Eurorack Interface Specification (EIS)

EIS is a free, open specification for Eurorack hardware. It says what modules, enclosures, bus boards, power supplies, and cables owe each other so that products from different makers fit, power up, and patch together. A rule is a shall only where two products would otherwise fail to work together; everything else is written "EIS recommends". Every requirement has an identifier, the product types it applies to, and a machine-readable model behind it.

Read it: lzxindustries.net/eis has the PDF, the machine-readable models, and every clause as a web page with a URL for each requirement. In this repository, start at Scope, or, to design a product, at the designer's guide.

Claim it: a product states its product type on one line, EIS draft, module, and can keep what it publishes in a claim file, which eis claim eis-claim.yaml validates.

Change it: open an issue or a pull request at git.lzxindustries.net/lzx/eurorack-specification. CONTRIBUTING.md says what belongs in EIS and how a change is made; a proposal for a new shall names the two products that would stop working together without it.
Identifier EIS
Status Working draft
Edition v0.1.0
Maintainer LZX Industries
License CC BY 4.0 on the specification, MIT on the tooling; details in COPYRIGHT.md
SPDX CC-BY-4.0 (specification), MIT (code)

Document map

Clause Page Read it when you design
Foreword spec/foreword.md Edition, status, public review
1 Scope spec/scope.md
2 Normative references spec/normative-references.md
3 Terms spec/terms.md The words with a special meaning
4 Conformance spec/conformance.md Core, product types, the claim file
4.4 Requirements register spec/requirements.md Every requirement, generated
5.1 Rack dimensions spec/rack.md The 19-inch frame a row sits in
5.2 Modules spec/modules.md, front panels, boards A module, its panel, or its boards
5.3 Rails, inserts, and mounting screws spec/rails.md What makes a panel fit a row
5.4 Enclosures spec/enclosures.md The case a module mounts in
6.1 Power architecture spec/power-architecture.md The power interfaces, sources, distribution, entries, and the rules for every power interface
6.2 Power supplies spec/power-supplies.md Protection, published ripple, the ripple limit of each power interface
6.3 Grounding and 0 V spec/grounding.md The 0 V reference, protective earth, and joining cases
6.4 The bus spec/bus-power.md PWR-BUS: rails, header, pinout, marking, keying, and a module on the bus
6.5 Bus boards spec/bus-boards.md Capacity, links, ribbons
6.6 Bus CV and gate spec/bus-cv-gate.md The 16-pin CV and gate nets
7.1 Signals spec/signals.md The port list, patch safety, and the jacks inside the case
7.2 Signal classes spec/signal-classes.md The seven signal classes, AUDIO, CV, VIDEO, PITCH, GATE, TRIG, and CLOCK, and their ranges
7.3 Video signals spec/video-signals.md VIDEO on patch jacks: levels, impedances, path kinds, and bandwidth
8.1 12 V DC power (PWR-DC12) spec/dc-12.md PWR-DC12: a barrel or multi-pin DC entry and the DC rail it feeds
8.2 Video on 75 Ω coaxial jacks (VID-75) spec/video-75.md The 75 Ω coaxial interface: the video sync ports COAX-IN, COAX-OUT, COAX-THRU, the video sync tree, and the coaxial cable
8.3 Video timing spec/video-timing.md The formats a video sync port lists
9 Assembling a system spec/assembly.md The rules for whoever fits a row together
Annexes A to J annex/ Informative: verification, planning aids, worked examples, and the Doepfer comparison
Bibliography spec/bibliography.md

Machine-readable models

data/ holds the register and every normative number: requirements.json, the mechanical models, signals.json, video_timings.json, video_75.json, power_interfaces.json, power_ribbon.json, and dc_12.json. A product's claim file follows data/claim.schema.json; the examples are in data/examples/.

The market survey and the catalog rail sections and inserts are in the separate eis-reference repository. They are informative and size nothing EIS requires. Third-party documents are not stored here; data/sources.json records where each cited one was retrieved.

Tooling

pip install -e ".[build,test]" installs one command, eis:

Command Does
eis check Runs every generator and check (python -m pytest tests)
eis gen Rewrites the generated pages, tables, and figure cards
eis build pdf, site, or all Builds build/eis.pdf and the static site
eis claim FILE Validates a claim file and prints its claim line and the register rows the product owes
eis claim --mark OUT.svg FILE Also writes the product's EIS mark

Every subcommand is a script under tools/. The figure cards in figures/ share one house style, tools/card.py. CI builds the PDF and the site on every push; a tag vX.Y.Z (an edition) or vX.Y.Z-rc.N (a review candidate) publishes them at lzxindustries.net/eis (CONTRIBUTING.md).