Revisiting the High Current Card

When we introduced the HC64 (High Current 64 Pin Input/Output) board, we were making an alternative product that solves a number of problems: operating voltage range, current draw, and power management. Thanks to good feedback from our users, today we are announcing that we are breaking the product up into three sub-products:

1. H64 - as low as 4 ohms per pin, up to 23 volts power. This card is ideal for most unit instruments and most direct electric installations. This card is only available in positive polarity (red card).

2. HV64 - as low as 15 ohms per coil at up to 50V. This card is good for sites with high voltage requirements. Voltage regulators, FETs, and all supporting circuitry are beefed up to support higher voltages. This card is only available in positive polarity (red card).

3. HC64 - this is the card we have been shipping, slightly modified. This card is now rated for up to 23 volts DC, as low as 3 ohms (at 23 volts) and 2 ohms at 14 volts. This card is available in both polarities (red for positive, black for negative). This is the card most appropriate for slider motor control, LED light loads, and other potentially high current applications.

All three variants of the board have the active on-board power management, passive power protection, and full input circuitry, making them proper IO cards. These boards are fully compatible with all Opus-Two controllers of any age, and are all available now. The HV64 and negative polarity HC64 are built to order, but the H64 and HC64 are in stock, available today.

The new C/A is here. And it looks just like the old one.

Because that’s how it’s supposed to work. The entire C/A engine has been overhauled, gutted, and rebuilt to be more efficient. Every cycle, all pressed pistons are processed. Every single defined piston gets an individual debounce timer dedicated to it, which ensures that the instrument responds instantly no matter what the musician presses. But from the outside, it looks exactly the same. It’s quite likely that you will notice it being faster than the old one (right under your fingers), but nothing else should stick out and be obvious.

A number of features have been rolled into the toolset, and in no particular order, they are:

• Individual piston debounces

• Individual coil timers (every coil times out independently)

• Now unlimited number of piston processes per cycle (this is mostly for the Theater Organ clients)

• Reactive CA engine (only moves what it needs to based upon the sum of all pistons pressed)

• Predictive Stop Activation (the moment the pistons are processed, the stop changes are sent to the chamber - before the controls even begin motion)

• Sequencer is now an internal part of the CA engine

• Support an unlimited number of mask modifiers (Pedal combs on divisionals, for example, means that a separate memory space is created for those divisionals, not re-using the pedal divisionals) - this is for Travis.

• Reversibles no longer tie up the CA engine (they kick the coils and go away)

• CA action time is significantly (50%) improved

Further improvements continue in the pipe processing modules, making this the fastest toolset we have ever shipped. We also believe that every previously reported bug has been corrected, and are declaring this a stable version, releasing to our builders. It will be available on the firmware page today.

New Firmware Available (again!)

Building upon the February 1st software release, 030321 puts VFD and LCD flicker in the rear view mirror. But the biggest differences are under the hood:

-With no need to change the config files, the index points of the keyboards are aligned throughout the entire system. This doesn’t affect the installer or user, but it provides a huge boost in efficiency, especially in 4+ manual sites with multiple floating divisions.

-Massive internal overhauls to GIO, all designed to make things way faster. Again, this shouldn’t be noticeable on the outside, but some site run times will get significantly faster.

-Controller Timing View now available on the home screen of the terminal.

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We’re already working on the next version that shouldn't be too far behind, and that overhauls the C/A engine, makes Travis’s features available to everyone, and more. Stuck pistons and piston press limits will very soon be a thing of the past. This upcoming update is already in beta, and as soon as its field testing is finished, it will be released.

New Firmware Now Available (2/1/2021)

A new version of CVE firmware is now available (CVA to follow soon)!

The latest version fixed the following known bugs:

1) A rare circumstance where the transposer can produce low notes in the pedal keying.
2) Display flicker on startup.
3) Data Injector jumps values when changing card or chamber.
4) CVA Port #3 didn’t transmit data in some applications.

The following new features are complete and working:

1) xMIDI
2) Refined terminal home screen, adding RibFlex Loader, Ethernet Setup, Controller Timing View, Keystrip Setup, and more.

The following new features are not complete and should not be used without consulting support:

1) Multi Channel DMA transmit

As always, the software will be available to download on the dealer firmware page.

Wrapping up OSC (for now)

OSC support is essentially complete. Features (in no particular order):

• Support for remote button labeling, division labeling, and tab labeling. This means that the exact same TouchOSC iPad layout can be used at every project, and the controller will “fill in the blanks.”

• OSC Button combination action allows the tuner to have “presets” for commonly accessed items. This is completely independent of the console combination action.

• Magic Tuner, Sostenuto, and all other legacy features properly supported.

• Multiple subscribing devices can be connected at once (one can be adjusting swell shades while another is tuning and another is adjusting User Variables).

• Full sequencer remote control is supported.

We are providing a TouchOSC layout to interested clients as well as step-by-step instructions for getting everything up and running.