From kellyd12@roadrunner.com Tue Nov 24 19:02:05 2009
Subject:Latest from drawbar guy

The dude in San Diego that's been designing a (midi) drawbar module that will work with Stage products and others has just posted his latest progress. We may have a real drawbar option in the near future. Wow, the Ventilator and now maybe real drawbars! Check it out: k e l l y

" Drawbar Update version 1.6
November 22, 2009

Hello everyone!

OK, last time I wrote, I was up to my elbows in hardware problems.
Great progress has been made since then. It looks like I've resolved
all the hardware issues and everything seems very stable right now.
And the circuit is drawing very little current. In fact, I've gotten
to the point where the indicator LED draws more current than the whole
rest of the circuit combined!

For those of you who joined the list recently, current consumption is
a huge issue for this device, because I had hoped to make it MIDI-bus
powered so that an external wall-wart is not required. This is
especially tricky for the newer Nords which run at 3.3 volts instead
of the 5 volts specified by MIDI. The whole power thing is
complicated, but the short summary for now is that things are looking
very good for self-powered operation even with the new 3.3 volt Nords.
It's working well on my simulated 3.3 volt MIDI environment.

About a week ago I ordered a new batch of proto circuit boards
incorporating all the hardware changes, and those circuit boards will
be here later this week. Also, I spoke with my mechanical designer
yesterday and he's going to try to get me revised housing drawings
before he leaves for the Thanksgiving holiday. And lastly, I received
a very promising quote from a local machine shop to mill the slots and
holes in the housing. It looks like things are starting to come
together. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to send photos of one
of the alpha units.

I've also started researching the business license, trademark issues,
Europe export issues, credit card processing, and all that fun stuff.
As always, I thank you for your patience. This stuff all takes time,
especially if you don't have a full time staff of minions to delegate
these things to. Things seem to be moving forward pretty quickly right
now, but I also realize we're headed into the holidays.

I have a whole pile of components sitting here ready to go, so as soon
as the circuit boards come in I'm going to build up a couple units,
and hopefully the machine shop will be able to bang out a couple
housings for me. I soon will be looking for alpha and beta testers. In
particular, I'm looking for folks in Southern California who are
interested in testing early units and who own an Electro 3, any of the
Stage models, or a C1 or C2.

Regards,

Dave
http://www.oceanbeach.com/drawbars/

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