doepfer wheel electronic price : $60.00   power supply price : $15.00

wheel electronic (abbreviation: "we" in the following) is an universal electronics diy midi kit designed to connect modulation or pitch wheels. but it can be used also for joysticks, single or multiple foot controllers (analog or on/off), breath controllers or even normal potentiometers. In addition a connector for a sustain foot switch is available.up to 4 continuously variable "analog" elements and a "digital" switching element (e.g. a sustain foot switch) can be connected.

application examples:
pitch bender
wheels
joy sticks
breath controllers (e.g. yamaha bc-1/2/3, additional resistor required, please refer to the user's manual)
foot controllers (continuos)
foot switches (on/off), momentary or toggle
rotary potentiometers
slider/fader potentiometers

different elements can be combined simultaneously. here are some examples:
pitch bender, modulation wheel, volume control (rotary or slider potentiometer), breath controller and sustain foot switch
pitch bender, three modulation wheels (e.g. modulation, volume, after touch) and sustain foot switch
pitch bender, two modulation wheels (e.g. modulation and after touch), one rotary or slider potentiometer (volume) and sustain foot switch
pitch bender, modulation wheel and joy stick
two joy sticks
four foot controllers for volume control of four midi channels
dual or tripe foot controller (on/off or analog) and rotary or slider potentiometer
two modulation wheels or switches to control the rotary speakers of the organ software b4 (von native instruments), two rotary or slider potentiometers for volume andexpression.



the four "analog" elements are connected to pinheaders with 3 pins. for the "digital" switching element a pinheader with 2 pins is available. the pin headers are the whiteparts in the above picture. four 3-pin cable sets and one 2-pin cable set about 30cm each with suitable female connectors are included (please refer to the pictures of theapplications examples below).

we has some special features compared to other midi control electronics (e.g. pocket electronic):
the upper voltage that is assigned to the midi data value 127 can be adjusted exactly with a multi-gang trimming potentiometer. this measure is necessary e.g. for modulation orpitch wheels, foot controllers or joy sticks that do not cover the complete angle of rotation. if such an element is connected to gnd and +5v the maximal output voltage is muchless than +5v (e.g. +3v only). even breath controllers (e.g. yamaha bc-1/2/3) output only about +3.5v maximal control voltage. if an electronics is used that analyses the fullvoltage range 0...+5v the higher midi data values are missing.
the voltage range can be reduced with the trimming potentiometer to 0...+3v. for a still smaller range 0...+2v another microcontroller (pic16lf73) can be delivered at anadditional charge.
for each of the four elements a jumper is used to select if the full voltage range (0...+5v) or the adjustable voltage range is used for measurement. this is necessary ifdifferent elements are used simultaneously (e.g. modulation wheels or foot controller with reduced voltage range and normal rotary or slider potentiometers with full voltagerange).
if an element is assigned to midi pitch bend a "plateau" is used in the middle of the voltage/data range (data value 64). this feature is meaningful in combination withspring-loaded wheels or joy sticks as due to mechanical tolerances the exact center position is not always reached.


wheel electronic with modulation wheel set

four jumpers are used to select the midi channel. further four jumpers are used to select up to 16 different combinations of midi control change numbers, pitch bend or aftertouch - the so-called presets. remark: In the first version of the firmware not yet all 16 presets are used !). A detailed list of all available combinations can be found in theuser's manual.

the elements connected to we (e.g. wheels, joy sticks, foot controllers, normal potentiometers, foot switch) are not included but have to be added or purchased in addition by thecustomer.

the midi data range is 0...127 with 7 bit resolution. the sampling rate is about 50-60 samples/second (according to incoming midi data that have to be merged to the datagenerated by we; the maximum rate is obtained without incoming midi data).


wheel electronic with four single modulation wheels

we is equipped with midi in and midi out. the incoming midi messages are merged to the data generated by we- provided that the incoming midi data range is not too big. in thisway several we can be linked together or combined with other electronics like ctm64, mke, pocket electronic, and dial electronic.

an led is used to indicate the midi activity.

we is available only as an assembled and tested pc board. the pc board measures are about 60 mm (length) x 55 mm (width) x 25 mm (height). several mounting holes with 3 mmdiameter are available for mounting the pc board to a suitable base e.g. with distance sleeves or spacers and screws.