Wilba

If you consider cheap parts and looking cool are "features", then I concur. :thumbsup: Oh wait... was it originally a single PCB and I persuaded you to make it sammich style? That sounds like something I would do.

BTW I like the case design too... esp. the nut in the PCB, I'd like to see how that turns out (and then steal the idea) :thumbsup: I've thought about whether it's possible to solder a metal threaded spacer horizontally to a large pad on the PCB (i.e. ground plane without solder mask)... maybe it's also possible to hold a nut in place with a few solder joints.

Nice work, Sasha... I like the changes :thumbsup: If you want to use the "C64" rocker switch (like MB-6582, sammich*, kaffeSEQ), I just ordered 500 and have plenty to spare for any PCB/kit bulk order. By dropping the gap to 10mm, you now need to worry about clearance for the power socket and switch... when I suggested it, I was expecting you to increase the height of both boards to compensate for the cutouts required. On kaffeSEQ, the dimenions are so tight, you need to cut off the outer pair of leads from the switch so it clears the top PCB and encoder. BTW kaffeSEQ is mostly nILS' design, please direct all design criticisms to him :poke: I just do all the boring stuff... :wacko:

You're getting 18V because there's no load. It should drop to 10.5V-12V under load... but since you're using an 800mA adapter it will be higher. I would recommend switching to the regulated 12V DC one and putting shunts in JBP until you sort out the other problems, then you should be getting exactly 12V at points marked 12V. 9V off the left 7809 pin is good... that's the output. What is the voltage going into the 7805? (left pin relative to middle). How are you setting the LCD backlight? (JBL, JR4, position of brightness pot).

Based on his other post, he used acrylic on the Arctic Ice case. I think you'll get better results with enamel paint. BTW my experience differs slightly though... the Tamiya is quite liquid out of the bottle... yet very dense with pigment. Two coats is all you need, if you fill up the engraving two times and squeegee away the excess... since both coats are thin, after drying it will sink down into the engraving. Thick coats won't sink down so much, and will stick to the mask, and the edges won't be as clean. SRSLY the results I'm getting with enamel put my original acrylic paint filling to shame, and I'm a bit embarrassed it's taken me over a year to try out other paints and techniques. I hope there aren't too many messed up sammichSID panels due to my negligence. :whistle: P.S. kaffeSEQ will be available in Arctic Ice. It's amusing that people want kaffeSEQ when hardly anyone knows what it does, including me! The design brief was "make something better than Gorf". Maybe that was nILS' idea or maybe I just told him it had to be better than Gorf if we wanted me to sell kits. I forget. I used my powers of persuasion on nILS to tweak his design and make it more "kit-friendly", but I have NFI how to use it. Maybe once upon a time I did, way back when I made that proto which is just a bit of veroboard stuck on top of a sammichSID base. It's been a while since then. It has steps and stuff. It uses sammichSID-style bits. It fits together. I came up with the name, though... and if you like how cool it looks, that's all my idea, please send kudos and cash to Jason.S.Williams@gmail.com but SRSLY don't ask me what it does.

I just bought 652-PEC16-4220FN0024 which is the new Bourns version, will trial them in the current batch of sammichSID kits. I think it would be easier/cheaper if I just post you a new one, if you're not already buying stuff from Mouser.

Here's some EXTREME PAINT FILLING... click for EXTREME CLOSEUP.

I pulled off another triangle in an "A" doing the kaffeSEQ case... but this is actually easy to fix, just scrape off paint after it is tack dry. I also wasn't so vigorous with the squeegee on the kaffeSEQ panels, and it doesn't cause any problems, i.e. lots of thinned paint around an engraving is OK, mask peels off cleanly. I think the most important thing to remember is leaving the paint to dry fully before peeling off the mask, or you end up with smudges, strings like melted cheese, lifting or pulling out paint from the engraving, etc. BTW I did a sample using red but it came out too dark. How did you get the red so bright? What brand of paint are you using?

As originally planned, I will run this bulk order of OPL3 chipsets in between the current batch of sammichSID kits (packing now), and a batch of sammichFM kits (January?). I have in stock 100 OPL3 chipsets, which is enough for 50 sammichSID kits (assuming all kits come with OPL3 chipsets), plus another 50 spare for this bulk order. I am assuming that there will be some people cancelling their order in this bulk order and choosing to buy a sammichFM kit instead... plus there are always people who join bulk orders and then never follow through to actual payment. So 50 spare for this bulk order is IMHO plenty.

- check the 74HC165 and 74HC595 are in the correct positions - check orientation of the resistor networks - check for shorts or bad solder joints in the header between the PCBs First and last column of LEDs being on might suggest a short around IC3/IC4, or even a LED in reverse polarity.

After seeing Seimpre La Luna's painting, I decided it was time to give enamel paint a try, and I am so much happier with the result. I have perfected the technique, I think. I use a 5mm x 15mm piece of thin flexible plastic, cut from the clear plastic that you find in packaging. I use this piece of plastic a a mini-squeegee. Just like silk-screening, I use the squeegee to wipe off excess paint. Here's the step-by-step guide: 1. Use a good enamel paint. I'm using Tamiya Gloss White (X-2) 2. Apply paint to the engraving so it fills up to the backing paper. Do one word or about five letters at a time. 3. Remove excess paint using the squeegee. Use firm pressure, but avoid scraping off isolated pieces of mask, like inside "A" and "P". Scrape off in two directions. 4. Leave to dry at least one hour. The paint should have lowered into the engraving. 5. Do a second coat (repeat steps 2 and 3). 6. Leave to dry overnight! (I guess 6-8 hours would be enough). 7. Peel off mask. Paint should not be stringy, and the mask should not pull paint out of the engraving. It only takes two coats of enamel paint to give a solid fill, and still be lower than the top surface of the acrylic. Wiping off the excess using the squeegee means you can fill the engraving to the top... my previous method of using a paper towel to remove excess paint would soak up the paint in the engraving and require more coats. POIDH? Here you go. Note the triangle inside the "A" of "SAMMICH" came off during the squeegee phase... this was fixed with a craft knife, and I could touch up the black line to the right... but I won't bother. It looks better in real life - the camera picks up every spot of dust and paint flecks.

I'll just blat a whole lot of things to do without a lot of preamble: - check multimeter is set to DC - check 7809 and 7805 are in correct position - check voltage at 9V points and 12V points, report values (see section 5. Voltage Tests, Step 1) - check diodes between 7809 and 7805 are correctly oriented - check voltage going into the 7805, between middle pin (ground) and pin connected to D5... should be around ~7.6V - check middle pins of voltage regulators are connected to ground

The 12V AC 800mA will be OK, most likely it's unregulated. Leave it set to 12V. The 12V DC 1500mA might be preferable if it's regulated. If you measure exactly 12V DC out of the tip, then it's regulated. Use shunts in JBP so the 7809 receives exactly 12V, not 12V - 1.4V from the bridge rectifier. Rocker switch: flicking UP is powering ON.

I blame nILS :poke: