FXYDESIGN

Thank Paul Rothman organized ITP Monome Group order, 45 people with 54 Monomes.

So what is monome? According to wiki, ” …is an eight-by-eight grid of backlit buttons which connects to a computer using aUSB cable and the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol. Originally developed as an open ended performance interface for electronic music…”

Similar Product is Tenori-on, they both showed up in pubic around 2007, it’s hard to say who is the first one. Monome came out a little earlier than Tenori-on. I personally went to Tenori-on New York world launch tour in Brooklyn, NY, where I met Toshio Iwai, the inventor. The device is very well made, high condensed, also expensive. So…What good about Monome is DIY package, Open Source, easy programmable, cheaper. Also it have rubber buttons verses plastic buttons on Tenori-on.

Before I start to build my 128 key Monome(basically put 2×40h kits together with a usb hub), I start to think about my case. I like hand-made wood case which most people use to build their monome, but I’m not very like to see all the screws on the case. So I came up the idea of using LEGO, fast prototyping, easy construct and de-construct, no screws needs, more color to choose… Then I start to build my LEGO case in lego digital designer software, which you can easily download and run in all major platforms. Building a LEGO case is not as easy as you imagine. the final design is about my 5th design version. Why I design by myself? If you search LEGO monome online, you can easily found picture like this:

It has nice color designed, … but it’s a little bulky. So my goal is to make a LEGO case simple, strong, use as less bricks as possible. After I measured the templates of Monome 40h kits, I find LEGO have perfect size for monome. The Monome circuit board size is 6″x6″. but it’s not at the center according to the button array. So 6.25″ is the smallest size for it. On the Lego side, each brick is 5/16″ wide, 20 bricks is perfect 6.25″. Here is some sketches for LEGO digital designer, you can download them: 64keys, 128keys.

However after I laser-cutter my frontplate, I realized there is a tiny gap between each two bricks, which made my frontplate a bit smaller. I measured them out, it’s about 1/64″ for each brick. So let’s say, if you have 6 bricks in a row, you need to make your front plates 6 x 1/64″ bigger. I didn’t redo my lasercut plate. I sand them a bit to fit the frame. I updated my laser cut template to adapt the gap, though I haven’t tried them out. The template is made in illustrator, it has two layers to run two passes cut in case it’s too hot to melt some edges. The templates are designed to glue LEGO pieces on it. Legos are made of ABS plastic and the front/bottom plates I use is Acrylic Plastic. Though I should buy ABS to ABS liquid glue, when I tried Acrylic to Acrylic Glue, it’s pretty sticky. The only problem is that the glue cause the color lose. So I suggest you tape other areas before you glue them together. You can download the laser templates here: 64keys, 128keys, for CS3 version…

I only glue the parts which I use to snap the Lego together(the top two layers in the design file). Then I started to assemble them together. As you see in the template, I already left space for one USB type A female port hole on the corner. Since I need to put two circuit boars, 1 usb hub, 2 usb cable, 1 usb adapter to this box, I ordered these parts: 8″ usb cable x 2; 2 port usb mini hub; usb A to B  adapter. The usb hub is a little bulky, so I took the plastic out. If you open the laser cut template, you may notice, there is no screw holes on the bottom plates. I use the same screws on the top templates, only screwed one corner of the circuit board on the LED panel. To avoid circuit short,  I use thick sticky tape in between to cover all the solder tips. and for the usb adapter, I use a wire to tie it up to the side right-angle male to male headers. Below are some pictures:

ps: for normal laser templates and other monome building/config tutorial, check itpedia.