I have intended to get a MIDIpal for a while now, but was put off by the surface-mount soldering involved. I finally bit the bullet and ordered one and built it over the last few evenings.
The MIDIpal is a tiny MIDI processor, which can serve as an arpeggiator, a simple step sequencer and delay, among other functions. It is Open Source hardware and available as a kit from Mutable Instruments.
This was my first experience of surface-mount soldering and it actually turned out easier than expected, though I applied too much solder to the ATMega328p MCU, resulting in a short between VCC and ground. Solder wick fixed the short, but left rather a lot of burnt flux behind. As for the resistors, LEDs, diodes and capacitors - soldering was actually quicker than with through-hole parts.
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| The completed MIDIpal in it's transparent case. Despite the mess around the MCU, it works! |
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| Uploading the firmware using a USBtiny ISP. |
I'll post a video once I have had a chance to play with it.
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