I like your blog! A Theremax builder emailed with a question as to the color selection for the wiring steps. I replied that it does not matter, but that rotating through the colors for each step make it easier to trace if it’s necessary to look for trouble. The person replied with the link to your site and in looking it over I see that you had noted the colors and this is great and makes it even easier to trace, but also I see that you changed the wire lengths. They’re specified so they can be dressed without making the run from the panel to the board and crossing near or laying against the parts in the rf oscillator circuits. This is something that needs to make it to a manual update. Until then, if you email me I’ll reply with tips/suggestions which include an image for the wiring. There’s also a mention of changing three capacitors to 100pF (Cs 39 44 and 37) and adding a 6800ohm on R81-3 to R81-2 for improved Timbre control waves and hand-to-volume-antenna-control-response.

Thanks. –Scott

Note that I belive it was a two-part (two-month) article, so you’ll probably want the March issue also.

Poor Man

Were the recommended lengths still a poor match for the actual layout?

I haven’t played mine enough to know about the stability of the low bass notes. I assume his shielding can be added to a complete and working unit, so you might want to build yours up and see whether you think you really need it.

As to the fly wires, my Theremax’s case is opaque, so they really don’t show. I do take pride in tidiness, but I’m not quite willing to put the effort into soldering wires onto the back side of the board just for appearance’s sake inside a closed case. Of course, everyone’s entitled to their own preferences.

http://www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/theremin/mytherem.htm

and comparing it to your photos, I noticed two things. For one, he seems to have connected the fly wires from *underneath,* which certainly looks very neat, although it seems it might be a bit tricky to solder. I also note his additional shielding about the oscilllators using unetched PC circuit board, which sounds like a useful modification, but I wonder if there is really enough room to slip it in there without shorting anything out. Maybe with the fly wires underneath? I thought of putting four of the resistors on the underside rather than the topside to make more room, but since he says he puts shielding on *both* sides of the board, that wouldn’t seem to help any. Do you have any observations on these things? (BTW, the standoffs I have on hand are longer than the ones in the complete T-max kit–nearly an inch, so there will be plenty of room underneath the board.)

TIA

Alan Barbour