Mic Tally Controller

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

THIS IS STILL A VERY ROUGH DRAFT TEMPORARILY PUBLISHED FOR SOMEONE ELSES EMJOYMENT

I Cooked

Interactive 3D model preview

Below is not a gif, its a live 3D model renderer which you can rotate via left click, move around via right click, and zoom in and out using the mousewheel. Give it a try.

Here will be a live 3d rendederer after i reallocate the assets to stop making cloudflare angry.

Speedrun

Download full model

Full enclosure model for printing as one file

Optional: download lid only

Enclosure lid for printing

Optional: download body only

Enclosure body for printing

Whats the deal?

High quality audio is much more important than video. Attempting to increase speech intelligebility for remote work meetings and recording video often results in getting a dedicated microphone. A mic needs a stand of sorts. Rigid desk stands can be problematic because all the desk vibrations cause by typing on a keyboard propagate up and cause resonance which gets picked up by a microphone. Spring-equipped stands (usually called boom arms) have two advantages: they “decouple” your mic from the desk so less vibrations travel through, and they make it easier to reposition the mic. Getting one is often an inexpensive way to further

What sets a good boom and and a poor one apart?

Acquire

In June of 2021 I’ve stumbled upon a listing titled “Lot of 2: Yellowtec m!ka Mic Arm M (used)”. They were missing mounting adapters, XLR connectors, and the integrated lighting indicators were of the old style: red color only. Looked like they were decomissioned from a studio somewhere, and had minor surface wear marks, but nothing major. Asking price for both was around half of what a brand new costs, so I figured it wasn’t too bad. Physical inspection confirmed that all internal tension cables and brass bushings were intact, awesome! I went ahead and bought them.

Complete the set

To actually use the boom arms I needed to get what was missing and replace the old and worn out parts:

Mounting hardware

Yellowtec’s m!ka family is a modular system with practically every mounting option imaginable.

Video: How to mount m!ka Microphone Arms (click to reveal)

I’ve decided to order regular table clamps(P/N YT3210), and added plastic sleeves(P/N YT3247) for the boom arms’ ends, since they came in bare.

Light indicaors

Replace the mic arm adapters with the modern dual-color LED(P/N YT3350) ones. The process is demonstrated in Yellowtec’s video and takes about a minute

Video: Yellowtec Tutorial - How to replace your m!ka Mic Adapter (click to reveal)

Terminate the cables

Yellowtec boom arms have internal, non-removable cables. More often than not you’ll find them on sale unterminated, which, I argue, is better compared to ordering a pre-terminated boom arm. Doing more work doesn’t sound right, but the benefit of an unterminated cabling is that you can use the best XLR connector available on the market: the EMC version made by the best maker – Neutrik. Basic XLR connectors by Neutrik are already excellent, but the EMC version is truly the best, here’s a video by Allen – a professional boom operator working in the motion picture industry. I’ve learned a lot from his videos:

Video: Neutrik EMC XLR Connectors - Sound Speeds Review (click to reveal)

Video: How To Solder XLR Microphone Cables [Step-By-Step Tutorial] (click to reveal)

Terminate the cables with one male XLR-5 connector, and one XLR-3 connector.

This was a quick and easy soldering job. There are countless videos on YouTube, as well as XLR-specific soldering tutorials, but I’d like to mention one more resource that I found invaluable while learning to solder: NASA’s Workmanship Standard For Crimping, Interconnecting Cables, Harnesses, And Wiring (page 102 might be helpful).

Neutrik NC5MXX-B Cable Connector male, 5-pole, black. 5 pole male cable connector with black metal housing and gold contacts.

NC3FXX-EMC

The EMC-XLR Series is a specifically designed version of the XX series to give enhanced RF screening for critical applications in live performance and recording where there are particular problems with radio transmission or mobile phones. The design guarantees a continuous RF shield connection from the cable to the chassis connector housing via a circular capacitor around the cable shield. The circular capacitors act as high-pass filter with a cut-off frequency around 10 MHz. An EMI suppression ferrite bead with 24 Ohm at 1 MHz between pin 1 and the cable screen provides a low-pass filter for improved RF rejection.

NC3FXX-B

Replace the light indicators

Add table mounting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc3cbLncmp0

153

50 shipping

Drawings

Here are the drawings of the tally controller:

Download PDF

The Blogpost

The Email

On Thu, Aug 19, 2021, I received the response:

thanks for requesting the Lighthouse Software. A few things to note:

The source code is not free of charge and cannot been downloaded. Instead, we ship a USB stick with the Source code. It costs 25€ + Fright Charge

The source code is for personal use, only.

There is no technical support for the building process or for the resulting binary.

Adam Hall 4903 Rubber Feet https://www.adamhall.com/shop/en/feet-skids/4903

Neutrik NC3MD-S-1-B https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nc3md-s-1-b

Neutrik NC5FD-LX https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nc5fd-lx?c=audio

Canare L-4E6S https://www.canare.co.jp/en/products/cables/index.php?tid=4_001

Arduino UNO R4 WiFi https://store.arduino.cc/products/uno-r4-wifi

Arduino Motor Shield Rev3 https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-motor-shield-rev3

Videos

Required Components and Parts

#	Part Name	Qty	Notes
1	M3 8mm Hex Drive Flat Head Screw	4
2	18-8 Stainless Steel Washer	4
3	M3 x 0.5 mm Hex Nut	4
4	Adam Hall 4903 Rubber Feet	4
5	Neutrik NC5FD-LX	1
6	Neutrik NC3MD-S-1-B	1	Screw terminals make assembly easier compared to when using Neutrik NC3MD-L-B-1 with solder cups
7	Canare L-4E6S	1	Minimum required length: 100mm, cut a 120-140mm piece before stripping the cable
8	Arduino Motor Shield Rev3	1
9	Arduino UNO R4 WiFi	1	Arduino UNO R4 Minima works too, needs constant wired connection to the computer
10	3D-printed enclosure with lid	1	Regular PLA works well
11	A 12V Power Adapter	1	Any cheap adapter should suffice

Designing for 3D printing

https://blog.rahix.de/design-for-3d-printing/

Decisions I Made and Why

Using fillet instead of chamfer in Autodesk Fusion to process the outer corners results would have resulted in reduced printing time and “prettier”-looking box. made printing faster, but mixing visual features.

Issue visualized

But as everything in Fusion, the order of operations matter, so using fillet first, and then chamfer fixes the issue.

Fixed version

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I opted to mount arduino on through-hole pins instead of using brass inserts and screws combo, or through-plastic threads. Screwing things down is more secure, but I’ve learned that brass inserts aren’t ubiquitous, and some 3D printers’ lack of “resolution” and precision characteristics don’t allow printing threading connections of a small diameter. Self-tapping, flexible connection points, and other techniques often used in 3D printing are available. I might improve that part of the design in the future if I feel like it. Current design is good enough for a static box.
The lid does not firmy click in place. Again, the dovetail is good enough for a static box, but may be improved.

Notes

TBA

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