rwillett

Thanks for the offer of help. I will take it up. If it's clear enough for me I should be able to document it for other people. I can solder so that's not an issue. Today's activities are dog walking and cutting holes without damaging myself and ruining the already cut plywood.

The battern is 25mm, the one time I wanted to be sold short, I don't get it 😩. I have a little pack of speakon pieces, plates and pcb's from Blue Aran so will look at that. Today's activity is cutting round holes in plywood and screwing batterns down. I also need to make a jig for the speakon plate. That looks a little difficult.

To me, it's the loss of control that appears odd. Direct sales to customers is, as you say, smaller revenue stream than their customer dealers. Buying into the Shopify model means doing things the Shopify way, that's the Web framework you must use. Now if Shopify provides everything Gibson wants to do, that's fine, but if Gibson wants to do things that Shopify can't offer, then they have to either build something off the Shopify site and link back and make sure it all fits. I can't speak for USA accountancy rules, but in the UK you could get this as a managed service through a Web design and hosting company and get the people costs off your head count. You also get the VAT back and it goes against corporation tax as an expense and HMRC are happy. For smaller companies Shopify simplifies things but for larger ones, I still think it's unusual. Clearly Gibson will have worked it all out and made their call so what do I know 😊 Rob

Strange usage of the word "just" I hadn't heard before 😊

Better qualified than me... There is approx 310cm of baton. Total volume of 2.0cm x 2.0cm x 310cm = 1,240cm^3 Total volume of 2.5cm x 2.5cm x 310cm = 1,937.5cm^3 Approx total interior volume of cab = 40x30x27.5 = 33,120cm^3. I know it's slightly less as I should take into account the overlap of pieces but I've only got an iPhone with me and it's hard to keep track from the PDF. So (1937-1240)/33120 = approx 2% change. No idea if a significant change. Doesn't sound like it but what do I know. Rob

First dumb questions of the day... Managed to one of my plywood pieces cut down to what appears to be the right sizes. I got a Makita guide rail and adaptor for the circular saw. Also an 80 tooth 190mm blade. Suddenly I have straight and clean cuts. Wow. Why have I never done this before. Anyway, I have the batons. Nobody had 20mm at all only 25mm so have had to use that. I have plywood for four cabinets now, one will be a spray booth fan holder so one piece of plywood is for cockups. Also Blue Arran have sent their stuff so I have two speakers to install and stuff for wiring. Q1 does using 25mm batterns make a massive difference to the sound due to the internal volume changing? I know I'll have to adjust the batten sizes to make them fit but I can do that. Q2 should I glue and screw the batterns OR just screw OR just glue? People seem to have done all of them. Q3 I have all the bits for two separate 8" cabs and was thinking I could connect the two cabs together via some magic with the dual connector speakon connectors plates. So two cabs presenting 4 Ohms to the Gnome. Of course I never checked I could do this and arrogantly assumed I'd find a way. Is this feasible, sensible and doable?

Gibson must have worked out the costs of Shopify vs roll your own. Building your own isn't cheap either. However most big brands tend to build their own to get the site exactly how they want. Gibsons annual revenue is circa $300M per annum so they can afford it. Still strikes me as odd for Gibson to use Shopify though.

It does depend on how much power the router actually needs <doh obviously>. I have a small travel router with wifi and a sim card slot sitting on my desk (somewhere) that is easily powered by a USB port. It's matchbox sized and I used it for hotels with a cheap local sim when abroad. Would I be able to power a high end OpenWRT router, no! Depends on your requirement though as to what you actually need. I've just seen the reply from @tauzero about USB hosts and USB devices which complexly stops the idea Rob

Whilst you regret nothing... I on the other hand...

I suppose if nothing else, I'd force myself to accept a CAR Precision if somebody ever gave me one. It would be a struggle but I reckon I could handle it. I'd probably need to be given the burst as well so it all balances out. Is there a list somewhere I add my name to? Rob

This is great free entertainment.

And to really mix things up as well https://github.com/mikeoliphant/stompbox Never built either StompBox or PiPedal. StompBox gets some great writeups from people. Perhaps a winter project over Xmas? Rob

So has this option now gone away?

I looked at this before and it seemed a well thought out project. Sensibly the dev used decent and separate USB Audio hardware and a Web interface. If you have decent usb audio hardware and a pi already, I think it could be a cheap and quick project. The software looks OK as well. I've got the parts just sitting here doing nowt (by chance and not by design) but not really wanted another project to work on. I didn't look into the build tool chain to see what was needed but assumed it would work. I already have a ToneX and a mod dwarf so another modeller seemed overkill for me, especially as it had a separate USB interface, which might be an advantage to some people. Most pi projects seem to use an audio hat and these don't have the quality IMHO. Go for it, I'd be interested in how it works and sounds. Rob

Something like this? I have no idea about the dimensions, but this slips under the screw in feet. The screw in feet lock this down, no changes to the Elf, no warranty issues. It then slides into the base I designed for the Gnome. The height of it should be less than the height of the rubber feet. This is not to scale, it's 5 mins work in Fusion 360. I thought about it walking the dog. The principle would work for anything with screw in feet. They can be staggered or in odd places. Rob

Actually just had a thought, you could put a wide dovetail under the feet, put the feet back on, and then design an adapter that works on the dovetail bit AND ignores the rubber feet. Best of both worlds and may just require a longer screw. Rob

No mounting holes? Sides, back, top?

Looked at that as well and that was my second plan until I turned the Gnome over and noticed the mounting holes, then I changed tack. The first plan was a cage that the Gnome slotted into. The rubber feet are quite nice TBH, I didn't want plastic feet as they slip, printing in TPU (flexible plastic) is a PITA, so I decided to keep the rubber feet. They are 5mm thick, so that's enough for the dovetail section to be 4.6mm high. This means that I can leave the dovetails on and I still have the Gnome as before with no slippy feet. The dovetail sections don't need to be too strong, we're not supporting a nice old and heavy tube head, so a few M3 screws or bolts is fine. Also the dovetail outer sections are only 8.5mm high on the back of the cabinet (or they will be once the sodding rain stops) so are unlikely to be damaged as they are quite robust. Really good ideas @Phil Starr you ought to get a printer Rob

Rosie, Flip the Elf over and see if there are mounting screw holes on the bottom. The manual may say something about it, another clue is if TC offers a mounting bracket for the Elf. I have a Cioks DC-7 power supply and they offered a mounting bracket so I looked at using those holes. (Didn't work out, but that’s a different story). The holes don't have to be on the bottom, they could be on the sides or the back. They don't need to be very deep or big, M3 is plenty big enough (3mm) and 1-2mm of thread is fine. Rob

I can't even logon at the moment....

If your amp has some method of screwing the dovetail into it, then its just a case of fiddling with the numbers to work out how to make it all fit. The design is easy to scale in each dimension. It also requires the base of it to be attached in a fairly rigid way to the cabinet. As I'm making the Basschat 8" cabs, I don't mind putting six screws in (which is two screws too many really) into the back of the cabinet. The other method would be to attach a little sledge like below, the front would go over the top of the cab, the amp would sit in the middle and the back would stop it slipping off. Immediate issues would be if you cab has a top handle, does the cab have a nice front edge you can use, would the back lip interfere with cables?

I made a little tilted stand for a speaker to sit on, rubber feat, 4020 extrusion and I printed the sides up. Not sure I'd put an Ampeg 8x10 on it, but for small speakers and cabs, dead easy.

So as its rained pretty much non-stop since 30 secs after I brought a load of wood for the cabinets, I thought I'd think about something I can do indoors. I want to make the 8" cab easy to use with my Warwick Gnome. My original intention was to print a cage on the back of the cabinet that the Gnome would slide into. Then I looked on the bottom of the Gnome and there are four M3 holes in the base. They are quite deep, but I didn't want to open the unit up to check, I needed a few mm maximum. So instead of building a large (and easily broken) and cumbersome cage, I made two sliding angular rods. I'm sure there's a proper name for this type of connection but I have no idea. The inside rod connects to the base of the Gnome, the thinner side is the base and the larger is away from the base. The outside section connects to the back of the speaker. This is dead easy to print, about 20 mins for two of them and works very well. There are three screw holes in the larger that will fix the two rails to the back of the cabinet and that's it.The amp will just slot in and gravity will hold it down. The inside rails are slightly thinner than the four rubber feet so the Gnome will still sit on a desk or another speaker with no issues. So my intention is not to take them off as they don't interfere. I like simple (and elegant) solutions Rob

The software has got better as well I'd be very interested in your views on the bass systems in there. I suspect others would as well Rob

I shall speak nicely to @neepheid about this. I have zero issues with lending it out. I know he will have space for a bass from North Yorkshire to the Bass Bass, however that might limit his options when he passes near Guitar Guitar in Birmingham Rob