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hello friends.
after too many hours tuning the firmware and then more time deliberating on the outcome, i've decided we're not going to release a backwards-compatible variable brightness firmware upgrade. i'm sorry to announce this, as my earlier assessments were too optimistic. i knew there would be a flicker, but it's truly unacceptable. we strive to produce high quality devices-- and this firmware is not worthy. i feel that releasing (and supporting) this hack would only cause frustration and headaches (quite literal headaches due to the flicker).
to revisit the technology problem involved:
we have used the max7221 led driver chip for a long time. it does not support variable per-led brightness. in an effort to reduce our dependence on this chip, i designed new circuit which doesn't use the driver. a side benefit of designing a driver is that i could make it capable of variable brightness. these new drivers went into the 2011 solid walnut editions.
grayscale devices (including the upcoming devices) and older monome units have the max7221.
the problem with sending PWM serial data to this chip is synchronization. there's no way to synchronize your serial refresh with the line refresh of the chip-- hence you'll get a phasing which results in a flicker. this flicker can be tuned to a minimum, though i'm not confident it'll be consistent between chips across all temperatures.
one possible workaround may involve connecting a wire to one of the max7221 driver pins and using it as a digital input on the avr. this could serve as a sort of sync, but i've not bothered looking into it as it'd be a complicated upgrade for most people (having to flash the chip, and solder a wire between two circuit boards, which is not terribly elegant).
i don't see offering an upgrade circuit as cost-effective. and unfortunately due to our constant search for optimal assembly methods and reliability, we've changed connector styles three times, hence there'd need to be three upgrade kits, or in two cases you'd need to also upgrade your grid pcb (which is expensive.)
i haven't actually completed the firmware, so it's not terribly useful (the communication protocol isn't implemented.) it's just a test for calibration.
and to reiterate, the new edition of grayscale devices will not have variable brightness.
all thoughts and comments welcome. -
I feel this should bother me, but then i look at my first run 256...its amazing as it is...
Monome is incredible without this upgrade either way.
Thanks for the effort brian. -
thats unfortunate. do the mk kits have the max7221 too?
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yes, the mk and original 40h kit use the max chip.
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ahh, well. Stuck with the same effective minimal design that i fell in love with in the first place. Not going to keep me up at night. I'm sure this has required a lot of frustrated tinkering to arrive at this point, so much obliged for the vision, even if it has been stymied by reality. Not to worry.
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No complaints here. While backwards compatibility is always nice, we're all used to technology marching forward without us. (Palm Pilot, anyone?) Someday it will be RGB that leaves the variable brightness crowd in the dust.
My only concern, I guess, is if there are apps written in the future that rely heavily on variable brightness for functionality. If so I'll have to count myself in the "retro monomers" camp.
EDIT
[duh] -
:( I'd be well on for doing the DIY option. I get the impression its not going to be explored though. Ah well. Not bothered really. Why not for the new grayscales though? Slightly different boards?
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kudos for trying so hard tehn.
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new gs use the old boards. it'd take some retooling to get the new boards into the enclosure.
@antiphon as far as i can tell, not sure any apps have been designed with heavy use of levels.
@ooo i can throw a few hours at the wire sync option if there is enough interest. -
@tehn
From my perspective the only real losers in this are those with variable brightness. Without a large number of devices available that support this feature, I doubt we will see much code written to take advantage of it.
With that being said, perhaps there could be a solution more in the spirit of monome. If you do indeed think it could be possible to upgrade with a bit of hackery perhaps it could become a community effort for those capable of doing the upgrade helping those who are not.
All in all I think we are all happy to have the buttons we have :D -
@tehn: i'm interested for sure, but yeah, definately gauge interest.
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I think I'd install the GS upgrade kit (twice) if there were one, and if it was well documented.
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would it be a prohibitive amount of work to build all of the monome devices from here on out with the new platform? i.e. upcoming kits, gs devices, etc?
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that's the plan, but "here" is after this current batch of gs128 and gs64.
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Just saw this thread after asking question in the 7up thread. I'm not exceptionally tech-savvy so just want a confirmation for myself.
I have an old version 256 that was fairly recently bus-upgraded by tehn (with I believe a firmware upgrade). It supports variable brightness as in 7up I can "test" the intensity and the brightness universally.
But variable intensity will not work in 7up for me because it requires "per button" intensity, correct? I just want to be sure that this feature is unavailable to me. -
@GetTheLEDOut: currently only monomes from the january 2011 edition support variable "per button" led brightness.
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Ah, this is disappointing since I'm currently doing "variable intensity" by doing PWM over USB, which is of course terrible looking, and I was expecting firmware-based with flicker to be a giant improvement over what I'm currently doing.
But I can totally understand the aesthetic choice, and it's not like I'm very active with this anyway.
I suppose I can always try to find someone with the variable brightness to swap with. -
my next step is to price the design of upgrade circuit boards...
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@Tehn
I think what could be an interesting approach would be to perhaps design kit buttons to work with the old boards... that way people would not be left with lots of waste... and potential use can be found for the old boards -
Oh, somehow I read the bit about the upgrade not seeming cost-effective and missed the part about gauging interest.
Interest, as if you couldn't tell. -
It's just the logic board that would require upgrading right?
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no-- it's the driver board. the problem is that there are several variations of drivers, and the original series has the driver builtin to the grid.
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id be up for a diy upgrade. gs128.
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hmmm scratch my previous comment then :(
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A variable wouldn't interest me as much as RGB similar to the the Octinct.
Tehn - Why do you not officially support it? You've already discussed it as a possible for future upgrade by you so please go ahead & do it.
If it's backward compatibility you seek then look at Apple. Mac OS9 is already obsolete & I still have software that runs on Mac OS6 & 7.
It's blindingly obvious how awesome RGB would be. It would open up possibilities to a minimum of a power of three (RGB). How simple is that?
People here already talk about it. And Octinct is actually doing it. If you don't move on it now, other manufactuers will take over! It would be madness not to move forward in this direction.
Put me down for a 128 RGB for even more money than the current line up though I probably wouldn't be able to get one due to demand . No offence intended. -
@djindu: you can get this now in the form of a launchpad or livid product. i wouldn't say they have "taken over" but i appreciate your encouragement.
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very interested in an upgrade here......
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registering interest in an upgrade for a walnut 128.
thanks for all the hard work though tehn! variable brightness would be a bonus, but it's by no means essential. -
I am so interested I came out of hiding.
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I would be most interested in a diy upgrade for my 40h as soon as there are enough good apps that use variable brightness. I wouldn't like to be "left behind" if/when more and more apps start using it.
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lol tehn calling djiindu's post "encouragement"
anyway, if you're gauging interest, I'd be down for an upgrade, preferably with a send-in option cause I'm scurred of messing w/ the guts -
i'm still in love with my big bright orange buttons.
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interested in an upgrade for walnut 128. Thanks for all your hard work.
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I would be interested in an upgrade, be it firmware or hardware.
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clearly i'm no genius. but i'm always down to follow what the geniuses did after they pioneer it. if you can find a diy hackery way, i'd love to try it on my mk.
also thank you for all of the long hard hours you already have invested in this and the rest of the monome project, tehn. seriously, not to be getting all warm and fuzzy on you, but i really appreciate you and your work. -
@ GetTheLEDOut
I had to lol at that post too. So much so I ordered a gs128
I also appreciate your encouragement tehn :-p -
i've have a question about this whole variable brightness business. my assumption is that under the current monome firmware (besides one of the recent batches of monomes in january 2011 that supported variable brightness), you can change the led intensity of all the monome buttons as a whole, but you can't change the led intensity of each button individually. if this is true then how can bar|none get away with doing it in 7up? in the drum racks the hits can be dimly lit for low velocity and brightly lit for high velocity, and the mode buttons are dimly lit until you select that mode, and it becomes brightly lit. just wondering, can't wait for the upgrade.
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In my experience, it's not "dimly lit" in 7up so much as "blinking at such speed as to trigger epilepsy." I believe it was stated in this thread that the 2011 walnut editions are perceptually much smoother than that.
Regardless, the practical difference from the perspective of your question is that with the 2011 walnut models, you send a single message to set the brightness, where 7up is sending a constant barrage of on/off messages to achieve its effect. -
interesting. thanks for clearing that up. unfortunately it appears that this upgrade isn't coming any time soon. kind of a bummer, but not a huge deal.
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Just wondering if anyone know the current status on this, how soon it is anticipated the new firmware release will be?
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ain't gonna happen! unfortunately.
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i'll do a new writeup.
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I'd sign a waiver saying I don't blame monome for any seizures I may have.
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would really like to try the hack option. if there are suitable vias on the board then it mightn't even be that "hacky"? *hoping*
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@tini do you mean the external wire sync? i haven't tried it, and it'd be a massive pain (impossible) for anything over an 8x8.
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I only have a liddle iddy biddy 64 :)
