow ones in my module are single-core, but i wouldn't use this for audio frequency stuff

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 7h

diodes too, you can see them going from one jack to the other two. that's one input to two outputs, without the outputs interfering somehow. the disadvantage of not buffering is there'll be a voltage drop, but this is for drum gates, so that's fine

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 8h

patch notes

a patched eurorack rack, it's dark and leds glow in various colours. wires are surpringly well organised. NOH comper sequencing, out to envelopes by NE pons, and then both envelopes and gates into NE vice virga. so i can switch them 2x4 and keep the relation. shakmat battering ram for the kick, mutant hats for the hat. c&p has a long attack from the end-of-measure for comper, which gives a pseudo-sidechain rise. the top line buzzing in that tune is beads being seeded at audio rate, and i'm playing the wet/dry mix

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 8h

i made a small tune

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 9h

thanks!

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

DONE

back of the soldered-up module, the leds now have resistors and everything is neatly in place. i cut off any sharp bits just in case. deadbugging stuff is always kind of fragile though, but it's super fun to make

the module installed in my rack, patched up to two sets of outputs. three leds of the four channels are lit. i'm feeding it a drum pattern at the time the photo was taken, so we're in the middle of a boom-tish. in the background are some modules strewn around, as if they are dying plants. there is also a dying plant

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

yea boiii of course it fits

front of module reassembled, everything looks normal, the jacks still look aligned, spaced evenly, and generally well behaved

the back of the module looking exactly as it was, but now magically the diodes are facing the other way. if i hadn't told you, i bet you wouldn't have noticed

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

oh no! i soldered the diodes backwards. i want this mult to have inputs on the right, and output to the left. i don't want to resolder the diodes, that's annoying. but maybe i can take out the block of soldered-up jacks as a single unit and rotate it 180°? we'll see how symmetrical my drilling was

leds still in place, here i have carefully removed the entire grid of jacks, soldered together as a single unit with relatively fragile thin ground wires and individual diodes connecting them. is it gonna fit back in place the other way around? the answer is unclear

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

solder solder solder

it's the same image from the top again, looking at a bunch of diodes soldered across the jacks on the back of the panel. led legs are bent into position and some wires are hanging around. there's no pcb here, i am deadbugging it

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

install hardware

jacks and leds mounted, per usual i'm putting the leds behind light pipes because it gives more even illumination. the jacks are just screwed to the panel with a slotted nut, and in this case the spacing is so tight that they're forced into alignment on the back

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

i actually drill the larger holes first with a 5mm bit, and then to size with a 6mm bit. that gives a chance to *slightly* correct things if i was off with the centres. or i'd use a hand file. anyway no need for that today. time to deburr the perimeters using a countersink bit

i have deburred the perimeters using a countersink bit. tape gone, and the oil with it, the blank panel now has a bunch of usable holes. it's looking clean and nice

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

steps three and four, drill holes. this is an aluminium panel, i extremely recommend using cutting oil. it makes everything so much more pleasant. first the small holes and the pilot holes, and then the bigger holes brrr brbrrbzbrrzt drills are fun

our panel but now with tiny holes! 3mm for the leds, 2.5mm for pilot holes in the jack centres. there are bits of swarf around, and the panel is all oily now

there is so much more swarf now, this is a right proper mess. but the panel has the bigger holes drilled out. it has lots of burrs on the sharp edges around the holes. it's extremely cheesegraterey

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

step two you gotta punch the fuck out of your thing

the same marked out panel, with an automatic centre punch to the side. and lo behold i have punched the centres for my holes. these make little dents into which a drill bit will stay, so it doesn't slip around when you drill

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

step one in doing this particular thing, mark out where you want stuff to go. in this case i have used a pencil

here we have graphite markings on top of some masking tape, and the tape is on top of a blank eurorack panel. this is a grid with centre points for where holes are gonna go

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 10h

i am sad, so i made a 4-channel passive mult. i am still sad but now i have a mult. I RECOMMEND DOING THINGS

okay listen up i am not going to explain what a mult is. it's clearly some synthesizer stuff. but i am going to describe the hell out of my photos. this is the back of my mult, half way through construction, and we got a eurorack panel with a bunch of jacks and things mounted to it, and on the back i've started soldering diodes bridging between the jacks, and various wires and things cool

here's the finished mult installed in a eurorack setup, doing its job. it's patched alongside some other modules. it has four leds, a couple are currently lit. it mostly looks like it belongs with the other modules, except the panel is unlabelled

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 17h

he should've called it big mystery object world

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 17h

it's got a big ring in it

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 1d

oh wait no, that's the six-legged crabs? the spiders are just there, you're right

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 1d

they disassemble aircraft!

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 1d

also why did they pick *any* of the crew for that mission?? nobody has any relevant skills

Kate @katef.bsky.social · 1d

also if luck were genetic?? for no reason

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 1d

i enjoyed this book about a big tube, and i also read a book by michael critchton called SPHERE. which is about a sphere. but not big. and that was disappointing

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Kate @katef.bsky.social · 1d

this book was extremely similar to RING WORLD by LARRY NIVEN. in that the author doesn't give a shit about any of the characters or plot, they just want to show you how the big thing works. in niven's case it was about a big ring. i call this genre "hey look at this" books

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