Index

Articles

Zodiak Mini-Modular

	I bought the 19" rack from e-bay for £10, and this included a couple of second panels. The rack was designed to have panels fitted front and back so it had two sets of runners. I didn't need it that deep and only wanted to have panels on the front so I got it chopped in half, which gives me the rack shown opposite. The remainder was almost a second complete rack, I just needed the 19" rack mounting ears, and as the result of a chance conversation somebody gave me a pair, so that's two 19", twin height, racks that could even take Doepfer modules all for £10. Which isn't bad!
	The plan was to use one of the supplied panels for my SoundLab, there were some odd cutouts that would need sorting out, but it was just the right size for what I wanted. I decided on a fixed matrix for the controls, and drilled the holes out as shown opposite, The big holes were drilled for a variable resistor but can easily be opened up for a jack socket. The bottom holes can take either 4mm bannana plugs or 3.5 Jack sockets, which was handy as I still hadn't decide which I was going to use at that point.
	To make adjustment, repairs and modifications simple I wanted to be able to remove the soundlab from the rack as a single unit. This meant the PCB would need to be fixed to the front panel. I like PCBs mounted vertically, to minimise the chances of them warping over time, and it actually reduces strain on the tracks. The holes in the PCB were never going to line up with the front panel and so I decided to use a sub-frame, see opposite, The 4mm bolts supporting the subframe are countersunk into the front panel and along with the lower nuts are held in place with araldite so they shouldn't move. The PCB is held on the sub-frame by nylon mounting posts which allow me to remove it without undoing any nuts
	Next step was to get rid of the cutouts. I still wanted to use that space so they had to be repaired, not just filled. I was going to use fine grain milliput to fill the hole, but this would need something strong behind it to support the actual components, so I settled on a length of 30mm aluminum angle. This was partially held in place by the other components and was also going to be glued. I first came across this approach in Practical Electronics many years ago. It was an article to re-cycle old die-cast boxes by filling in the holes with car body filler, rubbing them down and re-painting. I used this many times in my student days. No box was ever thrown away and some were re-cycled more than once. I still have a fuzz box made this way.
	The final step was to glue a fine sheet of plasticard over the panel This covers up the mounting screws and repairs plus gives a much nicer surface for painting. At this point the nex stage was to decide what colour!