seppoman

Hey Smash, don´t worry, seems I found out the correct parts already by myself - 10 minutes ago I heard the first lovely FM-sounds, no smoke, no fire  :) :) :) Thanks again for your great service! Seppoman

Hi Davo, I also got my boards from Smash yesterday (Thanks btw, great quality :) ) and noticed these errors while building the board. With help of the schematic, I compiled this list: +------------+------------------------------------+-----+ |C1,4,6,7,11,| \ / | | |19,20,21,22,| Electrolytic Cap 10µF | 15 | |23,24,28,29,| 10uF - 35v | | |31,33 | / \ | | +------------+------------------------------------+-----+ |C2,3,5,25,26| Ceramic Cap 100nF=.1µF | 9 | |27,30,32,34 | / \ | | +------------+------------------------------------+-----+ |C8,12 | Ceramic Cap 68 pF | 2 | |C9,10,13,14 | Ceramic Cap 2.7 nF | 4 | |C15,16,17,18| Ceramic Cap 100 pF | 4 | +------------+------------------------------------+-----+ So just the numbers are wrong. the form of the parts print is correct, every electrolytic sign has an electrolytic cap on it. The numbers of the resistors are also a bit mixed up but I didn´t write a correct list of them . If you need help, just ask. BTW I cannot guarantee that this list is right as the box is not yet in action. I´ll tell you if it starts to burn ;) Seppoman

As the LED voltage of blue ones is higher, the current with the standard 220 Ohm resistors is even lower than with other colours. I = U / R, where U = 5V - LED voltage. So when Led voltage is higher, the current goes down. So with standard resistors, the blue LEDs simply are not as bright as they could be. Use lower resistor values to make them brighter but take care the current doesn´t get higher than 20mA per LED. You´re mixing up something here. current is measured in Ampere, not Volt. Voltage on the core (after the regulator - and therefore also at the LEDs) should always be 5 V or you would fry the PIC. When you have your wall wart at only 6.5 V, the voltage drops because the 7805 needs at least 7 V to produce a stable 5 V voltage. So 7.5 V supply is the best value for any box that doesn´t use anything besides 5 V. Seppoman

I think the problem is the 15V supply. When a 7805 is driven with 15 Volts, it converts 2/3 (two thirds!!!) of the energy into heat. Even If you had a huge heat sink attached (which I don´t see on the picture), the 7805 would probably become too hot. When a regulator gets too hot, the voltage drops. If you don´t need more than 5 V anywhere in the box, better use a 7.5V supply. Even then, the two LCD backlights probably use quite some power. If you drive them both from the core, the 7805 has to be cooled (large heat sink or put wires between the board and the regulator and mount it somewhere on the metal case). If this is not enough, you could build a small extra rectifier/regulator portion for the second LCD. Seppoman

Hi Adam, the rectifiers are just 4 diodes in a single case. Their only relevant data is voltage and power rating. b40c800 means the part does take max 40V at 800 mA. As the highest voltage ocurring in a Midibox is 14 V, the b40c800 would probably even take more than 800 mA. It is possibly the lowest-rated rectifier you can buy. Any higher rated rectifier is not necessary but will work. (BTW, I think the BR1 is rated 80V - for 800V it would have to be a quite large part). Seppoman

Hi Thorsten, Sadly, the awards are already given at the CeBit ;) No, I just checked it further. The functions depend on where the Nam Item is when selected from the upper menu layer: 1. Clr,<,<,< 2. Ins,Clr,<,< 3. Del,Ins,Clr,< 4. >,Del,Ins,Clr so the items are rotated but in the right order. Rebooting doesnt change anything. Any hints? Seppoman

Hi, I just finished my next MIOS project - a little brother for my "Der Brat" :) Here´s a little preview (more pics to follow): Everything´s fine, with one exception: The baby has a 2x16 LCD, so DISPLAYED_ITEMS = 4. In the Patch Name menu, the buttons have erratic behaviour. I suppose the problem is that this menu has 5 key options (<,>,Ins,Del,Clr), and there´s a problem with only 4 buttons. Everytime I enter the menu, the buttons are mapped some other way. e.g. I press < and a space is inserted. Is there any missed config change that can cause this or have I found a bug? Thanks, Seppoman

If you want to use these, take 12 V. This just means, the guy ships higher value resistors with the LEDs. If you dont want to get blind, the 12 V resistors probably are still too small. But why don´t you just use "normal" LEDs? These extra bright ones are verrry bright (as the term says :) ), and normally you get other LEDs way cheaper than extra brights. So you´re paying money for a feature you don´t actually want. BTW Ohmstudiste: I got your PM and will answer on weekend when I´ve got some more time. Seppoman

my OPLs also arrived yesterday - thanks a lot for your efforts, Adam :) Seppoman

Hi Thorsten, if 8 bits are enough, have you had a look at the TI TLC5628? It´s an 8x 8bits DAC with serial interface, so there would be really few parts needed. for 12 bits, I´ve found the Microchip MCP4922 DAC. It´s 2x 12 bits, also serial interface. They´re both really cheap (TI about 3.50 EUR, MC 1.60 EUR) and also available as free samples. Seppoman

From the "Step_B" page (just _read_everything_ before building!): http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_cs/2x20_enc_multi_w_j5.pdf Seppoman

You mean buttons and encoders? Yes. It´s not possible to configure encoder functions from the surface, you have to do that in the cs_menu_... But there´s a way: On my "Der Brat" (search in MB of the week) I´ve made a custom functions layer for encoders. If you want to have 4 encoders, you could e.g. use the normal OSC encoders and put different functions on it. They already have 3 layers and there´s not much programming necessary to add even more layers. So you could use e.g. 4,5 or 6 layers on these encoders. But you´ll need another DIN port for a layer select button (two layer up/down buttons could also be programmed, or a select button for every layer). If you put another DIN_X1 in there anyway I´d suggest to use 5 encoders because you can have a complete envelope this way. If you need help with programming, just ask :) Seppoman

Hi, ich baue gerade ein Telefon mit eingebautem Vocoder und MB SID drin (bzw. evtl. statt dessen dann mit MB FM). Die Originaltastatur hat eine 3x4 Matrix (ohne Dioden). Ist es möglich, diese Tastatur mit einer MidiBox zu verwenden? Vielen Dank, Thomas

You can either put an additional resistor between DOUT and the LED, or you could simply change the 220 Ohm resistors on the DOUT for some of higher resistance. Higher resistance -> less current -> less brightness. Just don´t replace the DOUT resistors by "smaller" ones! If you want to calculate the current: I = (5V - UL) / R UL is the forward voltage of the LED. Standard types have around 1.5 V, blue and extra-bright LEDs often have more (2-4 Volts). The standard resistance of 220 Ohms gives (5V-1.5V)/220 = 16 mA of standard LEDs, which usually is a good value. Replace them e.g. with 500 Ohm resistors and you´ll get 7 mA. Seppoman

Hi All, yesterday I put a first layer of (spray can) color on a new case, and a few seconds after I started the first small dust particle landed on the paint. The paint is a metallic one so there will be another 3-4 paint layers (color and clear). If new dust particles come in every layer the box will finally look like it has acne - not good... How do you guys cope with this problem? Is there a method to prevent this? Thanks for any hints, Seppoman

Leakage/explosion surely is only the worst case scenario. Of course there are a lot of 30+ year old devices that are still running without problems. IMHO these problems mostly occur when a capacitor is under heavy stress (e.g. voltage same or higher as the specified value). There are good chances this will never happen with the few parts ripped off a C64. On the other side - there were even reports about some 1-2 year old PC mainboards where sub-standard capacitors caused explosions/malfunctions. So I´m only saying, it´s not necessary to gamble on the life expectancy of parts that probably have a good part of their life already passed. Even the 2200u caps cost 30-40 cents, so just "invest" max. 2-3 $/Euros and be on the safe side. Lifetime of other components: Any electronic part can fail, but apart from electrolytic caps, no parts are really known to have a certain expectancy (and also can´t cause as much damage/trouble). Seppoman

NO! The resistors on the DIN are so-called Pull Ups, they´re needed to keep the inputs on a logic High by supplying a "symbolic" connection to +5V as long as the button is not pressed (10k is a very high resistance, so no real current will flow). If you replace the 10k resistors by 220, the DIN probably won´t detect the on/off state of the buttons anymore and it could also be that the inputs will be damaged (not sure). Best solution would be to have switches with dual function. So you could leave the DIN alone and put the second "switch" between a separate line (+5)-(220)-(switch)-(ground). seppoman

Photo pots? never heard of. If you mean LDRs, these are only resistors, you can´t use them directly instead of pots. You could probably use an LDR or other sensor toghether with some cirquit to emulate an encoder (need to generate pulses depending on the resistor change) but this would be too much effort. BTW: better don´t use polarized (electrolyte) capacitors from the C64. These have a certain lifetime (of which 20-25 years have already passed). they can dry out (wrong value/no function) or in the worst case start to leak or explode. It would be sad to have a malfunction or even spread poisonous juice inside the box after a year just to have spared some 20 cents in the beginning. Seppoman

Die Spannung darf ruhig etwas niedriger sein. Ich weiß zwar nicht mehr genau wie hoch sie bei mir ist (vor nem Jahr das letzte Mal gemessen), aber es waren auf jeden Fall 12,x V. Ansonsten benutze ich unter Windows 2000 die Einstellungen, die auf der uCApps-Seite beschrieben sind. Mein Board ist ein billiges Athlon-Board von Elitegroup - keine Probleme. Seppoman

Hi Matthias, Der Link-Mode verwandelt den Midi-Out des Masters in einen Midi-Thru. Das liegt daran, daß die Slave-Module parallel zum Midi-Out angeschlossen sind. Ohne Link-Mode kannst Du also mit den Slaves gar nicht kommunizieren, und das macht auch der Master nicht. Umschaltbar ist das, da z.B. wenn der benutzte Sequenzer Soft-Midi-Thru aktiviert hat, man bei aktiviertem Link-Mode eine "Rückkopplung" bekommt. Mit aktiviertem Link-Mode kannst Du natürlich beide unisono spielen. Spannend ist das aber nur, wenn Du z.B. auf dem Slave einen anderen Patch lädst. Ansonsten kannst Du den Slave auf einen anderen Midikanal legen und bekommst dadurch einen 2(-4)-fach multitimbralen SID. Das ist bisher noch nicht möglich. Thorsten erwähnt aber gelegentlich, daß dieses Feature auf der ToDo-Liste steht. Vorübergehend kannst Du aber z.B. bei einem Pad-Sound natürlich die zweite (bzw. die zweiten drei) Stimme(n) getrennt auf einem zweiten Midi-Kanal an den Slave senden. Ganz ohne zusätzliche Tasten geht nicht. Die SID1/SID2 Tasten brauchst Du auf jeden Fall um den Slave auch auf einen anderen Patch oder Midikanal einstellen zu können. Die Edit-Taste ist meiner Meinung nicht besonders wichtig. Ich will z.B. gar nicht, daß beim Patchwechsel der editierte Patch automatisch gespeichert wird. Die CC-Taste kann man sich mit einer kleinen Software-Änderung (CC-Mode default-on) auch sparen - ich hab bisher noch keinen Grund gefunden, warum der CC-Mode mal unpraktisch sein sollte. Die Link-Taste ist so ne Sache. Man kann den Link-Mode grundsätzlich auch default-on stellen, muß dann aber wegen besagtem Rückkopplungsproblem immer dafür sorgen, daß der Midiport am Ende des Midi-Out-Kabels nichts durchschleift. Fazit: "Super-Polyphonie" kommt erst, zwei SIDs sind trotzdem prima, Du wirst aber um mindestens 2-3 neue Taster nicht rumkommen. Viele Grüße, Seppoman

Hi Adam, I´ll take 3 sets :) Location: Germany Thanks, Seppoman

Hi Roger, for MIOS of course :) I wrote the driver - with massive help from Thorsten, see http://www.midibox.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=german;action=display;num=1071533012 (german). Here´s the result: bad picture, I know, and it was my first try - I´ll give the thing a "Brat"-Layout anyway, but the display looks very cool in reality :) Seppoman

Hi all, the guy I bought my display from is now selling them again on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=12070&item=5736550417&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW be fast, auction end is tomorrow :) these displays are huge (22 cm wide netto), very good-looking and 21 Euros is extremely cheap (normally more than 100 Euros). You can get a suitable driver from me, just ask :) Seppoman

Behringer doesn´t buy only a few thousand pieces - the BCR has 32 encoders in one unit and I doubt there´s anything from behringer that sells under 1000 units/year. Anyway, this thing costs 200 bucks, so Behringer simply won´t use encoders from this brand if they cost more than 50 cents. Seppoman

Verrry nice :) - did you also DIY the wooden housing? Seppoman