Creating a MIDI thru box

Tonight I’ve been trying to decipher the various schematics online for creating a midi thru box. My knowledge of electronics is growing but still very basic and even such a simple circuit gave me some headaches.

So here it is, a working midi thru, ignore the Arduino connected to the breadboard it’s only being used to supply 5v and nothing else. The soldered circuit board bellow has a 9v battery/mains input.

Bill of materials:

5 x MIDI connectors

1 x 6N136 optocoupler

1 x 74CH14 Hex schmitt inverter (or CD40106)

9 x 220 ohm resistor

1 x 4.7k ohm resistor

1 x 1n4148 diode

1 x TS7805 5v power regulator

1 x 2.1 mm power header

IMG_0160 IMG_0159 IMG_0158 IMG_0157

And then solder to perfboard circuit board. It’s certainly not pretty and some of the worst soldering I’ve ever seen but it works. 🙂

All I need now is some sort of case and I’m good to go.

IMG_0171 IMG_0172 IMG_0173 IMG_0174

I’ll try and update this post with more detail and clearer breadboard layout / schematic when I get the time.