Altitude
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Posts posted by Altitude
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mouser is wonderful for many reasons, but good physical descriptions of knobs is not one of them. What I did to select these was to buy 2 of each knob they sell that looked like good candidates. You could probably look up the model of the knob elsewhere also.
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Altitude, thank you for your answers. When I read this post, I still dont feel confident enough to try lasertran myself. The result is really good, but hole process is very delicate and maybe not worth a bargain for some of us. I dont know how much you payed in total for all needed, but some 2 PVC colour screen print maybe could be done for not too much more money. I worked in screen printing industry, and maybe that is the reason it sounds to me as much easier and simpler method than lasertran.
PS. Am I blind or you cannot see the pictures of articles in mouser? Did you bought your knobs online?
Well, the total cost to do the label was $3 for printing, the paper was $3 a sheet, $10 for the spray paint and $5 for sanding supplies so that comes to $21. I dont think you can do a 3 color silk screen and paint for that much.
I didnt post a link to the mouser part since their site was down earlier. here is the data sheet:
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FxxK! What a pro look. I`m totally down how that orange knob`s pointers are well paired to the the orange labels. :o So good. And the rack colour... It isn`t white? Looks just as 909 casing colour. Where did you get those knobs?
Much respect!!!
The color is called "Fossil" and was pretty much exactly what I was looking for since I was going for a 909ish tan color. The knobs are cheapo black plastic with white pointer from mouser (they had 2 sizes, hence the big volume knob) and then hand painted using a flat Tamiya model spray paint for the base (works really well on plastic) and the stripe with a brush, finishing with a flat clear to protect them.
@ Altitude: What is your work flow?
Like I said, I used the non-heat inkjet kind. I had the graphics laser printed at Kinko's which worked out very well since I could get 3 labels on a 11"x17" sheet of lasertran and the quality and color accuracy was wonderful. Through tons of trial and error (and I mean I had to strip and repaint the front panel 4 times to get it right) here is my process:
1. The case I used was a bare aluminum and I had the machining done by front panel express. It came to only $72 which included machining of the front, back, and the extra plate which allows for the pots to be recessed. Its a good idea to send them your own material since it saves you about 15$ per panel. I sanded out the rough finish of the panels with scotchbrite till they were fairly smooth
2. The primer I used was an "etching" automotive primer and I laid down several coats (it is very thin) sanding between coats, making sure I had VERY good coverage and let it dry for several hours in the sun. Spray painting was the same, with more coats and lots of wet sanding at the end. It has to be PERFECTLY smooth for the label to sit right, when the lasertran is wet it is delicate and any surface crud will cause a hole.
3. Getting the label right was a pain in the ass but once I had all the kinks worked out it went pretty easily. The clear coat is key. I used a hobby clear coat made by Krylon, anything should work providing it contains a strong solvent. This will dissolve the label a little and make it clear (it is normally white when dry). Here are the steps:
A: I cut the label a little taller than the panel so it hangs over a bit, but not all the way around the top.
You can trim the excess off for a very fine top and bottom fit when your done with a razor
B: Immerse the label in a water bath until it uncurls and the label slides off like a decal, but dont slide it off
backing
C: Slide the decal onto the panel just like your would a model decal GENTLY, it can rip if your too rough
with it. Also make SURE there is nothing between the label and the panel (dust etc). The label is easy
to move around when completely wet and only sticks with moderate strength when it drys so this is the
time to make sure it is aligned with holes and lays even (measure it). Carefully blot the water
out with a lint free wipe and make sure there are no wrinkles. You don't have to get it all and I
recommend doing this (or touching the label in general) as little as possible.
D: let it dry COMPLETELY. I mean hours, this is where i botched my first panel. If there is any moisture in
label, it will wrinkle badly when you hit it with the clear. I also recommend that everything you do be
done indoors out of the sun (more on that later).
E: The clear coat. This caused me the most grief and these steps are critical for a good result. First off,
know how the clear coat will react to the paint you used. It should be applied in lite coats onto the
label and exposed paint surfaces. I killed my first panel by spraying to much and it blistered up the
paint on the rack ears requiring me to start from scratch. I actually decided to spray
the exposed paint surfaces with a clear acrylic as added protection by masking the label with a
sheet of paper all the way to its edge and then spraying the expose paint. This also had the added
benefit of building up some clear so the labels edges were considerably harder to see. The clear coats
should make the label clear again (it goes clear when wet with water also) and I applied it in coats
which left no white areas. I used several coats. DRY THE CLEAR INDOORS!! Doing this outside in the
sun will expand the panel below and crack the label. (another botched panel). I let everything dry
overnight and the following day, more wet sanding to get a perfectly smooth finish. The cutting out of
holes and trimming the label flush was done last with a final light coat of clear.
whew. I hope I covered everything
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Well, I use the non-cook stuff and here are the results:
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I chose 20x4 because it's got a good size.
The standard 20x4 display has narrower characters than a standard 20x2, it doesn't extend on the left/right sides (i.e. the PCB is as wide as the bezel) so this makes it fit nicely in the frontpanel. Plus, eventually I will make use of the extra two lines on the display... ;D
gotcha, didnt even notice that on the protype
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You know, over half the price of FPE is the engraving, a single color silkscreen would drop the price quite a bit (try pricing it with just the holes)
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Hmm, Interesting power supply you have there.. I wonder if the quatro has better ripple current performance
I tried something different (see attachment).
result: No noise :D
now there are 2 possibilities:
- The noise was just because of the bad PSU
or
- I've just killed something (I'll try the testone-app tomorrow)
...something inside of me sais that Murphy was right... ::)
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Yeh, I just feel a little cheeky though ;D I could see it be a problem if lots of people were sampling and not buying. If they send out free samples to lots of people and don't get an order off the back of it then surely that gives them an indication that there isn't much demand for the chips and could result in them being withdrawn. Maybe I'm being a little OTT here.
G
I dont think that is an issue. Microchip is has over a billion in sales and saw an increase of 12% over last year and the synth DIY portion of their business accounts for nothing so if everyone on this list sampled as many chips as they could, they would not even bat an eye.
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Yeah, everything is done via the core. MIOS studio is in Java so it is cross platform
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No, just something with midi. Everything is sent via sysex files with MBHP
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I would say go ahead and build everything and worry about the V2 stuff when they wrap it up. There will be some changes made to the hardware but nothing that will stray that far from the current hardware. SID chips can be found here, on ebay, or i'm sure at your local flea market
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.. little confused. For the SID which PIC should I order it with and PIC ID Headers?
Unless you are directly going to the 4xSID then you dont need to worry about it, both 1x and 4x have the first core as 0000000000.
You will also need to take into consideration that you will need a display and a DIN module for some of the controls so I recommend you get all the goods at the same time(IDC Cable, connectors, Memory for bankstick, connectors)
ALSO I'm not going to be able to link this to my computer from uploading software and such (I'm on a MAC) So... will I be okay or? Thanks!You will have to at some point since you will not be able to program the PIC, Tim only preloads the bootloader and MIOS, you still have to upload the SID application
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Here is some reading that may clarify some things:
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Rutger.
I updated my msg. Usually, you will want a transformer with dual secondaries, using 2 transformers with one referenced ground can be problematic. Search this forum for some various PSU designs there are several including mine.
I use the 2Amp 7805 and it works well
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2nded about the 1 bridge rectifier for the 5 volt rails. Also, your transformers are rated really high for what you are doing voltage wise. Remember that voltage rating is RMS so you will have a 1.4V drop across 2 diode in the bridge (7.6 V RMS) and with your smoothing caps that will raise that to almost the peak of 10.6V which is a lot of voltage for the 5V regs to burn off as heat. Consider using a 6V transformer. Plus the way you have your grounding set up is wrong. You can not just tie all the grounds to case, I am sure someone more knowledgeable than I will explain why but the general idea is that with 9v transformer, you are referencing ground to the lowest point of the wave and the with the center tapped one, you are referencing it in the middle of the wave (thats how you get your +/-). With a mixed signal chip like the sid, this will be VERY bad to have 2 different grounds. Plus your signal ground and case ground should not be tied together.
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Here, I made a PDF for you:
http://no-ho.com/MB_Sid Step C.pdf
Umbuntu should have a PDF reader installed by default IIRC. You can print it out on 2 A size pieces of paper just make sure that the page scaling is set to none. PDF is a vector format so you dont have to deal with bit resolution, just print it 1:1
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Just print it as PDF
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I have been using the new lasertran with excellent results. More to follow...
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Look at the bright side, at least you accomplished your original goal of reducing noise ;D
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I don't have any regulators :) I have wired directly from my PSU to all the COREs and the SIDs.
Um, that was a BAD idea. Chances are you can say bye bye to all your pics, they are not designed to take more than 5.5V. If your using a 6N138 Opto, then that could have been damaged also
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More trouble....
I changed all the power wires (5V, 12V) in a desperate attempt to fix the freeze problem... And (of course) I accidentaly switched +5V and + 12V, now (after I switched back) all my SID does is lighting all the LEDs, and never start... :) Not a sound neither...
Any ideas of what might have died when from running of 12V instead of 5?
Regards, Jack.
Thats a good question. The regulator should be OK to 35V (it will just get hot) so I suspect that the problem lies somewhere else. Check your supply voltages to the PIC while it is running
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A bit of advice for those building things into 1U racks... after a short while you will get really tired of switching between the menus, i.e. jumping back and forth between LFO, Filter and Mod matrix, etc. You obviously don't have enough room for a "step C" control surface, but while designing, consider adding some "shortcut" buttons to jump between the menus (i.e. like Osc, Filter, LFO, Env, Mod Matrix, Arp, etc.).... in addition to adding five rotary encoders which can be assigned to parameters for real-time control, and the very cool PageUp/PageDown button functionality that TK just added in V2.
If I was doing another MB-SID in a rack, I'd go with 2U minimum, a 2x40 LCD and 10 buttons underneath, five "assignable" knobs and a button to jump to most of the sub-menus. But that's just me ;D
I would suggest to everyone designing a CS for MB-SID V2... build the "step B" on a bit of prototyping board with some cheap switches and a rotary encoder (you don't need the LEDs) and try it out... you'll come up with your own ideas about how to extend it into a "step B with extras" to fit your panel. (I suggest "step B", if you've only got one SID then "step A" is enough). No amount of thinking about what you will need can replace actually using it and discovering it for yourself.
Thats actually really good advice, i'll definitely do that
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I was laughing with you, not at you
I got it, ;D
This was a loooooong topic last year and hopefully I'll have something to contribute soon
PacTec PT-10 Bulk order for Europe, (case for MB-6582). CLOSED
in Bulk Orders
Posted
They are $21 at mouser so I cant see there being a huge discount at volume (50+ is still $17.00) especially when you consider how big a box of 50 of these would be and the associated shipped cost