seppoman

sure: http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp_din.html in the Download section there's a DINx2 layout. You'll need to etch it yourself though. S

That's the intended behaviour of a gate signal, it's always on/off only. A gate is only meant for triggering external (analog) envelope generators or one-shot events like drum sounds. If you want a CV depending on the velocity, you'll have to route velocity onto a normal AOUT channel. S

I've sent out the last few shipments just this week - it all took a bit longer than necessary because I was quite busy with my job, partly been out of town etc, so sorry for the long wait. I haven't made detailed notes of the shipping dates of non-registered shipments so for these I can't answer any "When did you ship mine" questions. Anybody still waiting for their PCBs please be patient for another week from now. Anyone still missing their PCBs end of next week, please PM/email me and we'll try to sort it out :) S

and even here in this thread (thanks to seppoman ;)) http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,11387.msg90474.html#msg90474 S

nothing to worry about - I didn't say I've been shipping all of them yet, right? ;) working on that though, but packing and labeling more than 80 envelopes takes a while. I'm processing shipments in the order of list entries, about half of them have already been sent more than a week ago and I'm sitting besides a pile of about 20 finished envelopes right now. I'm trying to get at least the remaining shipments of people haveing ordered within the regular bulk order period sent out tomorrow morning. the late-comers will have to wait a few days longer. But as Wilba's IC order will take another while, I guess everybody will still get their pcbs well before they get the necessary ICs :) S

yes but that doesn't change my point very much. As long as you don't find a place where you can get 100 for like 5 Euros and the SAME person also conducts a complete bulk order for TLVs, PCBs and trimpots (and maybe even the rest of the parts), you won't save much money compared to a smash bulk order. So I doubt it's worth the effort. Of course as long as you don't conduct a bulk order yourself and only have to lean back and wait for other people to help you save a few bucks, it's very easy... This is not against bulk orders in general, I'm only pointing out that in order to get complete NG kits, several people would need to make some effort to help people to save only a little, or one person will have a huge amount of work to make it cheaper. If there'd be a chance to cut the price half for the complete module, I'd say great and probably even participate myself, but as long it's only about saving maybe 5 Euros at most per module while at the same time taking away business from Smash who hugely helps this community by providing a great service at very reasonable prices, I'm against that! S

I don't wanna sound demotivating/destructive, but still I'd propose thinking about regional "SmashTV bulk orders" to get the shipping cost down. Seeing the usual prices at e.g. Farnell, you'd still need to get in the hundreds pieces region to get only a little cheaper than Smash's price. At current exchange rate, his kit is 35 Euros. With the TLV being maybe 10 Euros and all other parts from Reichelt being around 15 Euros (and that's already dirt cheap compared to other shops, although the Reichelt trimmers are inferior quality compared to Smash's), that'd leave 10 Euros for the PCBs and partial shipping costs for PCBs to bulk order guy, TLVs to maybe different bulk order guy, plus shipping costs from the bulk order guys to the participants and shipping of the rest of the parts (e.g. Reichelt). I'm not saying it isn't possible to get the final price per "PCB kit" a tad lower than Smash's kit price (especially if you'd do a bulk order on the trimpots too and all is conducted by a single person), still I don't think it'd be worth the effort (also considering this involves increased risk of shipping loss because of multiple shipments per person and higher PayPal fees because of multiple transactions). So my proposal would be: Why don't you try to find a few others also needing NG kits and living in the same part of the world and combine these orders to one big SmashTV order? I just checked the shipping at Smash's shop, and e.g. 20 NG kits to Germany are USD 40 shipping, that's only 1.40 Euros per kit :) S

I already had enough bulk order fun for this year ;) of course you can do that but if you're serious about it, please start a new thread to discuss details. S

Well you could post to the german board and find a few others who also want to order stuff from Smash, so you could split up the shipping cost. Apart from Smash's PCB price being very reasonable, the kit is also a good way of getting the DAC which is hard to get in Europe for private customers. S

for what I know there are no different versions. I think I've seen the page of that guy in Holland, but you can't compare prices from these kind of shops. This is a vintage synth repair guy who offers many kinds of rare speciality ICs, so that's not the place to buy large numbers of ICs but he's providing a probably good service to people who e.g. own a PolySix with one broken voice who will be very happy to find a shop where they can get a spare part locally for (only) 20 Euros. If you need more ICs, there's also hongkongsuperseller aka goodbuy711 on ebay where the 2044 is somewhat more expensive (also the shipping is more expensive) than what you can get from Wilba. So here's my recommendation: If you're on Wilba's list already, use the opportunity for a very good price. If you are not, that's no catastrophy, buy them on eBay. Regarding the pricing of that kit on ebay - I don't see a ripoff there. It's just the same situation as with the dutch repair shop guy. This kit has a different target group, it's made for beginners to intermediate Modular DIYers who regard a complete kit without the need for parts searching more valuable than saving money. Of course this kit looks more or less like a standard copy of the SSM's datasheet cirquit. It doesn't offer any special benefits. A similar PCB can be had from Fonik on electro-music.com much cheaper but not as a kit. For the use with MBSID etc, my module is certainly more interesting. But there will be other people who think that kit is worth the money. And just because our community here is very noncommercial and people like Wilba/Smash/Mike/TK/me/... are offering stuff at a very low price tag doesn't mean others outside of our community must be evil rippers because they chose to try to make some money from their skills (at least as long as they're not stealing other peoples' work of course...). If you think it's too expensive, you're probably just not their target group. Live and let live :) S

wow, not bad :) less than 2 days from Germany to Israel sounds good to me :) S

there are still some pcbs left. http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/ssm2044_pcb_bulk_order

phew... first half of shipments is on the way. I'll continue packing and labeling envelopes this week and send the rest around weekend. S

yes, gold :) but you won't see much of it when it's soldered. But gold (ENIG) is the best surface for long shelf live, i.e. the pcbs don't loose their ability to be soldered as fast as other surfaces. That's also the reason why SmashTV's PCBs are usually ENIG :) ok, photo time again :D everything fits and works as expected :) The trimmers are smaller versions than the usual ones, but the big ones also fit in well. S

wrong forum section :)

;D sadly, the red came out a bit too pinkish for my taste, and it's not very strong in reality (fainter than on the pic), so you need good light to read the parts print. But other than that, the quality is very good. So I'm gonna build one module for final confirmation that everything works as expected and then send out your orders next week :) happy filtering, Seppoman SSM_PCBs1.JPG SSM_PCBs2.JPG

Update: as only a few people's payments are still missing, I have now ordered the PCBs, they're scheduled for delivery to my place end of August. I have ordered about 50 spare pieces, so several people can still enter their names to the waiting list and get PCBs :) Note that Wilba stated before that he wasn't planning to order more SSM ICs than are listed in the regular bulk order list. But even if you wouldn't get ICs from him, hongkongsuperseller/goodbuy711 sells these on eBay for a reasonable price, so no need to fear you couldn't eventually buy the needed ICs somewhere :) The regular payment period for the bulk order was announced to end tomorrow. As I will again be away and busy during next week, I am extending the deadline for payments until next Sunday (24th). So if you didn't receive a PM or PayPal invoice yet, please contact me. After that, I will cancel unpaid orders/invoices. As said before, there are still enough spare PCBs so that you could still re-enter your name to the waiting list, I just don't wanna sit and wait for months until people finally decide they can spare some 20 Euros ;) Thanks again for your interest and participation, I'll keep you updated on the further progress of the order :) S

I will provide a schematic soon, but at the moment I've got a lot of work to do and am away from home every second week, so I thought I'd better concentrate on getting the bulk order going instead of drawing schematics :) S

Ok, bulk order is closed! All people already on the Wiki list should have received a PM from me asking for confirmation, shipping and payment details. Those who already answered that PM have been sent a PayPal invoice, many have already paid, thanks for that :). BTW, last week I've changed one resistor value on the parts list to make a well tuned keytracking of the cutoff frequency possible. If you missed this bulk order, there’s still some chance to get PCBs. I will probably order a few spares, and some people might not react to their PM or invoice. So if you’re interested in any spare PCBs, you can enter your name on the waiting list. Note that there’s no guarantee that you’d get PCBs - and also don’t expect that Wilba has enough SSM ICs for you. Any remaining stuff will be served in the order of list entries. I'll be mostly offline until August, 12th, so in case you send me any PMs/emails this week, please be patient. I also won't log in to PayPal from an internet café, so I will send the rest of the PayPal invoices on that date. After that, I will order the PCBs - with a lead time of 15 days, so they will arrive here in the last week of August. Seppoman

I'd probably be interested :) any more details also on the Ampere rating etc? I guess for bigger projects like what I'd use them for, at least 1A on the 15V and 1.5A on the "5V" would be cool. for the 5V rail, a transformer voltage of 7.5V would be perfect. S

oh I thought he was talking about the Florida Folklore Society ;D S

Google says the SSM2024 was a quad current-controlled amplifier - I suppose matoz meant the ssm2044 :) S

sure, it IS an audio filter, with audio ins and outs - what else did you think it would filter? ;D S

I don't have much experience in regard to PIC in system programming - older versions of the core layout and the JDM programmer had headers for that use. In general, I guess you have the option of either using a TQFP swappable socket (very expensive) on a programmer pcb, or putting an ISP connector onto your pcb for flashing the bootloader. An ISP connector is 2x5 pins, so with that solution you're losing at least half of the pcb area you gained by going SMT. S

Getting normal V/Oct CV response for cutoff is quite simple, although more than only a few resistors is needed. That's also because the input pin of the SSM is "wrong way round", i.e. -100mV will open the filter, +100mV will close it. On all newer Midibox apps, TK was so kind to include inversion flags for CV outs to adress that issue. Witout using a Midibox with bipolar AOUT, you'll need an inverting opamp cirquit with gain and offset trimpots. But it's really a quite simple issue, quite the same as is done in the SSM datasheet cirquit. I'll publish a schematic the next few days. About the standalone filterbox plans: I've already posted a few things regarding that idea in this thread. Basically my opinion is that a simple filterbox is a rather boring thing - (after adding the mentioned CV adaption cirquit) you can simply use a few pots with added resistor for range adjustment to get manual control. That's what my first steps with that IC were. But after having listened to filtered stuff for a few days and tweaking the pots, I decided I'm not very much interested in a static/pot filter. It sounds nice and all, but the real squelchy stuff just isn't possible without having some synchronized envelopes etc. So you would probably want some additional analog (external CV sources/envelope follower etc) or digital (MBCV/MBSID/...) stuff to make the filter really useful. Anyway, as the filterbox topic isn't really specific to the SSM PCB - you can do that with any CV controlled filter like CEMs, other SSMs, Moog/Roland-type filters etc without special adaptions), if you want do discuss that concept more in-depth, please start a new thread in the Design Concepts section of the forum. S