Tindie

Name: 3340 VCO Kit - Eurorack Module - 4HP
SKU: 18670
Price: 75.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5.00 (3 reviews)

3340 VCO Kit - Eurorack Module - 4HP

(3 Reviews)

Slim, skiff friendly bare bones VCO, compatible with 3340 chips

Designed by Blinkenlights in United Kingdom

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BIG project on the way.. stay tuned.

Slim, skiff friendly bare bones VCO, compatible with 3340 chips

A high quality analogue VCO, with a pared-down circuit design comprised entirely of through-hole components. This kit contains everything you need to build the module: a panel, upper and lower PCBs...

4HP wide
4cm deep including the power plug (skiff friendly)
Supplied with AS3340 chip
High quality poly timing capacitor in box-style or radial package
Scale and High Frequency trimpots are accessible through the front panel, so you can tune the VCO while it's installed in your rack
Square, Ramp and Triangle wave outputs
Pulse Width control voltage input with attenuation control, plus Pulse Width knob
All through hole components
Bare - bones simple design

This module is designed around the amazing 3340 VCO chip. Its thin profile and shallow depth makes it perfect for a small performance rack, or a setup with multiple VCO modules. The module is compatible with the AS3340, CEM3340, or any clone chip with the same functionality and pin assignment.

3340 chips output each waveform at different amplitudes, and to reduce component count (decreasing size, and making the module quicker to assemble) this module does not level shift the waveforms to match one another. In my own experience, this doesn't make much difference to the functionality, because most patches will either only use one waveform from each VCO, or mix them together at customised levels via other modules. The module buffers all the outputs, because otherwise the 3340 chip will not work correctly.

The waveform output levels are:

ramp wave 0 - 8V

triangle wave 0 - 4V

square wave 0 - 10.7V

Rates to United States of America

Shipping Rate	Ships From	First item	Additional items
Royal Mail: Standard Ground Rate	GB	$8.00	$2.00

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (5.00)

Documentation: (5.00)

Shipping: (5.00)

Communication: (5.00)

Brad | Dec. 24, 2019

Quality kits, a rare sight these days.

Components painstakingly hand-labeled. Even single resistors have the tape left on and the value written there.
Well-written documentation, helpful photos for every step of the way.
No missing parts, no awkward substitutions.
Honestly for the prices he asks, I don't know how Blinkenlights does it!

The build went smoothly, took me around an hour working at a decent pace. I'm not a beginner but this kit would be perfect for a newbie.

One tip I'd like to add is that the jacks' grounds can be bent downward before soldering the wire. Solder the two legs so the jack is steady, then put the wire through and push the ground tab down until it cinches the wire in place through friction. Found this a lot easier than trying to fish-hook, and the end result to me looks cleaner than soldering before bending.

I haven't tuned mine because even when using a scope there's a lot of uncertainty when using the measure tool or cursors. But it's easy enough to do by ear if you play a known tone through a mixer with the VCO output. Seems pretty tedious to go back and forth after a tiny tweak to get it tracking across octaves, but that's not a complaint, I'm just pretty lazy.

Only minor thing I'd point out is that the pads for the trimpots could be slightly larger. I don't know if there's a good reason for keeping them so thin. I've noticed it on the ADSR PCB as well. They still solder fine, just might be hard if you don't have a fine tip for your iron.

Marc | Dec. 23, 2019

Great first diy osc project

This is a simple and stable diy oscillator kit with 3 wave shape outputs and cv control of gate, v/oct and squarewave pwm.

It's a really cheap, easy to build, low hp eurorack module. If you have a little bit of soldering experience you can do this! There are no tiny surface mount parts to mess up and the end result is much more satisfying than a passive mult!

It has some of the best practical build instructions that I've come across (great pics of the assembly order for you to follow). All of the parts have handwritten labels showing the part values too.

I was really excited to roll my own module. And because its a complete kit there was no hassle sourcing parts etc. It took me around 3 hours to build (going very slowly).

The oscillator sounds good to me but you will need to calibrate it if you want it to follow v/oct properly - but that's easy. After following the Look Mum No Computer method to tune it by ear I've my unit tracking accurately over around 3 octaves. I might try something more technical later on down the track but its totally usable as is.

Good communication from the seller and fast postage overseas too.

Matas | Dec. 5, 2019