Wilba

I forgot to mention that I only received a couple free spare base PCBs and no free control surface PCBs. I did order more than what was paid for by everyone's PayPal payments (using my own cash) to accommodate any late orders, but as mentioned in previous posts, all these were allocated. It is quite likely that in another few months there might be enough people wanting the base + control surface PCBs to make another bulk order possible. I will keep track of any requests and let people know if/when there's enough requests.

What I meant in the previous post was, people haven't replied to the email about the socket, joining in a possible bulk order for the rocker switch and encoders, and sending me their postal address. I have not sent out postage cost invoices to everyone yet.

Just so people know what's going on: 1. I have to finalize the artwork, tweak the font size, etc. 2. Check the proposed LCD hole size against control surface PCB with an LCD attached. 3. Check the CAD file for the holes matches the PCB exactly. I am pretty vigilant when it comes to making sure things are going to fit, but I have to be extra careful this time as it's a bulk order and a costly mistake for everyone if I make a mistake. Next weekend I will do a mailout to everyone on the list and collect orders. I already have everyone in my spreadsheet, with usernames, email addresses, paypal email addresses, postal addresses, etc. So it is really easy for me to collect the confirmed orders. Then I can send the list to Altitude who can send out the invoices and post the panels to people. This will minimize the amount of work that Altitude has to do (and believe me, it is a lot). We will definiately get over 50 orders, the only problem (and I am facing this now) is waiting on people to reply to emails. There are people who have posted to this thread who haven't replied to my email or paid their postage costs! I would have liked to get all the orders without SIDs in the parcels and out the door but can't do this because I'm waiting around for people to email me.

HEHEHE It's OK, I am not offended... ;D I didn't expect as many people to like my frontpanel design anyway, it is a personal taste thing.

Ugly?!?! Now I have to hate you. ;D I wrote once what I was aiming for, a small box with as much control surface as I could fit on it, not a 19" rack case, not a huge desk-spanning monster, just enough to stick next to my computer and play with, or put on top of a keyboard. So part of that "design brief" meant seriously compacting everything into a very small control surface. I was greedy. I could have put in a much more spaced-out "step B" with huge buttons and a huge jog wheel and made it more like a SidStation. But I was a sucker for the LED matrix and the technical and design challenge of squeezing a "step C" control surface into 2/3rds the size of TK's original panel. So the buttons have to be small, but they're actually very easy to use. Anyway I am 100% behind people doing their own control surface, and look forward to seeing what other people come up with.

No more talk about "MB-SEQ V3 control panel/PCB combo". You will only get depressed to know it will be probably six months before I finalize a panel design, layout a PCB to match, get prototype PCBs made and expensive one-off panels, build it, etc. I shouldn't have opened my mouth about it... ;)

I didn't take orders, I just got the numbers so we could get quotes, i.e. find out how many would want panels from somewhere like FPE... Now with panels this cheap, even those crazy people wanting to manually drill their own panels ;D might reconsider...

I notice the letter "I" is fatter than other strokes when zoomed out, but zoomed in, it is the same width. Try zooming in on an "I" and compare to other letters. This is an Adobe Reader artifact, I think, because the "I" looks fine in the drawing package, and when printed.

No, I only got one for myself ;D

"SID Engine" is the term TK told me to use. There are four "SID Engines" (running on four Cores) and each "SID Engine" can be in one of four modes. In V1, there was only one Core per SID, so the labels "SID 1", "SID 2" etc. were fine. In V2, each Core can control one or two SIDs.

As in the original, the line ties the group together. I agree that the line doesn't look that good when it's short (i.e. when the label is long) so maybe to maintain the look, and make the slant plus line look good everywhere, I might abbreviate ENVELOPE to ENV, OSCILLATOR to OSC and use a narrower font, closer matched to the original. But I won't get rid of the slant or line. (That's what I meant earlier by "this won't degenerate into design-by-committee")

The pic of the alternate one isn't the latest... http://members.optusnet.com.au/~wilba6581/mb-6582/MB-6582_frontpanel_alternate.pdf I did a little tweaking the other night. I prefer the label "SID" instead of "CHANNEL" for selecting Left/Right SID (it is actually labelled "SID" in the menu on the LCD). (Altitude: can you edit your post with the pictures?)

I'll love anyone who can get me a panel that cheap. You want to volunteer to be the distributor?

I have contemplated doing just a control surface PCB and panels for MBFM... using the PT-10 case, and putting in a Core and OPL3 module inside the case and using panel-mount sockets on the rearpanel. That project is 2nd on my list though... next on the list is an MB-SEQ V3 control panel/PCB combo using the same construction method as the MB-6582. That design will be suitable for a 19" rack case or a desktop version like the P3 with wood endcheeks.

What I call the "simple" artwork: This one is a straight print-out of the Front Panel Designer artwork (i.e. like my original panel): http://members.optusnet.com.au/~wilba6581/mb-6582/MB-6582_frontpanel.pdf What I call the "alternate" artwork (recently updated): http://members.optusnet.com.au/~wilba6581/mb-6582/MB-6582_frontpanel_alternate.pdf The font and font size needs tweaking, it's not as narrow as the original, which means the white backgrounds of "group" labels have to be bigger to compensate - a little bigger than the LEDs they are grouping which annoys me. I would like to tweak it a little. I propose a quick poll of people's opinions ("simple" vs. "alternate") and any suggestions for improvement are welcome, but this won't degenerate into design-by-committee. Ultimately I will let the person running the bulk order decide what version they want to use, get the numbers together and do it.

You can get 3mm cylindrical LEDs, these would be flat at the top but still have enough plastic above the actual diode to diffuse the light. If you file the dome off a 3mm round LED, it doesn't diffuse anymore, you see a bright spot in the centre. One cheap method of a diffuser/light pipe would be to put masking tape on the front of the panel and then filling LED holes with epoxy or a silicone gap filler. I think Sasha did a trick like this for illuminated panel holes, search the forum...

All the PCBs are now wrapped in bubble wrap and in their posting bags. I have already started emailing payment requests, but I have to wait for everyone to confirm they want or do not want a socket, and also wait for SIDs to arrive and test and pack them too. I will try to get through as many as possible in the next few days... starting with the ones not ordering SIDs.

That's the sort of quote I was hoping to offer ;D Altitude: are you willing to arrange a bulk order? We won't get to 100pcs but 50pcs is still an excellent price. I will try to get the design files finalized before Friday (increase LCD hole, minor fixes to the artwork). After much contemplation, I would like to revert back to the "simple" artwork that is on my original panels... i.e. just very simple text and lines, very similar font to the engraved panels. The more I try to change the artwork to take advantage of silkscreen, the more I start to not like it for some reason. I am assuming when people wanted to join in the panel order they were expecting to get panels just like the original ones, so I will try to please them (and myself) by making the silkscreen look as much like the original panels as possible. I am sure there would be 50 people who agree with this, and we could go ahead with a bulk order. I would still like to wait for the quote that Twin-X is waiting on, just for comparison, unless he decides there's no point waiting... ;D

I'm only gone for one week. It's just right in the middle of when I could be packing and sending. I could have been better organized and gathered postage in advance and padded bags for posting etc. and be ready to go now, but alas I was distracted with locating more SIDs and arranging that bulk order too... :-[

The bad news is, I am going on holiday next week so this will delay people's orders... as I have to wait for more SIDs to come this week and pack both PCB and SIDs to people. Even if I could estimate postage and start collecting payments now, I might not have enough free time to get them all in the post before Saturday. Today is Monday though, so I will at least try to get through the orders that don't include SIDs... testing 200 SIDs is also very slow work but I thought it convenient to ship a lot of SIDs to people with their PCBs. Now that I actually have PCBs, I can go to the post office and get a real postage cost (and not just charge based on a guess of packed weight).

Did I what the what on the what? ;D There are no tolerances on anything. Never needed to before.

Just wrap sticky tape around the encoder bushing/thread. That should stop electrical contact with panel (at least to test if this is the cause of your problems.)

I would think the metal part of the encoder would not be connected to the common pin, and so not connected to the circuit at all. Perhaps if it is, then touching it would be like touching the ground and causing some kind of disturbance in the ground, causing the shift registers connected to the SIDs to not output properly. I recall similar strange behaviour when the ground of the shift registers was a different ground to the PIC - it wouldn't output properly because (I think) the RC signal was being lost.

yeah the LEDs stand quite high off the PCB (the gap is 10mm remember?) so you could mount them flat (not poking through at all). I personally like them to be as far out as the switches, so you can see a dome but it's not poking out further than the switches, which would look strange.

I also have a GUS MAX... and it was the inspiration to go with red. ;D although I have seen it done elsewhere. After I ordered them in red, I happened to visit the x0xb0x site (for tips on the construction guide) and they did their new PCB batch in red. Now it will look like I was trying to copy them again! (like the PT-10 case, another coincidence).