Plinky Polyphonic Touch Synthesizer 2023 - Black

This is a Plinky Synthesizer, made by me from the newly open-sourced design. The minimum number of boards the manufacturer sells is 2, so I made both, and am selling the other.

This is not from the original Plinky DIY kit run. Each PCB has screenprinting on it indicating such. However, the PCBs were manufactured and SMT parts assembled at the same plant used for the original kits (JLCPCB) and all other parts came from reputable sources: the jacks, potentiometers, and knobs from Thonk (the original kit retailer) and all other parts from Digi-Key. No sketchy Aliexpress parts here!

The main touch surface LEDs are white, as with the original kit, but the bottom row of "control" LEDs are red instead of blue.

The synth fully functions. It's been updated to the latest stable firmware (0.9z), and the V/Oct output has been calibrated - at least, according to my multimeter, I do not currently have any Eurorack gear to test it on. If you find it's not accurate enough for your ear, the calibration is easy to adjust. The touch surface has also been calibrated, but because everyone's fingers and power supplies are different, I recommend that you re-calibrate the touch surface for best results. It only takes a couple minutes and instructions are at plinkysynth.com.

Speaking of power supplies, Plinky runs outside a Eurorack system on USB power, provided via a Micro USB port. As with many synthesizers, powering it from a computer can result in unwanted noise. For best results, use a USB cable plugged directly into a wall or power strip. No USB or Eurorack cable is provided.

While the main internal PCB is green, the hardware is identical to the V2 kit with the blue PCB - just in case you need to look up something where that would be relevant information!

The audio jacks on the top and bottom are mounted in the "inside" orientation, to ensure proper fit inside a Eurorack case. It can still be used stand-alone, the audio in/out jacks are just slightly deeper (roughly 1mm) inside the synth. If you're handy with a soldering iron it wouldn't be too difficult to move them to the "outside" position. The left jacks are stereo audio in (for sampling) and the right are stereo audio out.

The synth will be shipped inside an anti-static bag, with plenty of paper padding on all sides. I only ship with a signature required, so please be sure to provide an address where someone will be available to sign for it.

Thanks for looking! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.