seppoman

because as I said, I've never used an Ersa station myself, but I've read e.g. on the German mikrocontroller.net forum where there are at least two dozen threads about this very question and nobody ever said the RDS was better. The Analog60 is good old-skool and proven over the decades technology. The RDS is a relatively new product probably designed with the two main goals of a) having a digital gimmick display and b) cutting costs. Anyway, either one of these isn't a completely bad choice, you'll be able to solder normal DIY stuff with both just fine. If you need more persuasion, best idea is to search for a shop that carries both and have a real life look. Build quality and personal preference are things you can best evaluate by touching the thing. If you don't have a suitable shop nearby, then maybe just order one of these and get started with soldering ;) I think we've done enough talking now, you should start the making soon :)

Definitely the Analog60.

well it's probably not as bad as with "hifi" watts where you get crap advertised as 1000 W PMPO when in reality it has 10 W RMS (PMPO is like "don't care what the sound is, it will deliver 1000 W for 0.5 ms and afterwards explode") But there's a difference - it depends on how good the iron will manage to bring its power to the tip end, how much mass it needs to heat up before temperature is reached, how precise and fast the temperature sensor reacts etc. So I'd rather have 40 W from a quality brand than 60 W from a cheap model. More Watts don't hurt. E.g. my WS81 has a very light 80 W iron that has the heater at the very end and very short and light tips, so it heats up from room temperature in just 10 seconds and even if you're working on a solder joint that draws away much heat, it's able to pump up the power instantly so it won't cool down too much. 40 W is around the power where it starts to make sense as long as it's a good iron. You might have problems with very hungry solder jobs, like e.g. soldering a large piece of metal to a ground plane, but for the usual stuff it's alright.Ffor extreme situations you can still get yourself a large 100W 230V iron for another 10 Euros :) If you want to be more flexible and are prepared to shell out a little more, maybe consider the ANALOG60 or the AOYUE 936A, 60W are nice to have but you will be able to do good soldering with 40W, too. S

well not the worst probably, but it's the conrad house brand, so definitely china. I think I had a look at it at the conrad store and didn't like it very much, very bulky and plasticy. I guess the aoyue is probably better quality. Or, if you're considering buying from conrad anyway, they sell the WHS40 too, that one is definitely better.

the two Wellers are the WHS40 and the WHS40D. The difference in minimal temperature doesn't matter at all because solder will only start to melt at around 220 degrees and you usually set the station to around 300-350 degrees anyway. The main difference is that the -D has a digital display showing the set temperature. If you ask me, that's only a gimmick not worth paying any extra money for. If you can't get the WHS40 for a reasonable price, check out the AOYUE 936 (35W), 937 (45W) or 936A (60W). They're always on offer at ebay. E.g. a really cheap offer is this - 43.99 Euros including international shipment from Luxembourg. These are supposed to be better than the average China crap and you can get a lot of different tips and replacement heater elements really cheap. The 937 or 936A are a bit more expensive but you'll get more heating power. S

Beta Layout has started a new service for aluminium and acryl front panels: http://www.panel-pool.com/ looks quite promising to me. Panel design is done in a special free software, similar to FPE/Schaeffer. The panels can be engraved or printed in full colour. I did an example price calculation for an imaginary panel and the pricing seems to be quite ok. The only major drawback is that their maximum panel dimensions are 460x300mm which is just 2 cm less than you'd need for a 19 inch panel... Can't comment on the software or quality yet, but I've used Beta Layout a few times for PCBs and SMD laser stencils, and it was always top notch. S

Don't really know what is unclear - from Wilba's Sammich build instructions PDF: and if you're interested in the pin assignments etc, you can read them from the file "setup_sammich_sid.asm" which is located either in the recent MBSID packages or on the SVN repository (but you won't need that anymore as soon as you've found the file itself). It's not like these infos are in any way kept secret or particularly hard to find. If you're building a kit that is already making it as easy as possible to build a cheap and good MBSID, and you don't find it necessary to read Wilba's PDF in full length, what are you complaining about? Usage of the brain is really becoming an old-fashioned and outdated thing :whistle: It's alright if you have to ask to find out, but don't tell people it's because of bad docu when it's clearly a reading problem...

very nice, I like it :) one comment though: It would be better to attach the images to your forum post instead of using an external image service. With an external service, the pics can disappear from this thread if they choose to change their link format or cancel their service altogether in a year or two. Attached pics will stay on the forum and are covered by TwinXs site backups etc. Oh and some of them don't show at all right now when clicking the pic. S edit: oh ok, nils was faster :thumbsup:

Although I've never used an ERSA station, they're said to be very good quality. One suggestion though, the ANALOG 60 is about the same price as the RDS80 but many people on different forums say it's way better than the RDS. Whether a station in this price range is a good purchase mainly depends on how often you intend to use it. If you're only buying it to assemble a few small kits and cables or you don't have much money, a station in the 40-50 Euro range will be more than enough. E.g. the AYOUE brand is supposed to be quite alright for a chinese low budget brand. But if you see yourself soldering a lot in future, 130 Euros is a perfectly reasonable price tag. I'm using a Weller WS81 (about 210 Euros if you find a very good deal) and I didn't ever regret this purchase for a second. If you can afford them, good tools make DIY easier and more fun. S

Thanks :)

hehe, I'm deeply sorry :tongue: have fun with your Midibox FullHD :drool: S

Doing VGA on the same controller is possible but will not only severely limit the available RAM but also the general performance. As soon as you want even 4 bit color or 800x600 output, you're set to using an external fast (parallel) RAM. So I think the best would be to separate the task of updating the picture frame, drawing text etc from the Core module. Probably an FPGA would be more suitable than a regular MCU, but there are also some CortexM3 MCUs with integrated RAM interface. The quick and easy non-DIY solution would be to use one of the available embedded VGA modules, like http://www.microvga.com/ http://www.dontronics-shop.com/4d-micro-vga-picaso-md1.html I remember there are a few more, can't find the links right now. A module like these can be fed commands like "print Hello World at coordinates xy in light green" via UART or SPI, so it loads all the heavy work off the main MCU. If you'd rather DIY than buy, take a look at e.g. http://www.serasidis.gr/circuits/AVR_VGA/avr_vga.htm as a starting point. it's only mono and low res, but maybe enough to get some inspiration. I guess there are more advanced projects on the web, too. good luck :) S

As TK said above, the OSC feature wouldn't be related to the LC/Mackie protocol. In my understanding this means, any host application just doesn't expect a LC to communicate via OSC because the "real" LC and all commercial clones are purely MIDI, only you might integrate an OSC-based section to the same box that sends stuff via OSC in addition (i.e. to some other app). The other question is, what would it be good for to run the central LC functionality itself via OSC? TK ran a few performance tests some time ago (can't find the thread right now) showing that USB MIDI is at least as good as OSC, sometimes better (regarding latency). Remember, it's "only" 10 MBit Ethernet, connected via a serial interface and having considerable (IP etc) protocol overhead. If you even need to use an external MAX app to convert it back to MIDI, this can't ever have any advantage compared to the standard solution. And I didn't ever read someone complaining about the bad usability or latency of the MIOS8/MIDI based MBLC. This is still a HUI controller where the human is mostly the limiting performance factor. As soon as the MIOS32 LC app is finished, I could imagine that it supports 16 faders and simulates two Midi interfaces towards the application, this might be a real advantage, but other than that, what are you trying to achieve? S

Hey Sean, I've edited your post to hide your email adress - if you don't wanna drown in spam, never post your email in plain text in public forums. Also, asking for paid help as an introduction is not the way it works on midibox.org. You're welcome to discuss the details of what you wanna build on this forum and probably people will give you tips regarding what route to pursue. Reading the stuff that is published on ucapps.de will help you find out what's already there and what's possible. As soon as you're getting started to at least try to DIY (yourself), nobody will complain if you're getting some help by e.g. a friend who's more into electronics than you are, but this is not a marketplace to search for hired designers. good luck, S

the datasheet is not really clear about the polarity of CE and Reset. FS is set to 6x8 font by applying 5V, that's probably the font you want. The other two pins, the fastest way to find out what is the right setting is to try out all four possible combinations. S

what exactly is your "box"? if you're talking about two MB6582s, setup_8580.hex is the wrong file (regardless of which type of SIDs is installed). S

hehe no problem, it's still better to at least try to advise than staying silent :) that's true, but "MB64 supports CV outputs" doesn't mean that MB64 IS a MBCV. MBCV is one application, MB64 is a different one, with different functionality. Now go read uCApps.de about it :tongue: S

Oh they can, just there's no software that supports that configuration. Apart from the fact that a MB64 is no MBCV and the OP wants a MBCV :whistle:, the main problem with that suggestion is that the SHX8 uses obsolete ICs that are almost impossible to buy nowadays, so the SHX8 is not really a viable option. For more than 8 CV outs on a MBCV, there's only two options: if you're an experienced programmer, you could expand the firmware to support more than one AOUT(NG) module. But that's not trivial as you'd also need to alter the UI/menu etc. Or you could simply build two independent MBCVs into one box. Regarding the gate outs: The AOUT has two separate gate outs that the AOUT_NG doesn't have. But if two is not enough or you're using the NG, you can setup J5 to output 8 gate signals. S

Hi Dale and welcome to Midibox.org :twitch: for building complete projects like the SEQ, you won't need real programming skills, but as you'll move along towards the development of algorithmic stuff etc, you'll find out that especially the new MIOS32 platform is a very powerful environment for custom implementations. At first C looks a bit strange if you don't know it but for someone with ASM and Pascal experience it shouldn't be too difficult to accommodate. Just prepare for a lot of compiler errors because of "x:=5" statements in the first week :ahappy: As soon as you're getting more serious about programming, there's a forum section called "Programmers' Lounge", you can ask TK to grant you access to that lounge. Have fun, S

please read the readme.txt and the asm sourcecode (in the mb64e package) on how to adapt pin configurations to your needs. S

uhm, Janis is right - you want a mb64e, that's exactly a "mb16e but for 18F452". Don't know what you mean about the LED rings - nobody forces you to build everything the firmware is capable of. If you don't want them, just leave them out. you can also setup the pin configuration etc. yourself, you probably won't find a precompiled and configured firmware to download that's exactly matching your personal Midibox. BTW, you should also take a look at MTE's Traktorizer project (listed under "User Projects"). S

Another thing to be aware of: at the moment, there's no Core32 version of MB64(e) and only an alpha version of MBLC. And a MBLC is all about motorfaders, I guess it doesn't support using encoders instead of them, and you would need LED rings on the encoders if that box should make any sense. So if you really want to use a Core32 you'll either have to do a massive bit of programming yourself or wait for TK to release a mb64(e) version. On the other hand, the only real advantage I see in using a Core32 for a simple Midi controller is the onboard USB. You could use a Core8 MB64e with built in GM5 Midi interface just as well, and even grab the 5V from the GM5. regarding current consumption - I guess one DIN module will need about 20 mA, mainly used by the pullup resistors. current for the DOUT modules depends mostly on the current the LEDs you're using needs. bright LEDs will use up to 20 mA PER LED, so for a bus powered box I'd suggest to either skip the LEDs altogether or use not too many low power LEDs with suitable resistor values on the DOUT. The Core (8 or 32) itself doesn't need much current, I guess in the range of 50 mA (never measured it). The most problematic consumers are LCD displays with LED backlight. There's a huge range of current consumption between different models. It can go as low as 80 mA, but there are also models that take 300-400 mA when adjusted to good brightness. Given these estimated values, the total current depends mostly on what exactly you want to build. A box with only a few encoders, no LCD or LEDs can go as low as 100 mA or less. If you want a huge and brightly illuminated flashing monster, better forget the bus power idea ;-) S

I deleted your double post. Welcome and good luck with your project :) S

I've got a third one - it doesn't have a -12V output :) S

There were also some breadbox C64s (I think the official number is C64G) with 8580s inside, these were e.g. (or only?) sold by German discounter chain Aldi long after the C64-II came out. Internally they're C64-IIs but in a breadbox case. You can recognize them by their light gray keyboard (instead of the dark brown original one). S