Wilba

They will work, but I'm sure you can find nicer (and cheaper) ones in your local electronics store.

A good magician never reveals their secrets.

Well spotted. You can haz free lazer!

NO SIDS FOR YOU!!! COME BACK NEVER!!! MEGA-SALE #9 is FINISHED IT WAS THE VERY LAST MEGASALE!!! You are welcome to email an order and if more become available (cancelled orders or new stock) I will notify you to confirm your order.

You should ship worldwide - there are probably more SID fanatics outside the U.S. than inside.

I should sell Soundwell encoders on eBay... $5 AUD each is a really expensive. Sorry I didn't read this sooner, I would have offered you some much cheaper.

They were definitely sent on Wednesday 6th May (local time). When you post things that are flat and look like a letter, they get shipped faster, on top of being cheaper.

MB-SID V3 is still a long way in the future... I won't even hypothesize about actual hardware design... some people might recall that MB-SID V2 was going to use PIC18F4620 and require two IIC_MIDI modules, which is how I designed the original MB-6582 "prototype"... and then that got superseded by PIC18F4685 and CAN bus master/slave comms. Luckily TK didn't change his mind on how stereo SID pairs would be controlled by one PIC. :) However, I am fairly confident that there will be an "upgrade path" for MB-6582, so people can upgrade their MB-6582 to MB-SID V3 firmware running on (I assume) an STM32... i.e. using a Core32 "module" as an expansion board. It seems very unlikely that such a thing won't be possible.

Piping JB-Weld... great idea! You got me thinking though, perhaps a small 5ml syringe would work too, and be disposable afterwards. BTW $1.20 each for those spacers is pretty expensive... I buy packs of 100 for $30 AUD ($23 USD)

Just try PICPgm http://members.aon.at/electronics/pic/picpgm/ I didn't try it with Vista, only XP, but I've noticed you don't need to open up direct control of the COM port like with other programs. Just make sure you are not running anything else that uses the COM port, like a Palm HotSync manager etc.

Print some parallel lines on paper, alternating 2.5mm and 3.5mm widths... i.e. you are trying to make the slots 2.5mm wide with 3.5mm between them. Sticky tape the paper over the place you want the slots, especially as it curves to the bottom. Use a sharp craft knife to score through the lines of the paper and into the case. Remove paper. CAREFULLY use a Dremel and grinding disc to cut a narrow slot. Note the plastic melts as you do this, but you can wait for it to cool and harden and then scrape it off. Go slowly. Don't go all the way to the ends of the slot. You really just want enough to get a craft knife into the slot. Alternately, use 2mm drill bit. (This is the way I did it last - next time I might try something other than a grinding disc, like some other metal Dremel drilling/routing bit or a metal disc). Clean up the inner edge with a sharp craft knife. Use knife to carve out the ends of the slot neatly. Use an emery board to sand edge down to the score line. Since you made the slots 2.5mm wide, it's now OK to sand down a little bit extra and you'll end up with 3mm wide slots separated by 3mm. The sanded edge is going to be matte and not as black, so fix it up with a black Sharpie.

Actually not correct... The "cheapest" option uses three pens, so you can change line thickness/colour for divider lines and the arrows left of the menu encoders separately from the lines for the rest of the artwork. The description for this file might have suggested there was only one pen, sorry... I've fixed that in the wiki.

It's not essential to have a bankstick for ensembles and easy enough to add later.

Unless you're a hot geek girl like Tina Fey, I'll pass...

You probably should get an additional 24LC256 for storing ensembles, this is an invaluable feature when switching between a Lead setup and a Bassline setup, as the ensemble stores things like keyboard range split between the left and right SIDs in Bassline mode (i.e. so you can change sequences on each channel using keys in different octaves). You should have no problem adding additional 24LC512 to breadboard/protoboard... it really doesn't matter where you put the other chips, although most people put them side by side. 5 pins are common with the others, you only need to connect three pins to ground or 5V to set it's "ID" (see the doco for what ID you need, eg. it's basially three bits to set an ID in the range 0-7).

What did you change on the panel to require the "medium priced" option?

*hugs*? eww!!! :) Rant mode over, now back to business as usual. Posting touchy feely posts ist verboten!!! Don't make me use my moderator super-powers! <----- WILBA HAZ MAJIK GREEN STARZ

Here's an email I received after my last post in this thread, likesuchas just now: Frankly, I do not believe someone who paid for 10 new 6582A SIDs only three weeks ago has spent the time since on a quest to source them somewhere else, nor even if they had done so, would have found them for a price cheaper than my price, or at a quality better than the ones I sell. It's quite OK to cancel an order for stuff from me before you actually pay - people have been hit by the recent economic "downturn" aka. prelude to a depression, and in general, shit happens, I really don't care why people change their mind, so long as they tell me instead of never reply to payment requests and leave me hanging. According to stryd_one, I'm such a "nice guy" that I'll buy back your SID order if you decided you didn't want them anymore, although it is just as easy to resell them for what you paid to the never-ending stream of new MIDIbox SID builders or other people wanting SIDs. In this context, to be fully aware that your package was just about to be posted tomorrow and then seeing an opportunity to back out, and presenting a totally bullshit excuse... well, frankly that is bad form. I may be notoriously slow in testing and packing 500 SIDs (i.e. in the order of four to six weeks) but I actually have a full time job and family commitments not to mention running a lot of other MIDIbox related bulk orders, and troubleshooting MB-6582 builds-gone-wrong. Part of the delay this time was actually finding time during business hours to go to the post office for an hour. Even if this person in question had magically sourced SIDs elsewhere, which is not impossible (only the timing of this revelation makes me doubt the veracity), then there would be no financial risk in proceeding with the MEGASALE order, since as I've stated before, they hold their value very well, and may even increase in value after this final MEGASALE ends... someone in the future will want a matching set of 10 6582A SIDs. I think I would have preferred an email of the form "Is it too late to cancel my order? I really need the cash now". Ultimately it doesn't matter how you phrase a request to cancel (even after payment) because basically there's no point posting stuff to an ungrateful, unhappy buyer, who might want to stuff me around with a PayPal dispute. If you've been patiently reading through this rant, wondering if I'll ever get to the point... sorry to disappoint... :P

Due to circumstances beyond my control (stupid post office opening hours, inherent procrastination and busy schedule), posting of current, paid orders was delayed until 6th May (tomorrow). I HAZ ONLY 29 SIDS LEFT!!!!! THE PERSON WHO CAN BUY LAST SID CAN HAS FREE LAZER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111oneoneeleven

Congratulations! :)

Awesome work, Alkex! You must show some photos of the internals! Moar gear pr0n! Share the FPD file too perhaps? I'd be interested in building one like this! Did you put all the LEDs/switches in a common matrix (like MB-6582)? I would advise using a separate Core/DIN/DOUT modules to implement your keyboard switch matrix - if you have the space inside for one more Core/DINx1/DOUTx1, which you probably do. Advantages: You can do this completely separate to the existing modules you use for the MB-SID, and can keep the firmware separate. This means whenever there is a new version of MB-SID you don't need to merge your keyboard matrix code into the new version. There is already code to handle a keyboard switch matrix - look at the sample applications There is very little spare RAM and flash memory available with the MB-SID application. You can have separate MIDI In/Out for the keyboard controller - so if you want to route MIDI Out through a DAW or sequencer and then back into the MB-SID this would be an option - just by changing cables at the back, rather than more MB-SID firmware changes However, it's not impossible to do as MB-SID firmware changes... just harder and less flexible IMHO... if you can squeeze another PIC in that case then I'd advise doing it that way.

I noticed my favourite link: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?action=recenttopics no longer works :(

You need 24LC512 for storing 128 patches (in the first 7 sockets), the 8th is used for ensembles and can be 24LC512 or 24LC256. You probably have a 24LC256 in the bankstick sockets used for patches. The symbols/numbers are custom characters used elsewhere in the application, like on the main screen showing which SIDs are playing (inverted number). It's no error, more like the range of character codes is not restricted (it's a feature!). It's probably not a good idea to use the special characters because they change dynamically depending on what screen is being displayed.

I was going to suggest Mouser part 318-ENC160F-24P which are mechanically and electrically identical to the Soundwell ones I bulk order, but the price on these are ridiculous! 1+ $5.18, 100+ $3.56... they used to be cheaper, right? You are better off getting some from SmashTV's shop if you only need small quantities.

The only real danger with changeid is accidentally changing the bit that controls UART baud rate, i.e. between standard MIDI and MIDIbox-to-COM. If you only change it to 0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03 then there's nothing to worry about.