The board nobody drew | FireFlow Journal

3 Oct 2026

Rev A is a file now, and a quote says what it costs

Since the coupon answered, the real board has gone from a sentence to a set of fab files. Rev A is one 300.8 × 110 mm, four-layer board: seventy pots, eighteen jacks, four keys and nineteen LEDs on the front, the Patch Submodule plugged into the back. Nobody drew it. A script writes the schematic, another places the parts, our own router laid 187 nets in under four minutes, and the order package comes out in eight seconds. The acrylic plate and one set of panel parts were ordered on 2 Oct; the board waits for the grip test.

A render of the long dark green Rev A board seen from the front. Rows of gold through-hole pads outlined in white fill the field in staggered groups, one footprint for each pot, with a row of jack footprints along the bottom edge and nineteen red discs scattered among them. Thin copper tracks thread between the groups.

The same board from the back. The gold pads show through, and small black chips sit in scattered groups among tiny resistors and capacitors. Two side-by-side sockets sit in the middle where the Patch Submodule plugs in, and a larger block of power parts sits towards the right end.

The firmware moved first. Today the coupon ran Rev A's scan code and passed three of four checks: pots reach both stops, five key presses count five, an LED lights while the key is held. The fourth wants two jumper wires I did not have, so it moves to bring-up. Then JLC's placement preview, from a quote, no order placed, showed that the first placement file would have turned all sixteen logic chips 90° across their pads, and both diodes backwards. Fixed, and checked in the same preview, before any money moves.

Money so far, roughly: Thonk £179 for one set of panel parts, import VAT still to come; the plate 28 €; and JLC quotes $78.25 for five assembled boards ($45.40 bare, $32.85 assembly), shipping about $27–33 on top. Ca. £179 + 28 € + $105–111, which at early-October rates (1 £ ≈ 1.17 €, 1 $ ≈ 0.87 €) comes to roughly 330 € so far, before the import VAT on the Thonk parcel.

7 Oct 2026

I blew it

The acrylic plate and the Thonk parcel came today. Pots, knobs, jacks and washers in little bags all over the desk, and the plate drops into the case as planned. Then I put the knobs on.

A wooden desk in low sun by a window with two potted plants on the sill. On the desk lies a long pale grey acrylic plate full of round holes; its left third carries rows of green knobs on pots and a line of jacks along the bottom edge. Around it lie open plastic bags of washers, nuts, red LEDs, orange and dark blue knob caps, black push buttons and a bag of pots. — the parcel, opened all at once

The grey acrylic plate on the desk at a low angle in bright sun. Its left part is packed with green knobs, tall narrow caps and wider fluted ones standing in tight rows, with a single dark blue knob at the end and a row of jack nuts along the bottom. The rest of the plate is empty holes. Bags of washers and push buttons lie in the foreground. — the left third, knobbed

A wooden eurorack case with its lid open. In the upper row the long grey acrylic plate sits in the rails, its left half fitted with green knobs and a row of jacks, the right half still bare holes. Below it sit black and gold modules with white and black knobs. — it fits the case, which was never the question

Where two rows of pots sit close under each other, there is no room for fingers. The knobs turn, but only by pinching them from above and squeezing between the neighbours. That is fiddly, and an instrument you play cannot be fiddly.

A close-up from above: a thumb and finger pinch a small green knob on the grey acrylic plate. The knobs around it, tall narrow ones and wider fluted ones, stand so close that the fingertips touch them too. Sun throws long knob shadows across the plate. — the grip test, failed

So: a new layout, and since every pot on the board sits under a hole in the plate, a new board too. Placement, routing, order package, nearly everything this chapter just finished. The scripts can place and route it again, but it still feels like starting over, and my motivation is not great today.

The one good thing is the order I did it in. The plate cost 28 € and was bought to find exactly this before the real panel and five boards were ordered. It found it.

9 Oct 2026

Nine millimetres of elbow room

Two days ago the plate said no. It now gets a second chance, and so do my fingers.

Every control stands on a fixed raster now. The tightest gap between two knob caps went from 5.3 mm to 9.7 mm, which is the difference between pinching and turning. 73 knob positions, three of them a hole with nothing behind it yet, kept for later, and 15 lamps instead of 19.

The dark 60 HP hardware panel rendered by VCV Rack after the re-layout. Mint-green knobs fill deck A on the left, orange knobs mirror them on deck B on the right, and a pale blue column runs down the centre with a small rectangular window near the bottom. The knobs now stand in even rows and columns with clear space between neighbours, grouped in softly lit fields labelled SEQUENCE, MOTION, VOICE, PITCH, FLUX, LEVEL, TIMING and ROOM. A row of jacks runs along the bottom edge. — the new layout, as Rack draws it

The board followed within a day. Nobody drew the first one, so nobody had to redraw this one: the scripts placed it again and the router laid it again. The second plate is ordered, 24.77 €, in 2 mm instead of 3 because clear 3 mm was sold out. 2 mm is what the aluminium panel will be anyway, so the knobs sit at their real height this time.

And I am writing software again, which beats staring at acrylic. The knob logic moves out of the Rack plugin into code that the plugin and the firmware both run. A knob in Rack and the same knob on the board will do the same thing, because they are the same lines.

13 Oct 2026

Room for a whole hand

The second plate is here. Clear, 2 mm, and this time the knobs went on and my fingers came out unbruised.

The test is the same boring one as last week: reach in, turn one knob, leave its neighbours alone. It passes everywhere. A flat hand now fits between two rows, which a week ago would have been a magic trick.

The parts held up too. Since the Thonk order went out I have squeezed three more pots onto the board, the kind of thing you do when nobody is counting. The bag was packed for fewer, and it still has enough. I counted twice.

The boards are ordered too, 128.22 € with DHL Express. That leaves one part missing: the SD card slot, which has been sold out everywhere I look for weeks. Seventy-odd pots, no problem. One tiny metal slot, nowhere to be found.

13 Oct 2026

The real panel is ordered

The aluminium plate is ordered, two months ahead of plan: 2 mm, black anodised, UV-printed, from Schaeffer. About 140 € with shipping, here around 23 Oct.

On screen the fields are washes only a few shades off the plate. In ink they would vanish, so the print runs them three times stronger, picked from five previews, and covers the whole plate instead of leaving bare anodise between the fields.

A flat rendering of the long dark panel print with every hole drawn as a black disc. Rounded fields hold the knob rows under small labels like SEQUENCE, MOTION, VOICE, PITCH, FLUX and LEVEL, a faint green-grey on the left, a faint brown-grey on the right and a dark grey column in the centre, all barely lighter than the plate around them. — the fields as Rack draws them

The same panel print with the field tints three times as strong: the left fields now a clear muted teal, the right ones a warm brown, the centre column a slate grey, each field standing out plainly from the near-black plate. — and as the plate gets them, three times stronger

Whether three is right, the plate will say. That is what the acrylic was for too.

And since this is probably the last big order, what the hardware has cost so far:

Daisy Patch Submodule: about 40 €
the coupon, boards, parts and pots: about 55 €
Thonk panel parts: about 205–215 €
two acrylic plates: 53 €
five Rev A boards, assembled: 128 €
the aluminium plate: about 140 €

About 620–630 €. The import VAT and FedEx fee for the Thonk parcel have not been charged yet, maybe 40–55 € more. Not counted: the Daisy Seed, the programmer, tools. If the boards come up as they should, that is it.

21 Oct 2026

Nerd? We prefer the term intellectual badass

The aluminium plate came today, two days early. Black, 2 mm, printed, and it sits in the case where the acrylic used to.

Schaeffer packed two extras. A sticker of a cat that is DEAD & ALIVE, and a bag of gummy bears that says "Nerd? We prefer the term intellectual badass." Fair. The bears were dead and alive too, for as long as the bag stayed shut. Then I looked. They saved the day, and they did not survive it.

A wooden desk by a window with potted plants on the sill. A black aluminium panel full of round holes leans in a wooden case, its dark grey fields marked with small white labels, a cat sticker on its right end. In front of it lie the green-and-orange coupon board and a spread of little plastic bags: orange, green and blue knob caps, a big bag of green pots, jacks, nuts and washers. On top of them sits a black bag of gummy bears printed in white: NERD? WE PREFER THE TERM INTELLECTUAL BADASS! — the plate, the parts, and the bonus

And then the boards came too, three days early. JLC did the small parts on the back; the seventy pots, the jacks and the keys are mine. Seven pots and a key sit in their holes unsoldered, a dry fit: do they need the washers, and does everything come up to the same height under the plate?

A bare dark green Rev A board lying on red bubble wrap, its face covered in rows of empty pot footprints and thin tracks. Along its top edge stand seven pots and one small black key with a green cap, pushed into their holes without solder. Behind it, propped up on more bubble wrap, lies the black aluminium plate, the red wrap glowing through its holes and its grey fields labelled in small white type. — Rev A meets the plate it was drawn for

The weekend starts now.