Busy Weekend - Day #2

Today I finished the build section of the project! I began by cutting a part of the same plastic box used for the front kaoss pad mount to fill the gap in the kaoss pad body where the touch screen was. I then attached the serial connector to it. This is not ideal as a permanent solution as it renders the LEDs inside the unit useless and so I may replace this with clear perspex or something similar at a later date.

I then used more of the same plastic to make a scratch-plate to replace the yellow one provided with the guitar and cover for the back of the guitar. It's not the most elegant solution but will do for now!

 Finally I glued the nut to the headstock of the guitar and screwed on the truss rod cover.

 I was then able to put strings on the guitar and plug it in to an amp!

Completed guitar & kaoss pad

The guitar circuit works, though the tone pots do not work properly so this will need re-soldering, however for the time being the guitar and kaoss pad are both functioning.

So, the only remaining problems to deal with are:

• Setting the intonation of the guitar
• Fixing the tone pots so that they work correctly
• Finding the source of a slight hum that is only really present when the kaoss pad is turned on (possibly an issue with the lack of shielding between the guitar and touch pad wiring inside the guitar)

Then the purely aesthetic changes I would like to make include:

• Replacing the black plastic with something more durable, particularly the replacement screen on the kaoss pad body.
• Replacing the yellow hardware
• Add the originally planned LED circuit behind the touch pad

I plan to upload a demonstration video of the completed guitar once the intonation is properly set up to make the guitar playable.

Kaoss Pad Modification

Now that the painting is under way, I have also further modified the Kaoss pad wiring:

Four wires replacing the four connections to the touch pad

Soldering on the reverse side

Two additional cables soldered to the hold button

Hold button connections

All six connections wired to a DB9 Female Socket

Marking Up The Guitar Body

Before the guitar could be painted and assembled, the holes for the tail-piece and bridge bushings needed to be drilled and additional a cavity for the touch screen cut out of the body. In order to accurately measure the touch pad cavity, it must first be removed from the main body of the unit.

The four connections between the PCB and touch screen from the KP-1 Service

 Manual

I began by removing the back of the kaoss pad, followed by the two large PCB's, the third small board containing the headphone volume control, and finally the touch screen itself.These four connections are wired via a ribbon cable which must be disconnected from the PCB.

The connection can be seen at the top of the unit in this picture.

All PCB's and touch screen removed from the unit casing

The ribbon cable was connected to the PCB through a small plastic jacket which I opened to disconnect the touch panel. I then had to de-solder the four connections of the remaining half of the jacket from the the PCB

The removed panel and half of the plastic jacket

Remaining half of the plastic jacket

De-soldered connections on the PCB

The jacket was then put back together to give something to solder connections to later in the build.

Having removed the touch panel, I was able to position and draw around it on the guitar body and work out the best positions for the bridge and tail piece.