PedalinoMidi 8 Foot switch - A quick build

[rwillett]

I wanted a better Midi footpedal than the M-Vave Chocolate so was looking around and stumbled over the PedalinoMini range of DIY pedals. 

 

You can see them here https://github.com/alf45tar/PedalinoMini

 

The designer uses a small 32bit System on a Board, so similar to an Arduino, has done some very good software and it looked like it was well supported. If it's GitHub check how many recent releases it has, check the issues and see if the person responds and he does.

 

So I ordered the parts from AliExpress for the 8 foot switch version and they turned up in less than a week. The LilyGo SoC is pretty good, a decent 1.9" display, wifi, bluetooth, what's not to like.

 

I paid for the STL files ($14), downloaded them, printed them out on my 3d printer and immediately thought, I can do better than this. Simple things like he uses screws straight into plastic, this will last five or six fixings and then the plastic will shred and you have a case that has no means of attaching to the base. I also beefed up some of the supports, but to be fair, it was a pretty good design to start with.

 

The instructions are very good, though the wiring diagram requires you to switch your brain around as you wire it from below, but the wiring diagrams are from above and below. Every single step needed to be tripled checked. The only major issues is that the shield you wire into is a point to point, so you then have to bridge the connections to the sockets. It's also very, very fiddly.

 

However apart from one bit of wiring that’s almost impossible to see which joins two LED strips together, its pretty straightforward, but there's a lot of it and it has to fit into a small case.  I printed off a mule to wire it into.

 

 

As I got further and further into the wiring it got tighter and tighter. I then moved the mostly finished wiring into the new case I designed and printed in a rather nice Galaxy Black, basically black with tiny sparkles, who said glam rock was dead

 

 

The purple tape is simple to hold the LED strips in place whilst I check everything is working. Once I'm happy, the wires and LED strips will be given a good seeing to with a hot glue gun.

 

 

Somewhat suprising (as I'm a crap solderer), it worked almost first time. Only every second footswitch worked which seemed odd and not a soldering issue. It turns out I'd loaded the wrong firmware in and I think it defaulted to four footswitches rather than eight. Downloading the right firmware sorted that problem out. 

 

You need a Windows laptop to really get the initial setup done, but once you have the wifi connected, it works from a Mac and can be configured from there as it's on the wifi. 

 

 

The software seems very good, but I'm still trying to understand what it all does. I still have to put the battery and switch in, otherwise it is powered from the USB-C connector. A 18650 battery will apparently power it for 12 hours. It has wifi, bluetooth, MIDI over USB-C so lets see if I can make it all work with my ToneX and Mod Dwarf. You seem to be able to control a lot of things with it. 

 

For the cost of about £40 and one evening and one afternoon of soldering, it seems good value to me. I can't say much more until I've got it properly working.

 

Rob

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by rwillett