Wilba

Unfortunately not... I'm sort of lucky that shipping from the Ponoko hub in NZ to Australia is reasonable and keeps the cost of the case down.

I told you not to post in this thread! Bad slave! Bad slave!

Doug's case (or at least the last evolution of the design) is to mount the panel to the case sides through the four studs on the sides of the panel, i.e. where I used studs. The side pieces would have a folded edge with holes. Then the case front, rear and bottom sides would mount to the sides. JB-Weld-ed countersunk screws would probably not be ideal in this case, because you want the folded edge of the side piece to be flat against the back of the panel, and not be obstructed by the screw head and blob of JB-Weld. If you're getting a panel done by Schaeffer or FPE, then go with threaded blind holes, otherwise go with just non-threaded blind holes/JB-Weld in the hole... that would be almost as good and let the folded edge of the side piece be flat against the panel.

The problem won't happen on Core32 because IIC (J4) is not sharing a pin with the LCD ports.

nILS did the base PCB layout and designed the logo, however, he will claim he was just my slave and did whatever I told him to do. It's funny that use of the DIN 1451 font makes things look like nILS did it... :)

I have the ones that fussylizard used and will try them out... the spacing between the SIDs is identical to MB-6582 but I'm not sure about the clearance with the control surface PCB above it. IMHO you don't need heatsinks for 6582A and there's enough ventilation to keep them from running hot.

Hey julianf, thanks for the info... I hope I didn't come across as critical, I just wanted people to know what the differences were.

Maybe TK will do one when he gets his prototype. ;)

I can be ready to roll as soon as I know people want this kit and that the first batch of 25 will be sold... :) The voltage regulators and heatsinks must dissipate quite a bit of heat when passing 300mA of current... it's a common issue with building a MIDIbox SID - how to get 9V and 5V supplies from a single power input. This design uses a 7809 to regulate 9V from the input power, then passes 9V DC through two power diodes before supplying a 7805 to regulate the 5V. There's a constant load of more than 300mA on the 5V supply (each SID is 100mA each!) so that does cause the heatsinks to get hot. Due to the compact design, lots of ventilation was added so there's no issues with heat building up inside the case.

Of course! I suspect there are lots of people who already have SIDs and want to build a MIDIbox SID. Making SIDs optional means more SIDs to share with others who don't have SIDs already.

They really are just for bling, for fun. They aren't like the official "modulation matrix" of the MIDIbox SID full control surface. They're six rows of LEDs which can show meters of the envelopes/LFOs (in Lead engine mode) or act like VU meters per oscillator (in Multi mode or "SID player" mode) or perhaps will be useful in Bassline mode. There was already a debate about them, likesuchas, why bother with LEDs that don't really do anything when it's supposed to be a newbie friendly design. I personally think soldering 48 LEDs that are held in position by a panel/PCB "sandwich" is no harder than any other kind of soldering, and the extra US$7 in parts will add to the "show off" factor. Unlike my day job, I don't have to justify the "business case" for features... if I want totally superfluous and gratuitous LED bling instead of empty space on the panel, I can haz it. Seriously, can you imagine one of TK's MIDIbox demo videos that doesn't have blinky LEDs? It had to be done! ;)

It's hard acrylic, 3mm thickness, no flex. The idea is to make complete kits that include this case, in dark grey tint acrylic as the "stock" case. The problem is, yes I could order cases in different colours, but that really complicates things, when the cases are laid out five to one big sheet of acrylic and that's how I've worked out the kit cost... supporting all possible customizations (case, LCD, LEDs) is really hard to manage. It would be really easy if there were five orders for one different case colour, or five orders for no case (just the LCD window). Some feedback from potential buyers is required here... for now, people wanting custom cases can request them and I'll collect these requests and decide what to do later. Kits without 6582A SIDs will always be an option, that's just common sense.

Click for full size view. More photos on Flickr. Full documentation can be found here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/sammichsid sammichSID was designed to be the "no excuses" MIDIbox SID synthesizer kit - i.e. for all those people who want a MIDIbox SID but consider building it with modules too time-consuming, too newbie-unfriendly and/or too hard to design and construct a control surface, and where MB-6582 is too expensive, too daunting and/or too hard to source all the parts. sammichSID therefore has the following design constraints/features, which support each other: cheap small DIY newbie friendly minimal control surface single "walwart"/AC adapter supply, no C64 PSU brick! stereo SID, optimized for 8580/6582A, 6581 optionally supported "sandwich-style" stacked PCB design, no wires! laser-cut 3mm acrylic case by Ponoko, customization possible industry standard 2x20 character LCD with low-power LED backlight, customization possible common control surface parts used, customization possible To be available as a complete kit, including PCBs, components, case, hardware and (optionally) two 6582A SIDs! MIDIbox SID Synthesizer V2 features One Core module and one stereo SID module, fully integrated on one PCB with power supply. Five "BankStick" slots, so you can store 4 banks of 128 patches, plus 128 "Ensembles" (engine and patch configurations) Jumpers to configure the power supply, allowing a regulated 12V input to power 6581, or unregulated AC/DC input to power 8580/6582A. Minimal control surface with three user-customizable buttons and LED matrix for maximum bling. 2x20 character LCD with support for low-power (25mA) or high-power (250mA) LED backlight. Potential for future upgrade to MIDIbox SID Synthesizer V3 using add-on board Buying a kit Details about pre-ordering a kit can be found here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/sammichsid

I prefer three wires from the encoder pins to the pads of J4, which is connected by tracks to the encoder footprint pads. Numbers on the top show you which goes where (basically, the wires don't cross), thus you don't use the encoder footprint pads. No headers or jumpers needed here. As above, use J4 for the datawheel encoder pins. J3 is optional beat LED header, not required if you solder a 5mm beat LED to the PCB.

Assuming you have mounted the socket the wrong way around, don't bother desoldering it, just make a bigger notch in the other end, or a mark of some kind. I know this might be obvious to some, but we have been asked before whether it's OK to leave an IC socket the wrong way around... ;)

You're probably measuring the opposite way (hence the inverted value). Perhaps you mounted IC2's socket the wrong way around. Check against SmashTV's info page: http://avishowtech.com/mbhp/mbhp_SIDR3a.html

LOL... I didn't think to be explicit about "mount on the bottom of the PCB" because the switches clearly overlap and it can't fit on top.

I believe two-part epoxy glue is often used to totally encase circuits (for weatherproofing or hazardous conditions). Perhaps you can cover the high voltage areas with that.

You should check if he can make 2mm or 2.5mm deep holes of 3mm diameter, without thread... this would let you glue a 3mm threaded stud into the hole (yes, with JB-Weld) and give a very solid joint, but not be visible from the top panel. I no longer recommend gluing the flat head of a countersunk screw to the back of a panel (like MB-6582) because too many people have trouble with this, and they are relatively weak joints, but a screw into a 3mm unthreaded hole filled with JB-Weld would be very strong. Since the rest of the design (at least the other prototype panels) uses JB-Weld and 10mm threaded spacers, people might have the JB-Weld anyway. Another alternative to consider: instead of threaded studs, use 10mm threaded spacers where I've used studs... however it might be tricky to align PCB to panel during the gluing of the spacers, without any studs to guide the PCB (only switch caps in the holes, for example), you'll need to lightly clamp and then shift the PCB to get better alignment before tightening the clamps. People who have built an MB-6582 before will know what I mean ;-) it's not impossible to do, it just takes careful planning and patience.

vcfool didn't use JB-Weld... and I don't know whether JB-Weld would work on acrylic anyway. You can get black plastic threaded spacers and try gluing them to acrylic. I might try this one day. I'm saying... if you want a panel like this, look at where vcfool used screws on the frontpanel and decide if that's where you would like holes or not. Maybe even check whether he's using the same switches and spacers... because the switch shafts look like they stick out more than they would using 13mm tactiles/10mm spacers/2mm panel.

You can see the internal diagram of the switch here: http://spec.e-switch.com/P-J/P001099C.pdf Like most of these tactile switches with four pins, there are two pairs of pins which are connected internally. It's also intended that PCBs can use this internal connection like a bridge or an additional track, and I use this on the MB-SEQ (and did on the MB-6582 also)... switches on the same matrix "row" are connected together through this internal connection. So it doesn't matter which way you mount the switch, it's symmetrical.

I don't know which file julianf used to get his price, or if he took off the cavities and threaded blind holes before getting a quote. So the price difference might not be between panels made without the cavities and threaded blind holes.

Note that Schaeffer's price might be including the threaded blind holes and cavities on the back side for LCD windows - work on the back side costs extra.

I said the bottom side... aka the side that isn't going to make contact with the CS PCB. Solder them using a reheating technique... strip and tin the wire, add a blob of solder to the pad, then put wire onto blob and reheat with iron.

1. tobsen did not ask SmashTV if he could run this bulk order before announcing it, therefore I declare this bulk order invalid. 2. If people in the same city/country want to combine their orders from SmashTV, then find those people through the forum and arrange it offline. That is, you announce where you live and that you're ordering from SmashTV and other people can PM you with what they want. 3. Considering the products he sells are of the best quality at the best prices, people should stop complaining about SmashTV's shipping costs. If you don't like it, go and get your own PCBs made and order parts from Mouser or Reichelt or wherever you like. There is no reason to continue this thread, so I'm locking it.