8-voices analog synthesizer by Polykit

Table of Contents

Redesign with SMD components of the PCBs for a 8-voices analog synthesizer..

Description
#

Bad influences in my life led me down the wrong path again, and this time I ended up in a very interesting project by Polykit. It was a monophonic analog synthesizer. To be more precise, the design was thought in a modular way to make possible to build a polyphonic synthesizer with many voices as needed, just using enough voice cards. I liked very much that design, but the only downside I saw was the considerable size of the PCB. So I started to make a new PCB using SMD components, not with the intention of actually building the synth, but as an exercise to improve my skills with KiCAD (designing PCBs is good to de-stressing). A few months later, Polykit published his design for the mainboard, whose PCB I also ended up redesigning with SMD parts.

Warning! My SMD versions of the Polykit designs are not finished. Among other things, it is needed to review the types of capacitors to be used, which affects to the type of packages therefore, the PCB design can’t be considered as definitive. By now it’s only a theoretical exercise. On the mainboard, there are still things to be decided about how many connector to leave (some have to be removed).