OLED display for Elektron Mk1 Analog devices (Four, Heat, Keys, Rytm)

Ooooh. That green looks nice!

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Hey, on ebay there only seem to be yellow ones, are there any of the blue or white ones available? Thanks

Green looks dope! :alien:

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Probably not. Some panel units might be, some might not. These specific size/interface units are manufactured by a few manufacturers.
I ordered these units from China which were readily available (to me as a private individual) and then on arrival I just tested each display myself.

Currently I only have one green display left.
And two more empty boards without OLED panels…
So yesterday I ordered 1x blue/turquoise, 2x green, 2x yellow OLED panels.
Probably will take a week or two to arrive.

The white one does not seem as bright & nice as the yellow one to my eyes, so I did not bother ordering white one.

I can order the white OLED panel, it just takes time to arrive.

Responsiveness

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This looks really great,
I would get a couple of them but installing it would be a problem.

And it just crossed my mind having the option to share the screen with a PC, would that be technologically feasible at all?

Cannot directly help much with installation, unless You happen to be in Latvia with Your devices.

What use case are You thinking of, regarding screen sharing with PC?

It can, theoretically.
Though that would be a significant amount of work to do that sensibly & make it usable SW-wise (both on the OLED board & PC side).

HW-wise - You would need to somehow manoeuvre/route a data cable out of enclosure.

Before there even was an OLED, there was a try at what You asked about.

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Any idea how hard would it be to make a similar converter for the the machinedrum & monomachine or if it’d even be possible?

It should be possible. It has 128x64 display, only double the pixels compared to this one (128x32), is that right?

Though, it is not significantly easier than designing the first one:
the mechanical dimensions, LCD controller, OLED controller most likely will be all different.
So there is not much reuse of existing work for it to be less time consuming.

I am doubtful that it would pay back for me to do all the work.
Though, I might be wrong if there is enough/significant interest, and there exists an OLED with the right size & resolution that fits, I could design a module for those instruments as well.
Anyone else interested in OLED replacement module for Machinedrum, Monomachine, or Octatrack Mk1?

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After looking into it a few months ago, there has been demand for replacement screens for a long time for the Machinedrum, Monomachine, and Octatrack MK1 & people doing the mod (they all use the same display type (KS0108), but possibly different voltage? not sure).:

A while (5-10 years ago) others were able to get their hands on VFDs (vacuum fluorescent display) that use the same form factor & display protocol (KS0108). VFD is very similar to OLED in ghosting, contrast, and brightness.

Unfortunately, I contacted the manufacturer of these displays late last year and they have unfortunately skyrocketed in price ($350+) since these posts making them cost prohibitive.

For reference, these pre-modified VFDs used to be sold for sale online for a little under $300 here and other places:

Here also another guy that has made and is selling higher quality LCD panels, but they are still LCD.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/155660572471?itmmeta=01HPHHXDHB5WHVK63GG390H5SV&hash=item243e17d737:g:HAMAAOSwUXFkxicy

You can see pretty clearly here his white panels are in fact LCD:

Currently I think most people default to using these KS0108 displays as they are cheapest right now but they all are still just LCD panels with bad viewing angles & ghosting:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/291836099801

Anyways, some info on the demand if you’re curious. I imagine designing a niche product like this is a big time commitment. But I think there would be a small market for it.

jw, thanks for sharing that info on VFDs and other offerings.
Not sure though, that it represents the current actual demand well… Maybe all those who wanted to upgrade, have already bought VFDs, and those who didn’t, won’t do it now and go for OLEDs anyway.

I had a bit of a look at it anyway, and the most appropriate screen that seems to be the only real option, is a 2.7" one, which is a tad smaller compared to the original 2.9" one.

Comparison of 2.9" LCD to 2.7" OLED (to a relative scale of one another now!)
height comparison:

and width comparison:

But I think that is around the same kind of size decrease that I had with the AK/A4/AR/AH original to a 2.23" OLED display.

Cannot promise anything yet, but possibly next month I can have a bit of a more detailed look at this.

What I can immediately say is, that the 2.7" screen is 20€ more expensive than the 2.23" one.
(Another option was 2.4", which costs just 10€ more compared to the 2.23").
And according to panelook.com there just aren’t any other 2:1 aspect ratio PMOLED displays between 2.4" and 3.2" sizes.
So I guess, I the price of such an OLED replacement unit for MM/MD/OT would reflect bump of 20€ at least. Let’s say 30€.

Does that (150€ + shipping) still sound reasonable to anyone?

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Another thread, maybe?

Yeah it might not hurt to make another thread to gauge interest. The price sounds reasonable to me, but like you said who know what the demand would be in reality. I’m obviously pretty biased as someone looking for an OLED solution haha!

is the photo above the size comparison of the original 2.9inch lcd vs the 2.7inch oled panel?

yes, that is exactly that.

Ah i see it took me a moment to realize they are not to scale.

Beautiful

Hey man! Really great work, any chance you will decide to sell more of these screens in near future?