Moogerfooger 5U modular panels....

[EricK]

Is anyone interested in getting their Foogers converted into dotcom style modules?
I have contacted a company in england who will design the panels and below is his response:

Hello,

moogfooger Costings ...
There's two ways we can do it -
option 1. I'll charge £30 for each design & Ben at http://www.resynthesis.co.uk will charge £30 for the panel. Total £60 per panel
option 2. If you can find 5 other people who want all the modules made then you would only have to pay £30 per panel. As I'd get a £5 royalty payment for each panel.
You could start a thread to do this ... see if there are others that want them.

Regards

R

Any takers?



Eric

[muksys]

Will the panels be specific or can it be an assortment? If so I'd like 1 panel for a 104M. I'm assuming the mounting holes will adhere to the dotcom spec?

[MC]

I would be very interested. Have 101, 102, 103, 2x104 (original), 105M, 108M. Would panel graphics be duplicated? Moog logo may be an issue with trademark.

You would get a LOT more customers if you posted in the Moogerfooger subforum.

[EricK]

I was wondering about the logo duplication myself. I'm surely not trying to get any crap started, I just want to convert my foogers and I'd like them to be as authentic as possible.

I'm not selling these, but this company is willing to make them as one-offs. Supposedly he will duplicate the panel of the moogerfoogers in totality, but these are 100% customizable. So they can do any format, any size you want essentially.


I actually wish that Moog would just do this themselves frankly.

I listed my five foogers. 101,102,103,104z, & 107. I would have to supply a scan of the panel for the 104z so you would have to do the same for the M series Foogers.

And you can also design your own panels with software also, which may just be a more reasonable option.

Eric

[muksys]

True. If I'm going as far as scanning I may as well as design it myself. Plus, I'm working on setting up a screen printing station for printing graphics onto the dotcom blank panels. Hmm, more I think about it, probably be cheaper/quicker if I just keep it DIY. I was more sold on the initial idea before thinking it fully through.

[krismiller1982]

You lost me at "royalties"...

[GregAE]

As the proud owner of a new dotcom system, I'd be interested in getting a few of my Moogerfoogers converted to a 5U format, specifically the MF102 and MF107.

Perhaps the reason that Moog never offered Moogerfoogers in a 5U format is that they might never see a return on their NRE - maybe not enough takers to make the investment worthwhile.

On the other hand, interest in modulars seems to be at an all-time high (the eurorack format is positively exploding right now), and the name 'Moog' is synonymous with modular synths, so why not?

FWIW, I also think repackaging the CP-251 Control Processor would work nicely as a kind of 'swiss army knife' utility module in a 5U format. Some food for thought...

- Greg

[slabwax]

Are all the rear jack to be on the front top? How do you convert the power? I'm very interested, but from when I looked in to it a couple years ago it's not going to be easy to reconfigure the innards More details and I'll bite. The panel is the easy part.

[EMwhite]

Three problems (and power isn't one of them)

1. board mounted jacks (the top row generally) will need to be desoldered, and in it's place, wire leading to new jacks which would typically be mounted beneath the controls, MOTM style. This is not trivial work and in some cases requires some delicate desoldering meaning that there are plenty of SMT components very tightly packed on modern foggers.

2. board width is just a tad wider than that which will fit neatly within the 2-space MU cavity. Note that I'm saying "MU" and not 5U. 5U, generically speaking is the family of formats which includes MOTM, Moog Unit format, etc. MOTM two space is more narrow that MU (dotcom style) and what I'm saying is that even with a 2 space panel, you'll find that most of the boards need to be mounted above the folds and care must be taken when squeezing this into your cabinet depending on what is next to this module.

3. panel layout needs to be precise and can be expensive. Folder end aluminum panels which are typically 1.5mm or so in thickness DEPEND on the folded ends and Front Panel Express will not do this. What they will do is a nice 3mm anodized panel which is very close to MOTM (Oakley, Syntech, etc.) format. Not what most synthesizer.com owners want.

Silkscreen vs laser etched vs machine etched w/or without infill are all design decisions. FPE charges by stroke, per tool change, for infill, for object, each hole drilled, etc. Somebody good at layout and machining can develop a design which is cost efficient. Somebody who is liberal (not smart in the engineering sense of the word) will expend $150 at FPE.

In my opinion, Ben @ RE:Synthesis has a excellent offering; I've purchased from him and he is reliable and has an excellent quality product. He laser etches folded edge MU panels (which he purchases from Roger @ synth.com), works with standard art packages (Corel, HPGL type), and has affordable fees. For those of us in America, it will cost a bit for int'l shipping, but I propose getting a list together, contributing to a design and getting a run done.

I'm not sure if he works with slider pots (MuRF) or rectangular switch holes so that may be a show stopper. I'll reach out to him to check.

-- -- --

re: Power - a Wiggler I know put together a schematic and mechanical (heat sink) design for converting the +/- 15 to +/- 12 for use with dotcom or MOTM power supporting Euro rack modules. I built one up, added a tip-top flying ribbon cable and now have plenty of Euro power in my modular. The regulators used come in 9V variety and if only positive voltage is required, easier still. They are rated at 1a but larger are available. Shedding this much voltage might require a slightly large sink but it's doable and inexpensive. But I'm sure most of us will be happy enough to have the module mounted and usable and wouldn't mind having the original Fooger power supply connected through the back.

[EricK]

Friends,
Thanks for the responses so far. Frankly, I'm surprised there haven't been any panels on the market yet for these because it looks like just with the few of us here the entire Fooger line would be paneled up. I know once some of us display these in our cabinets others will follow suit.

Rob, the guy who contacted me, said that it would cost 139 euros for just the five panel designs I specified (101, 102, 103, 104z, 107). Does this seem high to you all, considering that the fooger panels are quite similar? This isn't counting the metalwork, the shipping or anything like that. This is purely for his panel design, which at this time I am under the impression will be exact replicas.

I think this deserves some more research and I submit that if this is something that several of us are prepared to green-light at the same time then we can all probably save some money if we had the orders shipped to a single address on this side of the pond and redistributed to everyone.

What do you think? Does this sound reasonable or risky or what?

Thanks for your input and support. I for one would like to ditch the fooger chassis. I'm just planning on keeping the original power supplies and mounting the pcb perpendicular to the panel R. A. Moog style.


Eric

[slabwax]

Eric,
Thanks for looking into this again.
It is the topic that wont die. As far as money goes. If I remember correctly when I looked into the silk screening the new top panels for my fooger design it was $25.00 a unit for the screener to copy and recreate the back panel on a 6" x 2" screen. After that I think in small runs it was $5 a copy for him to screen my metal work. I'll see if I posted the numbers on a thread some place here, I think I did. So I don't think the price is to high, but I'm wondering if the same thing could not be found here in the US. It would just make it easer and cheaper in shipping. That is unless a good portion of the people interested are from that side of the pond. Is your guy going to redesign the whole thing for that price or just make a front panel? How many spaces wide are these going to be? I'm really not trying to piss in your corn flakes here. I just remembered it was not as easy as what I thought it would be. It might be interesting to talk to someone like Roger from.com or the STG and see about a complete redesign mod package. Again the panel is the EZ part. But I'm still in And regarding a small commission for each unit sold / ordered you do have the right to one. If you go though all the work of making this happen a small kick back is in order.

[slabwax]

Come to think of it putting a Voodoo labs power supply in the back of a cab and running one mains cord out of the back is also easy enough. Also, I just looked again at the boards in the 101,102,103,104z and 105M and the boards in the 103 & 104z run the length of the pedal. I don't see how this would work unless you mount it side ways and have it take up twice as much space or you will need a double high cabinet. I could be missing something but I'm not sure what. This is what prompted me to look in to making a top cap that would mount to wood sides. The overall length would then become 11" or so. I think you would be able to still mount in Moog Rack kit but it would have overhang. The surface mounted jacks were the death to my continued research.

[ARP]

I've been howling at the moon, suggesting that moog do something like this for years I'd be down for - Mooger - Phaser-Delay & Ring Mod panels in MU

[EricK]

Friends,
Just for the record, I am not affiliated with this guy. I just posted a thread on muffs and got a reply, and have since been communicating in private with the panel designer. So I am not making any money from this, I am just a customer trying to prove to him that there is some demand for Fooger Panels.

Here is what I was told this evening.

They will be making fooger panels, sans logos for the site, so these will be available for sale, but there is no timetable at this time. It is not clear at this time exactly how the panels will look, or how closely they might be cloned yet. He just told me that he is going to start working on designs in the 5U dotcom/Moog Unit format. These panels will be etched in the same manner as the original Moog modules were.

My personal plan is to have the pcb mounted perpendicular to the panels for the ones that are too large for a double width panel to fit properly in a regular cabinet. I was also going to simply keep the original power supplies and use dotcom rack frames. The jacks would be on the front.

So I told him to go ahead and make me a 102 panel.

Eric

[moogsaurus]

Well if you look at my thread "would moog make something like this?" I designed the front graphic for the E&MM english synth, re-routed the pots to suit better signal flow,done with adobe illustrator,once the graphic was sized,used a commercial print shop to print on plastic banner paper,stuck on protective outer contoured film,then I placed it on a bought custom sized alloy panel, punched marked the panel for pot orientation-then drilled!, ordered moog click knobs from synthesizers.com and radio shack,hardest part was the graphic line up,but it can be done1 have a look at the minimoog clone on the link! Oh..cost was 21 pounds for the printed graphis,3 pounds for the adhesive outer sheet,so pretty cheap,and duplication is easy!