After building a few experimental synthesizers myself, I'm now starting to build and use modular synthesizers. In this repo I document how building my own DIY Eurorack is evolving and share some files that might help others. Latest addition: my DIY power supply, see PSU.md
This is only a documentation, not a tutorial. Feel free to be inspired, but think for yourself! I may have made mistakes at any point. The risk of rebuilding my designs or using my files is entirely yours.
... see separate Document!
I tried to follow the specifications provided by Doepfer at any point. Find the links below.
My first step was to measure the available space for my Eurorack: 76cm. Subtracting 2x 18mm for the vertical walls of the case, I had space for two stories of 142HP (722mm) each.
Wood: Spruce, 18mm; horizontal: two pieces 722mm x 200mm and vertical: two pieces 310mm x 200mm (slightly higher than required for "feets" on the left and on the right side)
It was the first time I oiled wood with special wood oil (https://amzn.to/3VLArCw). And it went really well. The oil has no smell at all, so I could do it comfortably indoors without annoying anyone.
I ordered four rails of 142HP (722mm) width from Modular Synth Lab (Haarlem/NL) incl. threaded strips (no loose nuts). The rails seem to comply with the common rail profile (19" Trägerprofil, https://gie-tec.de/product/19-mounting-profile2/?lang=en) from Gie-Tec, which unfortunately can't be aligned with a flat surface because it will tilt. Therefore I designed small supporting elements and printed them with my 3D printer. Find them in the 3D models folder as file railsupports.stl. I used them in order to align the rails to the surfaces of the case and I glued two of them together in order to keep the two rails in the middle of the case perfectky aligned to each other. As you can see, I also added a screw for perfect stability.
In order to drill perfectly positioned holes for the main skrews I designed a drill template. Find it in the 3D models folder as file drilltemplate.stl. Should work with the mentioned profiles from or compatible with the ones from Gie-Tec.
I bought two modules and blank panels from Doepfer and Modular Synth Lab in order to make sure that my rack will definitely comply with the specifications.
Additionally I tried several 3d models of blank panels from thingiverse but to my surprise none of them seem to comply with the specifications. Maybe people changed measures to match individual behaviour of their printers? However, I finally designed my own blank panels which comply with the specifications in almost all cases (when printed with my Anycubic i3 Mega Pro). I just made them a 10th millimeter higher so that they are exactly the same height as the measures I took from the Doepfer blank panels. With my tools both are 128.6mm (instead of 128.5mm according to the specs). If you want to give my blank panels a try you find them in the 3dmodels folder as bpXXhp.stl
Eurorack Specs: https://doepfer.de/a100_man/a100m_d.htm and https://doepfer.de/a100_man/a100t_d.htm
Find the documentation of the power supply in the separate file PSU.md.