Construction Tipps

Removable Antenna Connectors

Finally I found a nice way to connect the antennas to the circuit board.

I simply took a banana connector as shown on the picture above. By removing the plastic part you get a connector that can be easily screwed (or soldered) to the pcb. The antenna inner diameter must be about 4mm. It is really nice and easy to put an remove the antennas. 


For the pitch antenna I cut a (M3) screw thread in the whole at the end of the connector and fixed it to the circuit board by a small screw.



For the volume antenna I simply shortened the banana connector a little at the end and screwed it to the circuit board with an traversal screw. 



This is how it looks with the antennas connected.

Plated Antennas

The theremin looks great with a 50cm aluminum rod. But as aluminum oxidizes easily the contact with the antenna connector is a little shaky. So why not use real heavy nickel-plated brass rods? Nickel-plated brass tubing is not so easy to find. This is why I decided to by brass tubes and plate them my self... here is the result:

Nickel-Plated Brass Rods

This is the setup I used for the electro-plating (galvanic bath with nickel anode and nickel electrolyte).

A nice how-to can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xFlIQ9MhQ

Aluminium, Brass and Nickel-plated Rods