Blatboy

I'm trying to figure out what this part is... I can't seem to figure out what it would be called when searching for it on Mouser or Jameco. Any suggestions for terms to look for or perhaps a link? Thanks.

Thanks so much for the suggestions. You rock. I do have a solder pump. I'll do that. My experience with cleaning up my errors has been slow, and the idea of desoldering 35 switches and trying to clean up those holes sounded impossible. However, the trick to use the pump to get the solder AND the pin out.... that's interesting. I'll give that a shot. I'll hopefully have time today. Thanks again! w ps. I'm going to try to get a decent recording of the concert. Maybe even video as we have a guy making some neon lights for it that may be sound interactive... we'll see how this all pulls together though. We've done a few concerts in the past and haven't gotten a live recording that we're happy with yet...so the pressure is on... ;) Concert is May 18. I want to have it finished by May 1st so I can get to learning the machine and reprogramming my sounds from the Hardsid...

Thanks Peter! I did get a high quality TRS jack (with gold plated contacts...oooooh fancy) I've always been partial to Neutrik connectors...that's what I use for my cables in the studio. I just hope the jack's not too big... I couldn't find a shorter one outside of the one that was linked to at Reichelt.... The resistors fit in fine. I like the look of them. :) w

Patience was never a strong trait of mine, at least when I'm obsessing on something. This MB-6582 project is certainly my main obsession right now, and I've run into another snag that I can only blame myself for. I was not expecting to be able to get any work done last night, but the opportunity came up. So, I started putting in the tactile switches into the CS PSB. When working on the CS, I'm following Hawkeye's amazing thread. I rocked step 6 while in a zone of meticulousness and awareness. I hit step 7, which just involved popping in the remaining switches without having to snip off any leads, and I got impatient. Maybe I was tired. I didn't re-read Hawkeye's instructions. I put in the switches and soldered them in record time. While I'll admit my soldering technique is getting pretty efficient, I didn't solder them on while my front panel was attached. The front panel will go on after about 40sec to a minute of fiddling. Hmmmmm. I don't think that will work for the JB-Weld step (I believe step 9 in the tutorial.) So, let this be a lesson to you so that you don't make the mistakes I did here. Read and follow directions. Do not rush. Have patience. At 41 years old, you'd think I'd know by now. This is the price of being a still very excitable kid at heart, I suppose. So, I have two options at this point. I could just go for broke and take a chance on mucking up my beautiful obnoxious new front panel. If I do this, every time I have to remove and replace the front panel from the CS board, it'll be a pain in the butt. However, once I finish this (assuming that me and my front panel survive the gluing stage) I shouldn't be needing to remove the front panel very much. I'll be too busy rocking out. (Famous last words) I could get a new CS board. I wouldn't need to order any new parts, as I have enough diodes and switches to populate another board. This option will pretty much ruin any chances of finishing this project in time for the concert. I'm leaning towards #2. I sent an email to SmashTV to see if he can hook me up with just a CS board. We'll see. Hawkeye, have you any words of wisdom?

thanks! it was definitely inspired by Hawkeye's front panel... but the logo was drawn/designed by my sister in law...

My electronics "lab" has now been moved out of the laundry room and minimally set up in another nook in the basement. Still yet to see if the landlord approves... :ahappy: I got it set up in time to put a couple hours of work on the base PCB. I had picked up some 1K resistors at Radio Shack to replace the ones I destroyed. I picked up 1/2 watt resistors, thinking that was the right rating. However, bringing them home, I see they are much bigger than my original resistors were. I'm assuming that if the originals were 1/4 watt, it's no big deal to use 1/2 watt ones, as long as the resistance is the same, correct? :question: They look kinda big and old school on the board. I like. Now I've just got to get the machined pin socket strips for the filter capacitors, and I'll be ready to put in the ICs and test! My obnoxious front and back panels came in! :drool: I plopped my logo on the LED grid, as well as other customizations you can see. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with the back panel pots yet, though I'll probably go with the feedback pots. That being the case, I just put a big BLAT on it in case I change my mind once I get to that point. I also put the larger hole for the 1/4" jack for the mix out. and finally, a shot of the new lab... And there you have it, there it is. I'll keep ye posted, whether you like it or not. :wink:

I'm in complete agreement with you re: MidiBox. I'm amazed at the quality of both the gear and the community. I'm pretty new around here too, and am enjoying the whole thing. Looks like good progress... what kind of enclosure will you put it in?

So, a little background: I have been doing my work a temporary lab I had set up down the basement of the building I live in. It's actually in the laundry room. I get in the way of the landlord trying to do his laundry, and I'm ducking under drying jeans just to get to the table. I know the moisture in the room isn't ideal, but it's what I got. If you know anything about living in NYC, space is at a total premium, and just to have access to a basement (esp without owning the bldg) is a serious luxury. My upstairs neighbor and I, with the landlord's blessing, cleared a bunch of junk out of the basement this weekend and cleared an area for me to have a more permanent setup. Again, not ideal as the ventilation isn't stellar, however, it's out of the way and my own space in an incredibly raw and rustic alcove. I'll be right by the electrical mains and meters, so I can really fry myself if I choose! I need a desk or a workbench, as the table I was using in the laundry room is too wide for this new electronics nook. I took my studio apart getting all my spare Ikea IVAR shelving, made measurements, and put a plan together to use that old stuff. This would be great, as it's just taking up valuable space in the studio. After destroying my studio to get this stuff out, I realized I couldn't find the stupid little Ikea pins to put it all together. The last time I touched these shelves was probably 2005 or something. I checked the house, and the studio again for the pins, to no avail, wasting the night. Of course this is the only night this week I've got off until Friday, and I should probably spend some time with my wife at some point... *ahem* so I think Friday night's out, too. I was hoping to be back in working shape with the new electronics nook but alas, I'm screwed for tonight at least. It's a bit of a setback... I'm hoping to finish this box by the end of the month, so I have a couple weeks to work it into the act for the concert in mid May. I'm not so sure it'll work out. I knew going into it that kind of a deadline would be a stretch for someone of my experience level. In other, more uplifting news, I heard from Front Panel Express today and my custom panel will be arriving later this week. Just wait till you see it. It's awesomely obnoxious and self-serving, and I've no qualms about admitting it! Sorry to bitch and complain about stupid non-fun non-MidiBox stuff. Thanks for reading and I'll keep ye posted.

Oooh, that looks a little more deluxe than the one I'm borrowing. I need to get my own, and that looks like a great option. thanks!

So... After a morning session, a 5 hour rehearsal and 2 hours working in my studio, I was able to sneak into the basement lab to do some work for a short spell. Here's the board yesterday after I yanked... uh, carefully took out those resistors I had installed incorrectly... It's the R4_SIDx and R24_SIDx series that I had put into the C3_SIDx/C23_SIDx spot. (I stole, er, borrowed my wife's nice camera, so these pics are a little more detailed) There was still leftover solder in some of the holes as you can see here: So, I tried using solder wick. It worked out really good sometimes for me, and took forever sometimes. Sometimes the solder sucker completely cleared out the holes too... it was a pretty imperfect science for me, and I don't feel I have quite the hang of it yet, but I more or less got the holes cleared, and only singed the board a little: So, tonight I added some more capacitors to the SID modules: But I ran out of time before I could finish, so here's where I stand now: I wont have time tomorrow to work on it :cry: , so I'll hopefully find some time over the weekend... I'm movin' forward again, and it feels good!

Here's a recap of my first week building my MB-6582. Pics were taken on an iPad. I love my iPad for a lot of things, and it's camera is definitely not one of them. I got my parts (so nice...so shiny) right before I had to split town a couple weeks. Once I got back, I was rarin to go. Everything started off pretty smoothly. I was being vigilant about following the construction guide. So I started with resistors, diodes, and caps that were inside of IC sockets. Although I didn't notice this at the time, I missed a few, and I mad a pretty horrible error with the resistors, which you can see here if you see it. I'll go there later... Then I added the sockets, resistor networks, and headers: Then, as the construction guide says, I needed to make my decision as to what type of power supply to have. I'm going for option B. I have 8 8580 SIDs that I plan on using, but I also have a couple of 6581s, and want to have the ability to use those if needed. I figure SIDs are just going to get more scarce as time marches on, so it's good to have options. So, I put on option B: So, I figure I'm ready to test, like the construction guide says. I scan a bunch of threads on the forum. I read somewhere that testing the power supply first to be sure it works is a good error checking policy. Sadly I'm still new enough that I shouldn't be sticking probes from my DVM onto the pins of a hot power supply. Even though I thought I did my research, I fried the PSU before I even tested my board! Not only that, all I had to do was turn on my C64 to see if the PSU was working. So, I felt like an idiot, but, it's not the first time I've felt like an idiot, and it won't be the last. Reading about how wonky those old C64 bricks are anyway, it got me thinking that I will probably either build my own linear PSU, or find some other way to avoid using the vintage one. But, to solve the immediate problem I had at hand, I was able to find a PSU here on the Midibox forums pretty quickly, which was awesome. Since I couldn't work on the Base PCB anymore, I figured I'd work on the control surface until the PSU came in. I'm following Hawkeye's to do this. He also gives links to parts online, which helps sourcing incredibly. So, Here's the first few steps covered on the control surface: And then, the new PSU came in today, much quicker than I thought possible. This is great, as the next step on the control board would require the front panel, which hasn't been completed yet. I tested the PSU on my C64 and it worked fine. So, I went through all the tests I was supposed to do on the base pcb, and everything checked out great. Awesome! So now I can start building the rest of the core and sid modules. I start to do this, then notice that I had put a whole row of resistors in holes meant for capacitors! Ugh. I'm not the best at removing components yet. So, it took a lot of time, but I took the resistors out (ruining a lot of them, so I'll have to order some more.) First I used a solder sucker to get some of the solder out and then I put the iron on, one pin at a time, and gently tried to take the resistor out w/my needle nosed pliers. I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but I didn't seem to destroy any pads. Getting the solder out of the holes was a pain. Luckily I had some solder wick, and I figured this would be a good time to try it. I watched a couple vids on youtube (specifically this one) and gave it a go. It took longer than I liked, and I singed the board a little, but I was able to start getting the hang of it and clearing the holes. I didn't quite finish though. I'll start with that tomorrow. Alright. Progress report concluded. Carry on...

RIP Jack Tramiel. To this day, the c64 was the best selling computer of all time...

Greetings. I'm starting this blog as a record for myself, and also to keep from pestering everyone constantly on the MB Forum over all the details of what I'm doing. Even though I think it's incredibly exciting, I'm still in an orbit deep within the galaxy of Noob, you dig. It's probably not that interesting to you kids out there with mad electronikz skillz. Perhaps my experiences will be of some use to someone else taking the plunge into this world, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm probably just gassing myself here. I'm a professional musician in New York City. I play trombone and ukulele, mostly in acoustic jazz type situations of varying degrees. I do a lot of composing music for television...mostly cartoons... Work's been a little slow the last coupla years, so I've allowed myself to embrace some of my vintage-tech related obsessions at a higher obsessionary amplitude (er, my term) than I had allowed myself in the past. If this sounds odd coming from a jazz musician that plays mostly 20's and 30's stuff... it's not like I grew up in the depression. I grew up in the 70s and 80s. I considered myself quite the synth nut when I was in jr. high and high school. I was also a computer enthusiast (NERD) on my C64. I programmed a decent bit and dabbled in hacking. While going to music school, I completed a minor in computer science as well. While most the composing I've done (for hire) has been for acoustic bands or even orchestras, I've always tried to find a way to rock some SID somewhere. My first attempt at this was for an animated short by my incredibly talented sister-in-law, Ariel Martian. I wanted the music to be half played by a live orchestra and half played by SID. Buffalo Head was a science project in a half. I wasn't aware of some of the hardware options that were out there like Hardsid...nor did I have the budget for that at the time. I ended up using an SX64 and a MIDI interface through the cartridge port. Some of the music I composed and inputted with the old Sidplayer/Sideditor from Compute! like I did in high school...entering the music with a joystick. Some of it I played "live" via MIDI using M64. Transferring files from the internet to the SX was a bitch. I remember I had to send M64 as a SYSEX dump via Logic on my Mac (!) just to get the application into the SX64 from the internetz. Crazy. After that I found Hardsid (at a time when I was gainly employed) and I thought my problems were solved. I ended up doing a series of shorts with Ariel for Cartoon Network in 2005. I used Hardsid...mostly. Here's one of those: I enjoyed working with Hardsid in a recording environment, and it did the job well, all things considered. This being said, my studio runs on Macs, and Hardsid is Windows only. I've worked on Windows machines for years, so I've no problem with that technically. However, it was a big pain to have to get a second computer hooked up via MIDI from the Mac, then piping the audio from the Hardsid audio back into the Mac. And face it, I'm pretty sure that the majority of music production is done on Macs in the US. (If not a majority, a very hefty non majority percentage, and certainly worthy of support. ) Lately, in the last year, I've been playing some SID, via Hardsid, live in concert in a duo. Musically speaking, the duo is totally outside of what I normally play around these parts, and I'm having a ball. Playing Hardsid in a live situation isn't great though. They've not been too good with updates, the software interface is not wonderful, and they promised a Mac plug that they never delivered on. (That's what I get for buying early...) Granted these guys don't do this full time, and they are very clear about that, so I really can't give them too much hell. However, Hardsid is not the technology that fulfills my needs. ("needs" may be a bit of a strong term for this, I suppose...hehe) Once you start using it live, not only do I have the delay from the Hardsid to deal with, but also I have to deal with a laptop on stage, running XP, being finicky about hardware being plugged in the exact same USB port as last time. (grumblegrumble) I have a small project studio that I do my composing and recording work in. Since I've had no real work recently, my budget for repairs is pretty much non-existant. So, I've been dabbling in electronics ever since I fixed an old RX17 drum machine. I've repaired a few other pieces of gear in the last year that has saved me hundreds of dollars. Then, one day, as I was trying to find new options for playing SID live (I was even looking at emulators! The horror!!!) I came across Midibox, and I completely freaked out. I had just finished building a Micro-KIM and I was rarin' for some other projects. I just wasn't expecting to run into something like the MB-6582. Man. What a machine. Therefore, I'm going to document my build. I've been working on it for about a week now, so I have a little catching up to do... but I have all my images and I'll be writing more as I get time. As I do this, if anyone sees any glaring errors or has suggestions, I'm open. Thanks for reading... blatboy

Mmmmmm. Just recently opened my old RX17 to switch out the backup battery, and took a big hit o' that 80's polymer funk. The early 90's thing has a vibe too... I opened up a Mac Classic II for the first time recently and got a smell that reminded me of library back in my college days, mixed with old electronics. Kind of sick, didn't seem healthy, yet loved every second of it... kind of like most the things I'm into... ;) I've got a "new" PSU on the way (thanks Altitude) and I'll be able to get this tested and built. Next, I'll either do a mod like Altitude's or I'll build a PSU. Thanks for your support.

Good to know. Thanks!

Yeah, I thought about that option too. Wind is out of my sails now and not feeling confident enough to build it... if I can't even test it without frying it. I do have a friend that I think will be willing to look over my shoulder if I go that route. I could start work on the control surface while waiting for parts to come in... hmmmm.

Well, in my attempts at being overly cautious, yet clumsy, I'm pretty sure I fried my PSU. I was testing the voltages on the pins of the PSU, thinking I needed to make sure there was no issue with the PSU before hooking it up to my PCB. I think I must of slipped. At one point I heard a tiny little pop, but it was very tiny and I didn't think anything of it. I suppose it was enough of a pop that I realized I didn't know what I was doing well enough to try testing the PSU directly, though I thought I had covered all my bases. I went ahead and tried the PSU with my PCB. Ok, not too smart after what had just happened, but at least the PCB wasn't hurt. The 5V rail looked fine. The 9V rail barely had a volt or two on it. I hooked the PSU back up on my C64 and sure enough, the power light came on, but it didn't have the juice to drive video. *sigh* I see three options: 1. My PSU doesn't seem to have screws, but I could try to crack this thing open and see if it's a simple fuse replacement (if it was a blown fuse, I shouldn't get ANYTHING on the 9V rail though, correct?) 2. Buy a "new" PSU (I'll be doing this anyway if I want to run my old C64 again :cry: ) 3. Try to run the entire thing off a 15V PSU using like Altitude explained on thread. I like this idea, and was planning on doing it once I got my MB-6582 working w/the C64 PSU. But, since I have no PSU to test with right now I'm not even 100% sure everything is set up correctly on the PSU. (I feel pretty confident that it is... everything that I've tested checks out and I've double and triple checked my connections) Any thoughts from ye exalted enlightened ones? It would be much appreciated. I know I've been posting a lot here... please pardon my noob-ulant exuberance. Thanks, Blatboy

I'll probably put in those extra resistors...I like the idea of maximum expandability. I don't think there's room in the back panel for more Midi ports the way it's set up now... but I like the idea of options. Thanks!

Ok. Now I'm probably pushing it, but I'll push it. In my collection of power supplies, I found one from an old Jaz drive. It has DC outputs on 5V/1A and 12V/.75A rails. It's not a grounded plug. Would it be a workable solution to use this? Is that enough ampage? I wouldn't even need regulators on the board, would I? Would that me a safer solution than the C64 brick?

Or would you just split the juice coming in from a 15V DC supply, and use both a PT78ST105 and a PT78ST112? Probably not, as that would split the current too, and 500mA (assuming a 1A supply) prob wouldn't be enough, right? Plus, I'm not sure there would be room for two of those big regulators on the board... Brain working hard on new concepts... sorry for thinking out loud...

This is pretty darn awesome. Would the wiring you did change for a type B PS section? (Mine will use 5V and 12V) In my brain it would seem you would need more than one input, like the C64 brick does, for multiple voltage rails. Of course, I'm somewhat new so I may be thinking this completely wrong. Thanks

I certainly won't be doing heat shrink on this one... This is my first MB (not my first electronics project tho) and I'm not going to be adding too many variables to my game. I'll be happy with a solid working box. (That looks swell on the outside at least...) This being said, I do have access to a nice heat gun in my basement, so I may try colored heat shrink on my next batch of audio cables I make. One more resistor question: Regarding the "not required" 1.2K resistors R9_CORE2, 3 and 4: What would be a reason for putting them in? They weren't included with SmashTV's set, so I feel pretty safe in leaving them out. However, there wouldn't be places for them on the PCB without a reason, correct? I should be able to put some in after I install the IC sockets, but once those chips go in, I'm probably not going to want to dig in there again if there is a reason to put them in... Thoughts?

Nebula, Thanks so much. You rock. I totally get it now. Interesting that on that one photo it seems they used heat shrink on the leads to lower the chances of short circuit in the really crowded situations. I'll stand those resistors up...though I am tempted to go to a local electronics store today just in case it's the type of thing they would have in stock. Are mini-resistors common enough to be in a Radio Shack (I live in NYC, so there are more options than just RS) or is it the type of thing that would only be available online?

Greetings. I received my mb-6582 base pcb kit from smashtv a couple weeks back, and have finally gotten a chance to get started. Am hoping to get this done in time for a concert ive got booked in late may. This being said, I'm no expert yet at these builds, and I'm not gonna rush things too much as I'm hoping it'll actually work. This being said, I do have a quick question regarding the base pcb. 10K resistors R3_SID1 and R23_SID1 (actually for all four Sid modules) seem to have very little room between the holes for the leads. If I try to put them in, it's seems they will block the entrance for J2_SID1 or potentially short w another component. Or is a situation where I just twist it in a way that avoids all these things? Perhaps I'm doing something really stupid here so I thought I would chime in before I soldered them in... Thanks!

Awesome. Thanks!