DIY Bill of Materials

Forum DIY
#1

Helloo, the topics on these are a little outdated so I decided to start a new Topic. The DIYs for Cadet and Castle are what this topic is about. I tried looking at some of the vendors and some have been closed for a time (hence a new topic). Anyway, can someone help me look at this? I have a few questions about it…

  1. why -0
  2. why dnp
  3. erthenvar is closed I don’t know where to get a 16 Pin IDC EuroRack Power Cable. Tiptop audio has 16 to 16 pin Eurorack power cable Item # EuroPC16-16…this replacement any good?
  4. How do I look up the item based on the Bill of Materials? Is it based on the reference designators like j5 or j7? I’m tring to get a 16 Pin Shrouded Male Headers IDC (p/n is idcmh16)…

These questions are all for now, I’m gonna try to figure out the rest on my own. Any newbies can freely use this topic on their own. (I’m no comment about hardware building I’ve done in the past… totally different format…good luck though!).

Thats it! Thats all…good luck

Junglist7

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#2
  1. 0 indicates a 0ohm resistor, or simple jumper wire. There are many reasons why an engineer might put this in a schematic. These could be typically used as points for measuring, or could be swapped with different resistances to create gain or attenuation.
  2. DNP means do not populate or do not place. I add these in all of my schematics for use with mods or alternate functions. a few examples include a resistor for different gain or an alternate resistor to alter the curve of a potentiometer. I even place them across comparators in case I need to add hysteresis during the testing phase.
  3. I make my own. Ribbon cable by-the-foot is cheap and so are crimping cable ends.
  4. j5 and j7 are arbitrary names which you will locate on the pcb. To find the actual part online, search for the Manufacturer P/N or Vendor P/N, such as “660-MF1/4DCT52R4991F” which will give you the exact part on mouser. Most of the parts can be found from other retailers. You don’t need to get the “16 Pin Shrouded Male Headers IDC” from Futurlec. You can get these anywhere. 16 Pin Box Header Connector 2.54mm

Also worth noting is that only a couple of the cadet/castle modules need all 16-pins on the ribbon cable. Very few in fact. If you see that the extra pins are not connected on the schematics, then you can actually choose to use a 10-pin to 16-pin ribbon cable as well as a 10-pin (2x5) male pin header instead of a shrouded connector.

EDIT: Where do you see “-0”?
EDIT2: Ok, I found the -0 in several of the castle module BOMs. That is just missing information.

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#3

Great! Thanks for your help.

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#4

Yes, this cable from Tiptop audio will do perfectly fine but generally cables like this are very over priced so @Fox’s suggestion of buying the cable, the 10 & 16 socket connectors & the crimping tool is spot on :+1:t3:
If you’re already building the modules, why not the cables aswell, right?

Best of luck with your builds. Take your time, don’t rush as it leads to mistakes and enjoy it :grinning:

#5

This touches on an idea I’ve had for a few weeks, and will probably try out in the coming days when I shuffle Cadets around my case…
Since a bunch of Cadets side by side in a Rackbrute case is a bit tight for running power cables, I’m planning to make custom cables with one cable having 2 or 3 plugs to piggyback across modules - reducing the amount of cables and decluttering the case.
Next step will be 14 pin sync cut to length, so there’s less clutter again

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#6

Do it, you won’t regret it. I made my own 14-pin ribbon and it’s great.

To crimp them, I use my PanaVise. You can break them if you try to crimp them with pliers unfortunately. I would prefer to use a crimping tool, but don’t have one.

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#7

For what it’s worth, if you don’t want to make them yourself, pre-made power cables are much cheaper through Thonk (and probably other DIY shops) than any of the brand-name modular manufacturers.

Still not as cheap as making them yourself, but not $5+ per cable.

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#8

I have one mega euro power ribbon cable with 14 sockets on it :wink:

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#9

You’re not worried about it melting? You’ve surely checked the tech spec of this type of cable, right?

#10

I only use it for smaller/lower power consumption modules… but maybe I should check, yes!

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#11

Great point to be considerate of each modules power consumption & plan accordingly! Some are definitely greedier or consume more modestly than others :grinning:

#12

Sometimes 0 ohm resistors are put as fuses too, so for safety reasons they make sense.

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