Haha, nice, I got my order in before posting.
For those still interested, I noticed Teleos Modular listed more for sale today. I’m not affiliated with his shop, but I’ve picked up a few things from him and he’s a really cool guy. The build quality of the expander is excellent, technically and asthetically.
thx for the ups 
still have five built expanders available if anyone is interested & i can sell for $140 shipped in the US if bought direct instead of via Reverb. send me a message or email if you want one!
VC expansion header install failed - that or the module is bad. Took my time, but having a heck of a time getting the contacts hot enough to get the solder flowing. Using a Hakko digital soldering station at 700F with Kester 245 63/37 no-clean solder.
On a brighter note, I modded my ER-301 Rev 7 so that it could talk I2C to my F8R faderbank. I thought that would be harder - had to solder a resistor lead to bypass an SMT diode. But the VC header is proving to be more difficult.
Repeat after me - You love to solder, you are a worthy, patient person who loves to solder. I don’t think the affirmation is working. 
I don’t have any direct help with the actual issue, but when troubleshooting something like this, it’s a good idea to keep your signal chain as minimal as possible. Forget about the Color Chords for now. Instead test straight with “Prismatic Ray → Memory Palace” and “Prismatic Ray → Visual Cortext & Expander → Memory Palace” (and make the VC Expander → MP connection just be a single channel, not all three).
Doing that reduces the variables and reduces the likelihood of accidentally connecting something wrong or forgetting to connect something. (And makes it easier for other people to help you out for the same reasons.)
Did you build the Expander yourself or did you just solder the 6 pin header to your VC?
I don’t have a VC but I’ve seen the drawing for the expander module. Maybe your 6-pin header is flipped 180 degrees. Three of the pins are RGB luma and three are ground so it is possible that luma and ground are all switched.
Lets have a look at your 6-pin ribbon cable between the VC and Expander.
Yes, that is good advice. I was only using the Color Chords to demonstrate that the Memory Palace 1V RGB inputs were working, to rule the Memory Palace out as the issue.
The Visual Cortex does not have front panel 1V outs (like the Color Chords), but does have them on the circuit board. That’s what the 3rd party expander is for, though it requires the soldering of a header on the VC board for a ribbon cable to the expander.
But I can test one at a time, but even if one of them were working and the others weren’t, I would expect some change of output on the display.
I didn’t build the expander or the ribbon cable, but I did solder the header. My hunch is that is where the problem lies.
I can hook it up to a scope and see if there is output from each channel.
Thanks for your help!
I bought the module prebuilt from the creator in one of the first batches over a year ago, but only got around to soldering the header this weekend when redoing my cases. He also provided the cable (and header)
I was careful to lineup the little triangle on the header with the R channel, so the indentation in the shrouded header is facing outward in this case.
I’ll pull it out again tomorrow and take a look at it and get some photos.
Thanks for your help!
Hola @northerntao Josh, I’m very very sorry for the problems you are facing, its very weird but possible that the module I sent you is broken. I personally tested each “built” module for at least 30mins on my Cortex, precisely to avoid all these problems with all the people that got the expander. I wanted to avoid hassles to ship it back etc.
Anyway can you please take out the module and send some hires pictures to my mail hadesbox at gmail (or post them here for other future users, whatever you prefer) of solder joints on the expander header in the VCortex and also of the module (both sides) to see if there is any obvious soldering problem on the module?
If you want to ship the module back its also an option so I can check it out whatever you prefer.
If you want to test the expander “standalone” without the cortex, and you can do simple soldering I recommend you building this board with 3 minijacks and a 3x2 header for testing the module. Its a super simple board that I built for testing each Expander before actually plugin it to my system, with it you can directly input 3 signals and test the three channel attenuations to discard if there is a problem with the module.
I just remembered another user that had similar problems, and it was because I shipped him a “too short” cable and when he plugged the expander and put it back to its case, the header cable was unplugged by all the wiggling of the module during the module installation on his case.
The cable should be just enough to connect it, the very first cables I made were super short to avoid noise because the longer an unshielded cable, its more probable it becomes antenna for noise.
Hey @luix! Thanks for the response! I’ve had a busy week with work and life so I haven’t had a chance to look at this again. Hopefully tonight.
The case its in is kinda cramped with cables so it may be the cable is loose. I’ll try that first. If not I’ll try removing and redoing the solder joints with a bit more heat on my iron. It took a lot longer than I’m used to to get the solder to melt.
@luix - typing this on a phone and this forum editor hides the typing after a couple paragraphs.
So I’ll try that and maybe a different solder and flux. I’m using the no-clean Kester solder which has worked fine for me in the past, but I’m not a big DIYer.
If that doesn’t work I’ll let you know. I have some breadboard and various components laying around.
I know its been a long time since you shipped the module - I appreciate your help after all this time
@luix Hey Luix! By any chance, do you still got any VC Expander PCB + Panel available? I’m looking for one. Thanks!
I have the kit, but not the 6-pin header for the back of the Visual Cortex. I keep buying headers but the pin spacing doesn’t match the points on the back of the Visual Cortex. What spacing am I looking for? 3mm? 2.54mm? 2mm? Maybe some LZX folks can advise.
Here’s an extract from the BOM - quoting Mouser part numbers for 2.54mm spacing header
| Type | Value/Description | Qty | Part Number | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pin Header | 2x3 PIN HEADER | 2 | 710-61200621621 | Expander connector |
| Pin Header | IDC 2x3 connector | 2 | 649-71600-006LF | ribbon cable connector for expander |
10 pcs. 2.54mm 2x3 Pin 6 Pin Straight Male Shrouded PCB Box Header IDC Socket Amazon.com
Any standard 2.54mm double pin header should work, then you just strip it to 2x3.
