So we’re starting to get circuit boards printed up, and frankly, we don’t need a bunch of circuit boards lying around.  What we do need is testers.  An ideal tester for us would be someone with at least basic soldering knowledge, and the ability to program AVR microcontrollers, either through In-System Programming or via regular serial or parallel programming.  If you’re interested in getting an at-or-below cost kit from us to build your own OpenChord guitar, please contact us at develop@openchord.org!

So after doing some research, it looks like we’re not going to be able to offer a version of the V1 for the Xbox 360.  It basically has to do with a proprietary security chip that Microsoft has built into their controllers in order to thwart would-be 3rd-party developers from coming out with competing hardware.

However, the USB version seems to be coming along nicely; we just sent off an order for some prototype circuit boards and we’ll see if those work, then it’s just a matter of figuring out some supply stuff and figuring out the enclosure.   So hopefully we’ll at least have kits available soon, and maybe a full product!

So the USB communication seems like it’s gotten to a working point at this point.  We’re actually starting to get to a point where we’re starting to make things more and more permanent.  As of today, in the SVN repository, there is an initial prototype circuit board for the USB version.  The Wii version is mostly the same; a circuit board for that should be forthcoming as well.  Hopefully we’ll be able to make a few ourselves and test it out, then maybe a small production run.  This means that we’ll be hopefully offering kits soon!

In the last few weeks, this is what’s been done -

1) USB functionality is coming along.  Right now, the guitar will connect to a computer (and hopefully a Playstation 3..) and register button presses, but it has a problem with randomly disconnecting.  This may be cause by electromagnetic interference, but may be a problem with the AVR chip itself. If that’s the case, things get more and more difficult to fix.

2) Proof of concept for an external version.  By externally attaching wires with adhesive, the guitar doesn’t have to be built into the guitar body itself anymore.  This means that it will be possible to make a version that simply clips on to the outside of an existing guitar.   Which means we can start making kits and products that don’t cost like $200.  Cool!

Here’s some pictures of the