nILS

As could the PIC and all other ICs if oriented the wrong way around ;) Even though the same orientation for all ICs is good design practice it's not always doable (when working with size constraints for instance) - that's why smash's boards have this nice silkscreen and there's pretty detailed info about them (http://www.avishowtech.com/mbhp/mbhp_coreR4d.html) Bwahaha, good one. Keep helping, no excuses :D

The harder the material is the slower the drill needs to be :-)

Yes and no. That's the limit per core :-) With multiple cores you could "easily" have more then 64 encoders. Just have the extra cores send the encoder changes via MIDI to the "master core" - done. Obviously, this needs some coding, but it's definitely doable.

"Lucky" is more like it :-) Enjoy your new toy! Btw, can you fix the picture in the first post please, ideally attach it? <broken-record>offsite doco bad</broken-record>

Correct, taking one step at a time and fixing every potential problem right away makes the whole thing pretty easy :-) Absolutely! Aaaaand that's not gonna happen - you'd need a CS the size of a full grown modular. Yes, you can. It's not hard either. It's been done before, if you look around the MBOTW forum, you'll find some examples. There's also some pages on the WIKI that describe how to change things around to meet your CS needs. There is, but you're looking at a lot of work and customization in the source if you want to do that. Just to illustrate my point about the amount of knobs needed, I attached some screenshots of a SID patch editor, which will give you a rough estimate about the vast amount of parameters ;)

As j00lz said, drilling the holes is not a big problem, even the LCD cutout is well doable with a bit of filing and time ;) For labelling I sometimes use laminated printouts glued to the panel. That works pretty well, the only hard/time consuming thing is to get the holes to look nice. You can see my go at it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34559421@N02/sets/72157619960055010/ Quick overview: Print out the artwork and glue it on the panel, drill the holes: Put double-sided sticky tape on it: Stick the laminated panel printout on it, and cut the holes into it: Mount the components: Done:

Especially the part that actually tests your core's MIDI In is interesting... That's the part followed by "If nothing happens, your MIDI-In is possibly not working:"

I haven't tested all possible combinations, but I do recall one of my mbSIDs playing the turrican speech intro ;D

Stacky, seriously, this is not funny anymore. http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,13665.msg117510.html#msg117510 http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,4251.msg117515.html#msg117515 http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,13083.msg117509.html#msg117509 http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,13083.msg117505.html#msg117505 http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,13665.msg117504.html#msg117504 http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,6043.msg117340.html#msg117340 http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,13645.msg117299.html#msg117299 http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,9705.msg117298.html#msg117298

...throw in some MIDI splitters and you're all set. Or go with the uubercool MIDIbox Router :-)

Correct. Sidenote: It doesn't say "MIOS 1.09 Thornsten Klaus blah blah". On http://ucapps.de/mbhp_core.html it says "Interface to application specific module extensions like the SID module." I won't tell you what the correctg J?? is, I am pretty sure you can find it ;) I am not sure what you mean, but you don't have to solder any jumpers on smash's PCBs. The sockets are already there. Stick MIDI cables in 'em. That means that the Core MIDI out -> PC MIDI In works (it receives the upload request), but the PC MIDI Out -> Core MIDI In does not. This can have various reasons. The routing in MIOS Studio might be wrong, your midi device may not be able to forward SysEx correctly (check the blacklist on the wiki), one or more of the parts on your core may be wrong/broken (diode direction, dead opto coupler), ... Follow the MIDI Troubleshooting guide and post the results here, and we'll know.

"werd!", he said, returning from his one week "sun, water and alcohol"-holiday with nothing that even remotely looked like a midibox or a PC.

80s retro meets LCARS? Nice work!

I love the simplicity of the thing, which is probably why I am working on sth similar mb-based atm. Or maybe it's because of flexinoodle's constant nagging about it... ;D

My take on burners: Buy one off ebay for cheap (the kind you can get for ~5 eur). Yah yah, this is a DIY forum, but the failure rate of diy'd burners seems relatively high ;-) Having a pic burner is definitely handy, especially if you don't want to order from Smash.

Group huuuug! :D

Sweet! Just in case someone doesn't know the original:

Welcome aboard pingosimon! :D Why don't you just order them from smash as well? Yes, you do. What module size is good obviously depends on what you want to do with it. Voltage - make sure it doesn't need a negative voltage for the backlight. It should have an HD44780 compatible controller (most do). The header is a constant that is written into the memory of the pic processor. It's mostly important for applications that use mutliple core modules. You want the default one. Header - see above. Yes you should get this. Cause without a processor you won't have much fun ;) No you can't, simply cause they're already there. The kit comes with parts for both types of SIDs. Whichever type you wanna use. 1/4" trs will work just fine. The board has pads you can use for RCA (cinch) sockets as well.

If you've got the space - why not do it? ;)

How about you start from the beginning this time around ;) Measure all the supply voltages on all IC sockets and the outputs of the vregs again. If they're not all good - stop right there and find the issue first. If they're good, install the optocoupler and the core1 PIC only. Connect MIDI in and out cables, fire up MIOS Studio, connect the in and out in the connection window, power up the box and see if you get an upload request (make sure MIDI IO is jumpered correctly on the pcb). Dropping by the chat might be a good idea as well, as the mb6582-Master Wilba tends to hang out there ;)

I honestly can't tell you what's wrong, but without the PICs or the SIDs I wouldn't really expect it to do anything meaningful. Did you check all the voltages before installing any chips? Did the LCD show anything (with at least the master PIC installed)? Did you forget R80?

7VA: 7 V*A = 7 Volts * Amperes 7 Volts * Amperes / 9 Volts = 0.77 Amperes So your PSU supplies a max. of 0.77 Amperes at 9V

Well 90% of what you need is already done here as well. The only coding you'd have to do is this: unsigned char segments[10] = {0x3F, 0x06, 0x5B, 0x4F, 0x66, 0x6D, 0x7C, 0x07, 0x7F, 0x6F}; // ... void MPROC_NotifyReceivedEvnt(unsigned char evnt0, unsigned char evnt1, unsigned char evnt2) __wparam { if (evnt0 = 0xC0) { // it's a program change on channel 1 unsigned char prog_num = evnt1; unsigned int status = 0; // all leds off if (prog_num > 99) { // 1st digit status = 0xC000; prog_num -= 100; } status |= segments[(prog_num / 10)] << 7; // 2nd digit status |= segments[(prog_num %% 10)]; // 3rd digit MIOS_DOUT_SRSet(0, (status & 0xFF)); // set first shift register MIOS_DOUT_SRSet(1, (status >> 8)); // set second shift register } }[/code] (Untested, just wrote that down quickly to give you an idea) ;)

Writing the application isn't reall all that hard ;) You can use the "http://ucapps.de/mios/ain64_din128_dout128_v2b.zip application to test all the individual segments. So you can go ahead and build the hardware and see if it works. Don't worry about the code at this point. We'll get to that once you got the hardware up and running. As I said, if you for some reason really can't do it, I'll be happy to help out ;)

What's the question about the core? You'll need one :-) See: http://ucapps.de/mbhp_core.html