Poor Man's VX units?

Tibbon · Post by **Tibbon** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:06 am

Has anyone messed around with attempting to make their own VX units? I know that there is normally a little daughterboard inside the Moog that you add in to stop cross oscilation on the ribbon cable which would have to be taken care of, but that's just a handful of resistors i think. I am dying for a VX unit, but I haven't any money at the moment (actually all i NEED to get out of the moog is the pitch CV for some fun with my MF-102... more later will be good, but that's all i need at the moment). I have a few DB-25 cables, and could basically just solder the stuff to a patchbay right?

Any thoughts?

eric coleridge · Post by **eric coleridge** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 1:37 pm

Here are a few things that you probably already have thought of, but...
One thing you'd need, obviously, is a pin map for the Voyager's accessory port. I guess you could just try each pin and see what comes out. You might want to put diodes or resistors between each pin and it's output jack to protect the pins from stray incomming voltages. But there may be some protection already built into the Voyager for this purpose. Also, probably some of the pins are for grounding or possibly even power supply-- and if so, these would need to be handled properly...
One problem is, the schematic for the Voyager is not commonly available. So you can't really get much of this kind of information that would be helpful in constructing your DIY VX.

The other thing is, the VX box isn't really that expensive, relatively speaking. So, if you weigh that against even a remote possibility of potentially damaging your extremely valuable instrument, it doesn't really seem worth it.

bunnyman · Post by **bunnyman** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 4:18 pm

I e-mailed Moog when I got my Signature, and they sent me a copy of the pin-out. I'm not sure if I still have it (Have to see if it's in the boxes that survived Katrina), but I'll post it if I find it. Barring that, see if Moog'll send you a pin-out. They're probably still cool about it. Apart from the cross-talk problem, I'd think that without the added board, you'd have a V/Oct problem, as the Voyager isn't 1V to 1Oct, but something like .75V to Octave...

Cheers,

-andrew bunny

slowdive · Post by **slowdive** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 7:07 pm

I don't understand the concept of a "poor mans VX 351." If you have the money to spend $3000 on a Voyager, what is the big deal with spending another $300 to get the VX?

c7sus · Post by **c7sus** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 7:47 pm

Waiting around the plasma donation center for an empty gurney!