The radio silence this year has been mirrored by actual radio silence. My logbook shows a distinct lack of airtime, something I need to remedy soon! I completed my CWOps beginners course last month which was great. I’ll write about that separately though.
Other than starting to learn CW, I’ve been very busy with some 3D printing based projects. The TP-iii case has been very popular and was kindly reviewed by Thomas, K4SWL on qrper.com.
As you my know from other blog posts, I make use of the Lynovation CTR2-Midi paired with my own battery addon mainly for physical controls when using my iPad (and SmartSDR) to drive my FlexRadio from the comfort of whichever room I get chucked into by my kids! I’ve also used it a lot more of late for practising CW.
Earlier this month Lynn, KU7Q released a new revision, the CTR2-Dial which makes use of the M5 Stack Dial for display and input. I’ll let his video below save me some typing!
I was very keen to produce a case for this because I was excited about the product. Plus, much like what I did with the CTR2-MIDI battery addon, I wanted to use this without cables too.
So, to designing a case; I started off with something that roughly resembled my trusty Icom RC-28 which is connected to my MacBook Pro. From there, with feedback from Lynn we’ve iterated over four major versions before hitting v5.
Some of these were complete redesigns, some were more technical reworks and I’ve learnt so much about CAD as each version was “definitely the one I’ll use”.
And here’s the in-printer camera capture of two of the shells printing, which I always find very pleasing!
Of course, what those designs don’t show is that there are seven variants depending on number of dials, the dial size and if a jack for a key/paddle is required. All very fun. Once I’d started treating CAD like I would a development project (reuse and variable configuration) then it became a lot easer. v1-v3 are absolutely labeled with the “legacy code - here be dragons”.
If you’d like one of these and are on the US side of “the pond” then its best to order from Lynn directly. Lynn will be printing my v5 case and making that available soon.
If you’re in the UK or Europe then please checkout my shop or see below!