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Thread: Ecler Nuo5 Rotary mod - has anyone done it?

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    Ecler Nuo5 Rotary mod - has anyone done it?

    as the title says...

    Love my Nuo, but starting to find the curve on the channel faders is just not smooth enough for me. Wanted to put in 4 Pots instead and keep the x-fader as it is.

    has anyone achieved this? bee looking up that the faders are 100k liner potentiometers, but outside of that I cant find much else.

    would love to to get a discussion going with fellow Nuo5 owners and hopefully get this mod sorted!

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    I would recommend to have a look at the FB pages for rotary conversion/rotary supporters.
    There is this one guy called Marios from Greece who does crazy mods. I got one of his kits for my xone 22 and he does eclers all the time. i guess he could help you with a lot of your questions

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by elsparko View Post
    has anyone achieved this? bee looking up that the faders are 100k liner potentiometers, but outside of that I cant find much else.
    Shouldn't be too hard with practically any mixer unless the volume controls are digital.. I think that some VCA systems can be somewhat difficult to mod because standard, off-the-shelf (for example 100kOhm) pots can in reality as low as 83...87kOhm and you'd end up with an inaccurate control voltage for the circuit (edit : and most mixers are made using surface mount components). I've never done such modifications myself but I've been building a mixer and out of curiosity measured the resistances of the potentiometers. I think most manufacturers use logarithmic potentiometers (=audio taper) for volume control though.

    I think the main problem would be the faceplate because the fader stem cutouts would be left open and you'd have to drill holes for the pot shafts, or fit a piece of aluminium for example on top of where the faders used to be. I've seen a few DIY rotary mods hovering around the internet (most of them on Wavemusic forum) and I remember seeing someone who even had wires coming from a mixer to a separate rotary unit.

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    Moderator Mark_Spit's Avatar
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    I did the rotary mod on my Vestax PMC-37 and it wasn't too hard. As long as you're good with a soldering iron and know what pots you need it should be a straight forward job. But as efinque mentioned, the hardest part will be fabricating a new top plate especially considering the one the Nuo 5 has is oddly shaped. The holes for the pots can simply be drilled, the cross fader slot however is a different story. Use aluminum sheet (it's easiest to work with) and make sure it's no thicker than the original.

    Here's my write up for the 37 mod if you need any ideas.: http://www.djforums.com/forums/showt...ion&highlight=
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    cheers guys! yeah, I tried joining that group before I posted here but still not been approved so I cant use it yet.

    as far as the faceplate is concerned, im going to make one up in CAD and then 3d print it, this will give me the opportunity to play around with the placements of the pots, and when I get that right I can get it milled in metal eventually.

    The first thing I do need to sort out is the pots so hopefully going to take a crack at them this weekend and figure out the pinouts.

    @Mark_Spit it was actually your thread that gave me the bug to mod my Nuo, you did a great job man, the PMC looks lush!

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    Moderator Mark_Spit's Avatar
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    /\/\/\/\

    Thx for that, I appreciate it! I'm glad to have provided some inspiration .

    One thing I have to say....once you go rotary, you won't want to go back to regular sliders - I find my blends to be much smoother now.
    Ya gotta love corn, it's one of the only foods that says good-bye.

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    Member djpenguin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by efinque View Post
    Shouldn't be too hard with practically any mixer unless the volume controls are digital..
    Digital controls can be easier than analog ones. It all depends on the specific mixer design.

    Quote Originally Posted by efinque View Post
    I think that some VCA systems can be somewhat difficult to mod because standard, off-the-shelf (for example 100kOhm) pots can in reality as low as 83...87kOhm and you'd end up with an inaccurate control voltage for the circuit (edit : and most mixers are made using surface mount components).
    VCAs use the pots as a variable voltage divider. 20% tolerance isn't a problem in that application. If the impedance of the divider is too low (e.g. 1kOhm instead of 100kOhm), that can cause problems for some VCAs.

    Quote Originally Posted by efinque View Post
    I've never done such modifications myself but I've been building a mixer and out of curiosity measured the resistances of the potentiometers. I think most manufacturers use logarithmic potentiometers (=audio taper) for volume control though.
    If memory serves correctly, your mixer is an amalgam of modules you purchased elsewhere, not a complete system design. That's not a very good basis for handing out advice.

    Log taper pots would typically be used for passive volume controls; I would expect to find them mostly in very low-end mixers, not in the Nuo 5.

    Quote Originally Posted by efinque View Post
    I think the main problem would be the faceplate because the fader stem cutouts would be left open and you'd have to drill holes for the pot shafts, or fit a piece of aluminium for example on top of where the faders used to be. I've seen a few DIY rotary mods hovering around the internet (most of them on Wavemusic forum) and I remember seeing someone who even had wires coming from a mixer to a separate rotary unit.
    That's correct. Making a new faceplate is usually the trickiest part of doing a rotary mod. If you're careful, you can do it from steel, using an angle grinder, a drill, and some hand files. I made the faceplate for my PMC 580 rotary mod using those tools, and it came out looking very nice.
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by djpenguin View Post
    If memory serves correctly, your mixer is an amalgam of modules you purchased elsewhere, not a complete system design. That's not a very good basis for handing out advice.
    Yes that's true, the channel preamps are built from various kits, slightly modified though as is the headphone amp. But most preamp designs are universal aren't they?

    Also, it's a jungle of wires.

  9. #9
    Also, it never worked. But that's no big deal.



    Anyway, if you look at the schematic for the Nuo 5 (service manual download available online from sketchy web site, also maybe from Ecler directly), you will see that the channel fader is a 100K dual-gang (stereo) pot, but as it is a VCA circuit, the two channels are just paralleled together. So you could also just use a 50K single-gang pot. The manual doesn't say whether it is linear or log taper.. you could find this out by disconnecting one of the existing pots and, with the wiper (fader) in the center, use an ohmmeter to measure wiper to one end, then wiper to the other end. If both measurements come out around the same, it is linear taper. If one is much larger than the other, it is log taper.

    Then I suggest getting just one pot and wire it into one channel.. temporarily.. and test it to make sure you have the wiring correct and that you'll be happy before you go full bore. If you can get the same connectors to use for your pots that Ecler used for theirs, that'll give you a nice clean installation. Keeping in mind that your channel curve is going to be the same with a rotary pot as it was with the slide one.. just rotary. Since the circuit in the mixer controls the curve.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by light-o-matic View Post
    Also, it never worked. But that's no big deal.
    It did, actually. Lately I've been prying off some spares from it though for various other projects.


    Anyway, if you look at the schematic for the Nuo 5 (service manual download available online from sketchy web site, also maybe from Ecler directly), you will see that the channel fader is a 100K dual-gang (stereo) pot, but as it is a VCA circuit, the two channels are just paralleled together. So you could also just use a 50K single-gang pot. The manual doesn't say whether it is linear or log taper.. you could find this out by disconnecting one of the existing pots and, with the wiper (fader) in the center, use an ohmmeter to measure wiper to one end, then wiper to the other end. If both measurements come out around the same, it is linear taper. If one is much larger than the other, it is log taper.
    Linears are half of the total resistance (edit : or should be) in the middle.. log pots are somewhere around 20%

    Then I suggest getting just one pot and wire it into one channel.. temporarily.. and test it to make sure you have the wiring correct and that you'll be happy before you go full bore. If you can get the same connectors to use for your pots that Ecler used for theirs, that'll give you a nice clean installation. Keeping in mind that your channel curve is going to be the same with a rotary pot as it was with the slide one.. just rotary. Since the circuit in the mixer controls the curve.
    I understand why some people like rotaries.. twisting a knob is very different to pushing or pulling a fader. They're also not as prone to dust and stuff like that.

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