A Turing Machine Expander for adding voltage sequencing functionality to modules like Tree
For a long time I have been selling modules with Turing Machine Host functionality but have sold very few Turing Machine Expanders. The Switches Expander was not terribly financially successful but gave me a lot of good ideas that actually ended up in the Leaves Expander and helped me learn about making both a good Turing Machine Expander and a sequential switch. I used a voltages expander with both my Vert and my Tree but never got around to making my own version of it, instead telling people to buy a kit or a finished one elsewhere. Well now Leaves is out and I know everyone is the most excited for their own modules but I honestly use it all the time to make my own music and that seems like a good sign to me.
Rather than holding myself back by deciding to make another Turing Machine Expander that could be a through-hole DIY kit I decided that I was going to do everything SMD and release the module as a purely commercial product but respect the licence and open source all of the files. I will say this much: while the module is by no means impossible to build by hand I would not suggest it as a first SMD soldering project. Almost all of the ICs are TSSOP which is much smaller than SOIC and there are a fair number of passives. Honestly the hardest part to solder by hand was the middle row of header pins which are all very close to eachother and tough to fit a soldering iron in between. If that doesn't scare you by all means make your own Leaves to your hearts desire, I built them by hand so I know that its possible to do.
Of course there is one exception: while there is nothing in the licence that legally prevents you from building and selling these on your own I am relying on the honor system and asking you not to build these modules with the intention of selling them. I realize that this might be naive in the era of small time cloners and the big B-word (if you are reading this hi I see you!) but please keep one thing in mind: other companies that are normally targetted by cloners (use your imagination) are much larger than my company, they sell thousands of units a year and so if someone clones their products they can absorb the hit. Mystic Circuits is a one person company and whlie I'm not in terrible financial shape having one or two cloners out there under-cutting the price on my products could put me there. On a similar note if you see people cloning my products please do not buy them, they are doing so without my blessings.
Bottom line is that if I notice people abusing the spirit of this open source information and the licence that I have included in this repository, I will stop open sourcing my designs and everyone else will miss out on learning a thing or two or building some modules for themselves on the cheap. If you would like to develop a product based on one of these designs or are at all unsure about whether something you want to do with this information will go against my wishes please reach out to me, I am sure we can come to some agreement.
One last thing is that I do not offer any support or cover any damages incurred by using a module that was built using the information in this Github repository. Unless you buy the module from me or one of my retailers the module is not my responsibility. If you have a question about building the modules feel free to ask but sometimes I am slammed for time so please understand if I don't get back to you.
Also the design files that I have uploaded are designed in diptrace, please understand that I have no intention of remaking the files in Eagle or any other PCB design program. I don't like Eagle and Diptrace should let you open these files even with the free version.
Anyways I hope this information is useful to you, if you have any questions contacting me throught the contact page on my website is the easiest way to get a hold of me.
Eli