Actual information on Claravox

dewster > "Ooo, is that "normal quirky" or "new & different quirky"?

"Normal quirky" - the volume antenna seems to lack responsiveness but far less than when I brought it to you today. It's probably the environment or the instrument hadn't yet warmed up yet. I haven't had much of a chance to play it yet so I need to give it some time. Regardless, it is playing better!

"Hmmm . . . does this mean I need to bring it back for adjustments to the pitch wire?" I only noticed this after editing the pix.  That's a medium impedance point (the EQ coil is in the pitch arm) so it's probably OK.  But it's sorta weird that Moog positioned it so close to the front PWB, where a lot is going on, when they didn't have to.  It's like they hired a car mechanic to do these post production repairs.

I think it's fine, we'll have to wait and see!

Nice work dewster, although I have to say Mr. Aetherwellen-musik's cable management technique looks more elegant than yours. It's hard to out-organize a German engineer, eh?

"Nice work dewster..." - Bendra

Thanks!  I hope it might help others.

I would imagine a majority of the instability problems folks are experiencing are due to the antenna varnish forming a very sketchy capacitor.

"... although I have to say Mr. Aetherwellen-musik's cable management technique looks more elegant than yours. It's hard to out-organize a German engineer, eh?"

Well, he has the advantage of not caring if he voids the warranty.  I didn't want to get too crazy inside the unit, even though Moog has instructed owners to open the back and mess with the antenna mount screws.  His mods are quite impressive though, particularly the addition of a volume knee.

Ok, I finally got my pluck up and opened serial #21, here’s the pic:

+

As you can see, this is different than the one posted earlier in this thread:

1) USB cable runs over the other wires/components rather than under
2) The green wire at each antenna is missing entirely#wat
3) Larger hardware screws
4) Maybe something else I’m not noticing?

I’m reasonable happy playing it, but kind of mystified. Any thoughts dewster (or anyone else really)?

"I’m reasonable happy playing it, but kind of mystified. Any thoughts dewster (or anyone else really)?"  - bendra

If I were you I'd:
1. Fashion some short wires for the antenna connections, solder one end to the antenna jack, the other a crimp on spade lug to the the screw underneath. Clean, flux, and pre-tin the antenna jack before soldering the wires (also pre-tinned) to them, try not to use too much heat due to the plastic.  The gauge of the wire isn't important, it can be pretty thin and still work well (the D-Lev uses wire wrap wire).  The volume wire is particularly high impedance so keep it away from the ground plane on the volume oscillator board. 
2. Move that USB cord away from the pitch antenna stuff.  You can unplug and replug it to move it around.
3. Use acetone to remove ~40mm or more of the varnish from the plug-in ends of both antennas.
4. Somehow keep the pitch and volume cables away from each other.  Wire clamps and/or twisting them some (I didn't try twisting them).

Then again, if it's working well maybe just leave it alone (good deeds tend to get punished).  Take measures if/when it starts acting up.

"If I were you I'd:
1. Fashion some short wires for the antenna connections, solder one end to the antenna jack, the other a crimp on spade lug to the the screw underneath. Clean, flux, and pre-tin the antenna jack before soldering the wires (also pre-tinned) to them, try not to use too much heat due to the plastic.  The gauge of the wire isn't important, it can be pretty thin and still work well (the D-Lev uses wire wrap wire).  The volume wire is particularly high impedance so keep it away from the ground plane on the volume oscillator board. 
2. Move that USB cord away from the pitch antenna stuff. You can unplug and replug it to move it around.
3. Use acetone to remove ~40mm or more of the varnish from the plug-in ends of both antennas.
4. Somehow keep the pitch and volume cables away from each other.  Wire clamps and/or twisting them some (I didn't try twisting them).Then again, if it's working well maybe just leave it alone (good deeds tend to get punished).  Take measures if/when it starts acting up.

I'm feeling discretion may be the better part of valor here - maybe I'll get a couple of short connecting leads w/ alligator clips to connect the antenna jacks to the screws just to see if it makes any difference w/o having to break out the solder. 

"I already did the acetone to strip the end of the antennae. It didn't seem to make much difference; I certainly didn't need to re-tune w/ the red tool thinger. I think this means I already have good metal-on-metal contact?"  - bendra

I don't know.  It could be that the only electrical contact yours has is via the brass plates on the cabinet, and not the springy contacts in the plastic guides.  In that case stripping the varnish probably wouldn't change anything.

You could check this by pulling the antenna out and using a DMM to check continuity between the springy contact and one of the screws.

And if that is indeed the case, why are the wires missing in earlier units - is the omission intentional or accidental?

"I'm feeling discretion may be the better part of valor here - maybe I'll get a couple of short connecting leads w/ alligator clips to connect the antenna jacks to the screws just to see if it makes any difference w/o having to break out the solder."

That seems like an excellent first move.  Though the added capacitance may detune the volume side a little.

Ok, $2.50 and a trip to the hardware store later, I added a clip-on wire to the pitch side. Slight compression of the pitch field, no other effect I could tell

Did the same on the volume side, complete silence was the result. I presume that if I futz with the red tool thing I can get volume working again.

I

Not sure what my next move is, but it will have to wait for a day when my wife doesn’t have a toothache

The iOS & MacOS editor is live.

I notice fromn your screen shots Gibarian that there are quite a few settings in the editor for MIDI. Something I really need a way to edit without owning an Apple device. 

One of the quirks I've noticed is that the Claravox is set to output MIDI on channel 1. That would seem ok but if its connected to another instrument which happens to be on channel 1 then any knob changes on the CVox get transmitted to the other instrument on channel 1. I was getting some random setting changes on my Minilogue XD until I worked out what was going on.

gingercat:
"The iOS & MacOS editor is live.I notice fromn your screen shots Gibarian that there are quite a few settings in the editor for MIDI. Something I really need a way to edit without owning an Apple device. One of the quirks I've noticed is that the Claravox is set to output MIDI on channel 1. That would seem ok but if its connected to another instrument which happens to be on channel 1 then any knob changes on the CVox get transmitted to the other instrument on channel 1. I was getting some random setting changes on my Minilogue XD until I worked out what was going on."

Indeed these settings seem to be undocumented MIDI commands.
When you change the MIDI output channel in the app, it's sending this to the Claravox:

CC 0x62 0x03      (Non-registered Parameter LSB)
CC 0x63 0x08      (Non-registered Parameter MSB)
CC 0x06 0x00      (Data Entry)
CC 0x26 {CHANNEL} (Channel 1-16)