A modern reinvention of the MIDI router by Conductive Labs
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Quick Update on MRCC Development, Production Candidate PCBs Are Ready
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 12:06:20 AM
Hello Supporters! We've just received this photo from our manufacturing rep of the MRCC production candidate PCBs! Our manufacturing rep has the bill of materials and is acquiring all of the parts for test samples. We should have them assembled and some preliminary testing done in about 3 weeks, at which time we can provide a reasonably accurate schedule update.
MRCC Main and Mezzanine Production Candidate Circuit Boards
This is a big milestone! Testing will reveal what, if any tweaks will be required before going to full production. In the meantime, we're buying the longer lead time parts in quantity so we can keep things moving along once the final circuit boards are ready.
Once again, you have all been incredibly patient while waiting for MRCC. We really appreciate the great support, thank you so much!
Best regards,
Steve and Darryl
Finally an Update
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Aug 08, 2020 at 11:34:05 AM
We have struggled with this update because we’re really late and at the same time have been working our butts off. We hate making excuses, but thought that it might be worth letting everyone know some details.
The good news is we shipped over 1300 NDLRs this year. With Conductive Labs past the start-up phase we have measured confidence that our product roadmap of several super cool products beyond MRCC will happen! But with this small success comes managing more international shipping, delivering customer support, and coding bug fixes and tweaking features for FW updates. We're sure our NDLR customers will appreciate that. We have Jesse on board part time to help with the forums and is taking over more of the shipping support. In the meantime, Darryl has been very caught up in managing those deliveries and the business.
The MRCC was supposed to be a simpler than the NDLR device but it turns out that it is both a more formidable hardware design as well as a large FW effort. There are two densely populated PCBs, with a zillion buttons and connectors, plus a USB router and CPU subsystem. It’s crazy how much code it takes to create a multi-modal UI with LEDs, button-per-IO, display menuing system, such that no PC is required to configure all routings and feature options. Steve is back at the Labs after taking some social distancing time and it feels great to be co-located again. As much self-motivation that we have, Covid has certainly dampened things in ways we’ll only realizes in hindsight.
So where are we…
The PCBs are nearly complete, the enclosure design and tooling are done, the UI silk screen is done save a few alinement tweaks, and the FW is feature complete. We expect that we will be shipping in October, sooner if at all possible. Thank you for your patience and support.
Completed LED, Switch and Display PCB
Main PCB, Routing will be finished this week, then we'll send the gerbers to our manufacturer
Enclosure samples, USB C cable, and power supply with 2 of the 3 AC adapter attachments
Enclosure test using the MIDI expander with extra USB connectors for height testing
Hope you are all finding some time to enjoy the summer!
All the best,
Steve and Darryl
We Have the Metals
almost 4 years ago
– Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 12:23:16 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
MRCC update, making positive progress
almost 4 years ago
– Wed, Jun 03, 2020 at 11:53:56 PM
Hello wonderful backers. We've been locked in the basement working diligently on MRCC. Actually, Steve's working at home now, for social distancing and all. It has been slow going, and we are still aways from being ready for production, but there's lots of good news, which we all need more of these days.
Since the last update, we've completed the enclosure and end plate designs, had it reviewed by extrusion manufacturers, and received some quotes. We made some minor refinements and the enclosure design is now ready for extrusion tooling. We also had a circuit board made, which is both a device to add additional MIDI outputs, and a test board for the enclosure. We'll hand assemble a few of these for testing, to ensure a proper fit in the enclosure.
Test PCB for MRCC enclosure
It will look like this in the enclosure. This one without extra test sockets:
The circuit design is finally complete and production board layout for the main MRCC unit has begun.
This is called a "rats nest".
Board layout is expected to take about 3 weeks. Its going to go a little slow due to not having face to face time for reviews, or help from our ace layout mentor, but we'll manage. After that, we can expect about 4 to 5 weeks to get samples made and assembled. Followed by extensive testing, and making any required adjustments. This puts us about 10 weeks out. There is still much to do to make it a product, like box design, inner packaging, collaterals, and art work. This makes late July our target. We are very sorry for the wait, we are also very anxious to get MRCC out the door and in your studios but it has to be done right. We won't rush it or ship it before it's ready. You won't be sorry, it's going to be great!
On the firmware front, Steve has rejiggered the interface for port filtering, implemented the velocity cross-fading keyboard splits, and is pretty much settled on the overall user interaction model.
Here are some videos we made today looking at the user interface and some of the features.
Once again, thank you for your patience and sorry for the wait in getting this update out. We intend to provide updates no less than once a month, but we will be doing more as things rapidly start to come together over the next few weeks.
All the best,
Steve and Darryl
A couple of milestones to sahre
about 4 years ago
– Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 06:26:18 AM
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