Sony BVM owners - open source BKM10/11R clone now available

[hatmoose]

Hello fellow sony BVM owners.

The awesome Martin Hejnfelt continues his awesome work - this time with an open source BKM10R/BKM11R clone.
@bodgit and I are happy users of the 129x clone card (Martins previous project) and Bodgit awesomely contributed his learnings back to the project

If you have a BVM you will probably be aware that you cant use them properly without a controller, and the controllers are outrageously expensive - not any more!

https://github.com/skumlos/bkm-10rl...wIeXhRPoB2M_hsO4CPgME1HnVBvFjfTFX4f9-eAJngscU

 

[hatmoose]

I was hoping that Martin might add the SD card to the BKM-10R design, but ideas fizz off the guy like the mad creative genius that he is, and he's on to other things like the BKM-15R. I dont think we'll see much more development work on this for a while.

So here are the gerbers and the BOM from the most recent commit back in Jan.

Because I am broke and unemployed I refuse to use paid software, but Kicad always does weird stuff for me when I generate gerbers
1) in PCBway it always wants to manufacture a 4 layer board from my gerberd= switch off the internal copper layers (In1.cu, In2.cu) unless there really are internal copper layers. PCBway will try to manufacture them even if they are blank
2) in JCLpcb it will not render my gerber = follow these instructions https://support.jlcpcb.com/article/194-how-to-generate-gerber-and-drill-files-in-kicad-6 and note that drill units must match zeros format, other manufacturers dont care but JCLpcb no can compute.

The boards are 2 layers and reasonably small, very cost effective


The BOM is very expensive due to the large number of tactile switches required.

The original switch part is here (6x6 illuminated)
There are nearly 30 of them and mouser want $3 each... plus the cap which is another $.5 each
https://www.e-switch.com/product-ca...series-illuminated-tact-switches#.Yk4RtS8RoWo

As much as I hate aliexpress, I already have a perfectly functional BKM-10R. Making another one is just a toy.
So I might substitute the buttons for something like this
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32762591668.html
And key caps for these
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001076074025.html
Knowing my luck with aliexpress it will probably explode and blow off my hand

The "enter" button and up/down/start/select get the crap beaten out of them, might be worth buying genuine parts for those

And rotary encoders of Aliexpress, not even once...

Does anyone know Martin better than me? maybe @bodgit could ask if he has the SD card on his roadmap, wink wink

 

[skumlos]

I was hoping that Martin might add the SD card to the BKM-10R design, but ideas fizz off the guy like the mad creative genius that he is, and he's on to other things like the BKM-15R. I dont think we'll see much more development work on this for a while.

...

Does anyone know Martin better than me? maybe @bodgit could ask if he has the SD card on his roadmap, wink wink

I have a revision B which includes preliminary SD card. I have yet not tried to actually use it, as you say, I skip around projects. Anyways, you can check it out here: https://github.com/skumlos/bkm-10rlternative/tree/revision_b
It does use different buttons also, in order to be able to have dual color for the function buttons, just as the original. If you have any questions or whatever, you're free to msg me directly, here, discord, Twitter, Facebook, whatever, I'll reply if I have time and can

 

[hatmoose]

Mainly posting this here so I don't forget later

The Revision B uses tactile switches with bi-colour LED's in a very strange "2-leg" configuration - just like the Sony original

These tactile switches are sometimes available but cost $5 each, and there are dozens on the board (TL1265RGQSCLR)
http://spec_sheets.e-switch.com/specs/B200037.pdf

Martin and I were talking about getting tactile switches with no LED, and adding the bi-colour LED "by hand". At the time I could not find a suitable Bi-colour LED in 3mm form factor with the weird 2-leg arrangement. Aliexpress has these...
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32471533198.html

 

[the Goat]

This is cool stuff.

Does anybody have a source for a replacement cable for the OEM BKM-11r?

 

[hatmoose]

The only sane thing to do was buy a 9" BVM for testing. Already had a perfectly good BVM for testing, but...

13k hours is not bad, these little guys tended to get used as field monitors, so turned off when not in use. I'd consider this "low miles". The bigger ones might have been used for Evaluation and color grading, could take hours for them to come up to temp for color work so they sometimes got left on 24x7 for years.

 

[hatmoose]

Getting close…

as with every good project I’m missing one critical part. Despite sitting in an immense mountain of vintage electronics not one single DB9 port anywhere in the whole lot, what are the chances….