Stage two: I decided that I wasn't happy with the LCD screen. It looked so 80's! So, I researched touch screens and came across the Nextion from ITead.

As another big bonus, I found that this had a functional editor and meant that I could get rid of any tactile buttons that I was going to have to use if I had stuck with the LCD screen. Programming of the Uno to accept commands from the Nextion began, until the Uno ran out of memory. Research led me to find the mega 2560 pro (embed) from robotdyn. A small footprinted Arduino Mega.

For every step forward came a step back. The digital potentiometers had to be replaced with optoisolators and it was becoming increasingly obvious that tagboard, breadboard, turretboard and point-to-point were not viable options. It was time to learn how to use Eagle to design PCBs.