Showing posts with label A-197-2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A-197-2. Show all posts

Monday, December 17, 2012

Doepfer A-197-2 / Velleman VPS10 Oscilloscope Kit

In the early days of the A-100, Doepfer also sold the A-197-2 LCD Oscilloscope Front Panel Kit.

This kit is no longer available, and was not a module manufactured by Doepfer but only a 34HP wide front panel kit to mount the one-channel Velleman Panelscope VPS10 LCD Oscilloscope into an A-100 frame.
The kit consisted of the plain front panel (punched for VPS10, without printing), an A-180 Multiples PC board (mounted crosswise below the scope) and all wires necessary to connect the VPS10 to the A-100 bus (power supply) and the A-180 board (signal input). 

A-197-2 Kit with Velleman VPS10 Oscilloscope
installed plus manual and mounting screws
The connecting lines between the sockets were made with black, waterproof felt pen. 
A little bit of mechanical skills and soldering was necessary to put this all together. 
Three wires had to be soldered to the VPS10 (GND, +12V, signal). 
One hole had to be drilled into the plastic case of the VPS10 for the passage of the wires, and the VPS10 had to be mounted to the front panel with 4 screws and nuts. 
A detailed mounting and soldering description was added to the panel kit. 

A-197-2 Kit with Velleman VPS10
Oscilloscope installed
No special measuring cable (BNC - 3.5 mm jack) was necessary as the four right sockets were internally connected to the VPS BNC input (the BNC input was connected to the right four sockets of the A-180 board) . 
The four left sockets built a second multiple without connection to the VPS10 (same as A-180).

It was also possible to run the VPS10 with an external power supply to save the "high quality" current/voltage of the A-100 bus. 
The VPS10 did not require an exactly adjusted and highly stabilized supply voltage.

Back-side of the A-197-2 Kit with Velleman VPS10
Oscilloscope installed
So... Why did Doepfer offer only the front panel kit ?
Doepfer mentioned on their website: " We do not get a better price for the VPS10 than a normal end user but have to take on the warranty and to calculate the dealers rebate into the final price.
I.e. we have to add at least the dealers rebate and the handling charges to the VPS10 price to obtain a zero profit !
This would extremely increase the price of the module and we think that this is not in the sense of the customers."

You can find the full description and support files for the Vellemann VPS10 HERE
The assembly and wiring manual is available for download from the Doepfer website: A197_2_man.pdf

The price of the A-197-2 was 40 Euro (only for the front panel kit, the VPS10 had to be ordered seperately by the customer e.g. from an electronic shop for almost 200 Euros)

Remark: We are not responsible for the features of the VPS10. 
Mounting/wiring the VPS10 may affect the warranty. 

Pictures via MATRIXSYNTH

Friday, July 01, 2011

Discontinued A-100 Modules

Good things come and good things go...
There are many different reasons for manufacturers to stop producing certain modules.
Sadly for some people, some components of a few Doepfer modules aren't available anymore.
Some of the special circuits ( or IC's) in the modules have become scarce, or not available at all ( like the original knobs ) , and that has been a reason for Doepfer to discontinue the production of some of these modules.

Another reason to stop producing certain modules is because they just don't or didn't sell... maybe just because they are not very useful (anymore) or they disappeared when newer modules appeared with (almost) the same function(s).

Soon a collector's item?
An overview ( updated February 2012 ) :

A-111 High End VCO  As the special circuit CEM3340 used in this module is no longer available the module has to be discontinued.
/ Sale while stocks last.

A-121 Multimode Filter As the special circuit CEM3320 used in this module is no longer available the module has to be discontinued soon.
/ Sale while stocks last (only 20 left in Januari 2012)
Doepfer recommends the A-106-6 XP VCF, that is based on the filter circuit of the Oberheim Xpander, as a replacement module.

...the A-101-9 Universal Vactrol Controller is the latest addition to the running out/ sale while stock lasts list... more info on this later

The A-111-5 Mini Synth Voice (and the Dark Energy) will also be discontinued because of CEM3394 chip running out... Stock is still available.
More info on this HERE

The following Doepfer modules are not available anymore:

A-123 24dB High Pass was discontinued at the time by poor sales, and the special circuit CEM3320 used in this module is no longer available.

...and another one...
A-126 Frequency Shifter Because the special circuit CEM3382 used in the internal quadrature VCO of the A-126 is no longer available Doepfer had stop the production of this module too.
But they are about to plan a succeeding model ( A-126-2 ) without internal VCO. The advantage of this solution is that even frequencies below 50Hz are available for special beat effects based of frequency shifting at low frequencies.

A-138x Mix Expander - Because of the poor inquiries the production of this module had been stopped too.

A-139 Headphone Amplifier, a 2-channel headphone amplifier with 2 audio inputs (3.5 mm jack sockets) and level controls, common loudness/master level control, 2 headphone outputs (stereo 1/4" jack sockets) - no longer available

A-177 External Foot Controller is now replaced by the A-177-2, a more economical replacement with a little less control (without LEDs and without scale controls), but with almost the same functions.

A-179 Light Controlled Voltage Source is also no longer available as the special circuit CEM3320 used in this module is no longer available. That is why this module also had to be discontinued.

A-191 MIDI-to-CV Interface / Shepard Generator no longer available

A-197 Analog Meter no longer available ( i personally never really expected an analog meter to be very useful, and i guess i wasn't the only one )

A-197-2 Oscilloscope kit no longer available -
I am still looking for an affordable oscilloscope though. I was thinking about something like a MFB VD-01 Videoscope, but sadly there's no budget at the moment...

Latest update: A-188-1Y BBD Module (256 stages) is also on sale while stocks last


Curious what chip is inside your synthesizer?
Check http://synthtech.com/cems.html and
http://sequencer.de/synth/index.php/Chips_in_Synthesizers