Wilba

Confirmation: I won't bother asking for postage costs.

Everyone is emailing and posting me now, from around the world. So that's about 6 days from Australia to Europe... new MEGA-SALE record!

I concur, it's more of a diluted black than an explicit dark grey.

Isn't it obvious that only ALBS.de make and sell these knobs? Five seconds of searching and look what I found: Maybe nILS is annoyed by your failure to use common sense too. "These knobs come from ALBS" is pretty clear and precise. It's like I wrote "Cow's milk comes from cows" and you post a new thread: "Can I get cow's milk from somewhere other than a cow's tit?"

... and I will do the prototype boards once I get a prototype case from Doug :)

I just received 100 Black Re'an P401 Soft-touch knobs. Hooray! Thanks nebula! (and a pre-emptive "Thanks nebula!" from stryd_one, since I have his 300 here too). btw one of the knobs is actually very dark grey and a little bit translucent... didn't you test everyone's knobs before shipping? ;) hehehe

Well... I am making mine regardless ;D Then I'll arrange a bulk order for PCBs. I don't know how many will eventually order, but I'm guessing a batch run of 50-100 would not be unreasonable. At those quantities, I'm sure the price of the PCB would be around US$40. Then people can do whatever they like... order frontpanels from FPE/Schaeffer and use/make their own case, or wait for Doug's frontpanel+case bulk order. For what it's worth, I'm not waiting for Doug's silkscreened frontpanel, I'll get a frontpanel made for the "prototype" and then eventually get a case from Doug. At the same time as the PCB bulk order, I'll keep track of people's requirements for matching parts for this PCB (e.g. switches+caps, and bicolour 3mm LEDs) because if it wasn't for the kindness of people in the States, I'd be paying ridiculous prices on shipping to Australia for these parts, so it would make sense to have bulk orders for at least these parts so everyone can benefit from the price reduction. At 50 PCBs, that's a lot of switches, caps and LEDs, and the price breaks will be very good. The 40mm datawheel knob from ALBS probably should be merged in with a bulk order for the switches+caps and LEDs. Things are progressing slowly... I've finalized the PCB design, finalized the frontpanel design, now I'm just waiting to pull the pin and order prototypes of both and put it together, and in the meantime, work on finalizing the case design. If all goes to plan, I expect to run the PCB bulk order around October/November.

He meant the not-polite form. Replace "Freak" with your favourite F-word. (It's common in Australia, don't know how common elsewhere)

Just to clarify: PCBs come from seppoman, SSM2044 chips come from me. I will run an SSM2044 MEGA-SALE soon. I am not too keen to order 600+ chips before I check this supplier is selling good chips. Yeah, I know it's only likesuchas US$3000 but it's still MY US$3000, so I'll first have to do a small order and check they're OK before buying up big. I am ONLY going to buy enough to cover the orders on the bulk order page here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/ssm2044_pcb_bulk_order and there is absolutely no guarantee that I will order any more in future, so you have until the August 3rd deadline to adjust your quantity. You will not be able to increase your quantity after August 3rd unless other people decrease theirs, and I hope this does not happen or I will be MEGA-ANNOYED. As I've probably mentioned before, postage to anywhere in the world is going to be dirt cheap because I know what I'm doing (compared to rip-off merchants on eBay) so the overall price of the SSM2044 is going to beat the eBay 50pcs bulk price even for the smallest orders.

The first batch of SIDs were sent today to people who have already paid (not counting uncleared eCheques). I'm down to 25 unsold SIDs, which I will keep reserved. You can continue to send through orders using the format in the previous post, and if I have SIDs available, I'll contact you.

70 of : 3FTL6 "Quiet" $1.80 70 of : 1D.16 (Translucent white) 0.40c It's gonna be a very expensive DuoLED matrix :o but damn nice... ;D FWIW I'll be making a PCB for the DuoLED matrix eventually (unless bugfight beats me to it, but then I might want mine different, who knows?) If people have any plans to build a DuoLED matrix, now's the time to consider getting these switch caps (and maybe the "Quiet" switches). The MEC 3F switch seems the most likely candidate for use in a "standard" DuoLED matrix PCB (not counting the SparkFun rubbery buttons), there just aren't many illuminated switches that can take a bicolour LED with three pins, and even the MECs need a little tweaking to fit that third lead. Even if a PCB doesn't get made, the fact that the MEC switch leads align to a 100mil/2.54mm grid, they'll fit into veroboard/prototyping board nicely.

Update: The current plan is to not proceed with an all-in-one case made by Protocase. The overall design remains unchanged, the main change is, the frontpanel is a single flat piece that's screwed into a folded sheet steel case that's a sloping desktop case shape (same shape/dimensions/cutouts as previously discussed). I'm going to work with Doug Wellington to produce this case design. The advantages are: 1. People can make their own MB-SEQ frontpanel using different artwork, different cutouts for switches, different PCB even! and screw it into a generic MB-SEQ desktop/rack mountable case. You won't be stuck with my particular preference for frontpanel colour and artwork, since you can always order your own frontpanel from FPE/Schaeffer. 2. A bulk order for frontpanels to match this PCB/layout might be run by Doug, meaning he's a little more flexible than a bulk order done elsewhere. Doug might do a custom job for you, if he can use the same silkscreen as the rest of the bulk order, or pay extra for a custom silkscreen, I don't really know... it's just a theory, Doug might disagree ;) 3. One of the concerns I had with the Protocase option was it's OK me to pay a huge price for a one-off prototype, but it leaves everyone else stuck until 50 people can get together with their cash and order 50, and then it's a shipping nightmare for somebody. This way, people can get a frontpanel (from FPE/Schaeffer) as soon as they have the PCB, knowing that they can get a case to fit sometime later. 4. The case design could be reused for other projects. The design is a copy of the MB-808 case design anyway... but I'm sure other MIDIbox projects could squeeze into the same sized case, and it might be possible to order this case without cutouts so you could drill your own to suit another MIDIbox project, I don't really know... it's just a theory, Doug might disagree ;)

You can still use the MEC switches with the PCB: It's a personal preference I guess. I think the MB-SEQ suits switches with separate LEDs, or switches with an integrated LED that's a discrete illuminated point above the place you press... like those old-school switches on the TR-808 (and MB-808!). I also like those switches with an entirely illuminated cap, if they're big enough to see it lit while you're pressing it. There were many iterations of my layout, and in a few of them I used the MECs with the big round white cap (like what stryd_one is going to bulk order), but I just wasn't 100% happy with the arrangement... again I'm trying to squeeze as much as possible into a standard sized panel, and keep the costs down using relatively cheap parts.

Yeah you are right... use "16,0" instead for the DOUT table. Or, if you don't have any DOUT modules at all (no 74HC595) then any SR >= 1 would do.

The order of the list is important - it's used to identify the encoder. Therefore, you don't change the order of this list, just assign your custom SR/pin values to the entry. I was going to recommend using "0, 0" for SR/pin, but looking at the ENC_ENTRY macro, it might not... ;; encoder entry structure ENC_ENTRY MACRO sr, din_0, mode dw (mode << 8) | (din_0 + 8*(sr-1)) ENDM ENC_EOT MACRO dw 0xffff ENDM [/code] "0, 0" would turn "(din_0 + 8*(sr-1))" into -8... probably not handled gracefully elsewhere. Then again, maybe it is, I don't know. Something like "16, 0" would definitely work... you won't have a 16th DIN (plus "DEFAULT_SRIO_NUMBER" is default to 10 - state on the 16th DIN would never be shifted into the PIC anyway).

hey Tans, you left out: [Wilba] 9:23 am: that frailn dude is using the 6582A I sold him to bump up his eBay auction for some C64 expansion card thingo: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=300243697514&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=020 [Wilba] 9:23 am: sneaky little bugger... ;D (The above transcript is fictitious. Any resemblance to real chat conversation is entirely coincidental, although I have been known to call people "sneaky little buggers" on occasion when they deserve it.)

I'm sure there are many people building a MIDIbox "for a friend" and I guess there's no harm in that, since if that "friend" has a problem, they'll come back to you to help fix it. There are essentially two reasons why MIDIbox is made freely available for non-commercial use only: 1. People should not be making a profit from work that was donated freely to the MIDIbox "DIY" community. That's an ethical reason. 2. If anyone had problems with a "commercially sold" MIDIbox and came to the forum for support, then people here would not want to help (and should not have to help) someone who did not build their MIDIbox themselves. That's more of a "spirit of MIDIbox" reason... we love to help people who are doing it themselves. You can read the forums for more examples of people's opinions. I agree there's a whole spectrum between building an extra MIDIbox for a fellow band member, friend, etc. and profiteering from selling finished MIDIboxes on eBay... but selling your "soldering time" to a stranger is more towards the profiteering end of that spectrum.

I'm the one that started this thread for a reason - to warn other people that if things go wrong, they can just ignore your emails completely and you're left with no other option than to reverse the charge on your credit card. It's not that hard to ship the right parts to customers, and if they make a mistake, surely they should take that little extra care to get the order right. Yeah, and I'm a vindictive, spiteful, vengeful bastard. They screwed me over, and now I'll spread the bad word about them. But hey, I'm not the only one. http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Futurlec BTW I didn't even mention before, the quality of their stuff is crap too. The stereo sockets I did use are all tarnished now. Genuine Neutrik sockets with quality plating would have been worth the extra few dollars. Do you want that sort of problem with your MIDIbox? Solder joints going all dry, causing intermittent faults, all because you wanted to save a few bucks on shipping?

"100% success" means I needed a pair of pliers and 300 Newtons of force to pull it off.

I don't know why a couple of people have trouble with "the JB-Weld trick"... I've used it on seven MB-6582 front panels (five from Front Panel Express, two from Altitude's bulk order) with 100% success.

well... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efkiD5YfEMQ

I guess with some care you could mount something in those places. But it would be easier to just customize the rear panel. Modify the FPD file to remove the hole for the fan, and then put in holes for whatever switches and potentiometers you want.

C'mon Twinny, you can just send a PM to everyone with the new IP address... People can then hack their hosts file, if they know what they're doing... ;D

Sorry, the PCB layout files are not publicly available to prevent people from making and selling completed MIDIbox SID synths on eBay. The license for using the PCBs is here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/wilba_mb_6582_license If you want to know the reasons why I made this decision, search for "SID-NUXX" on the forum.

I will release the FPD file once the PCB design is finished, but I think people should wait until they have PCBs in hand before ordering panels. People making their own panels are not restricted to rectangular button caps, they could if they wanted to use illuminated MEC switches but they'll need to adjust the positions of labels, and the arrangement might not look that nice. I chose the e-switch 12x12mm tact and C&K button cap because they're cheap, readily available, look great, and leave room for discrete 3mm LEDs above them, allowing easy use of dual colour LEDs for steps and user choice of LEDs elsewhere... a bulk order price of about 58 x $0.51 for switches/caps = $30 total per MB-SEQ, plus $10 max for LEDs, now that's a lot more affordable (and reasonable) than spending $120 or more on $2 illuminated switches... you might as well save that cash for the Duo-LED button matrix, in which you really do need 64 illuminated switches.