Is an Intellijel 1U AC/DC possible?

OWL AC/DC
#1

Hi,

I’m excited to see the new AC/DC module from Befaco/Rebel, and was wondering if anyone has considered making a variation which fits into the Intellijel 1U ecosystem, or if this would be possible/practical to DIY?

There is documentation from Intellijel that the USB-B port on the Palette and 7U cases just expose the pins of the USB jack directly, so it seems like it should be possible to save some space by omitting the jack on a 1U module and just using the jack on the case.

Looking at the Intellijel 1U Spec and the Doepfer spec, I guess it would depend on the specifics of the AC/DC PDB if it would fit in 1U directly with a different panel, but I’d guess not? (6U has ~30mm width, but the 1U PCB can only be 22.5mm wide)

Am I the only one wanting something like this?

#2

This seems rather unlikely, because Xibeca (the digital board behind the module) is pretty much taking full width. You can’t get away with just using a narrow panel here. So it would require a significant redesign to rotate it 90 degrees and then it would become a very deep module.

But lets hear what Manu from @Befaco has to say about this.

#3

Ah interesting, I didn’t realize there was a platform board invovled…
Looks like info is here? https://github.com/RebelTechnology/OpenWareLab/blob/master/XibecaDevKit/Xibeca%20Overview.pdf

Rotating 90 degrees wouldn’t be terrible - you’d have 30mm depth just for the board, but it might still be possible to structure something with the remaining centimeter that the palette allows. Interesting design challenge, for sure.

edit - just noticed that the board supports 6 in / 8 out, which might make it even more compelling to sort out the depth (if there were jacks / analog interfaces for all of the i/o)

#4

Yes, the devkit exposes all audio channels from the codec that Xibeca uses. But keep in mind that you can’t have more than 4 channels of audio IO with this USB peripheral, at least that was the case the last time we’ve discussed this with Martin.

#5

We have been dreaming about this… but as @antisvin states, Xibeca size does matter.

My approach to this would be to re-use main board from a DIY build, with Xibeca platform, stick it at a safe place inside your case, then wire to a 1 u frontend.
You could have USB wired to your 1u case connector (if available) then have the jacks and pots visible in a 1u panel.

Of course, all this is hardcore DIY shenanigans :slight_smile:

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