Sasha

Fall_X, nobody but you knows will you be able to desolder parts of the board. I advise you to practice on some junk you don`t need. When You build some confidence you can try this Akai board. Bare in mind that too long heating of pins will damage most of the components, especially mechanical. It would bee really shame if it happens. Did you check is those pots linear, and what is their value? Also LCD... graphical displays are supported but it depends of the type of controller. They are not all same.

My main problem when making things is that I really try to make things as compact as possible. This project wasn`t exception. Beside that I have another problem - depth limitations. It was very hard for me to find Mahagony in my country but I managed to get 2 pieces wide just 75mm, and that must be the depth of my whole 4xSID synth. :-\ And of course, side panels need to run slightly over the synth dimensions. ::) As you can see on the first slide in series there is no space on sub-panel for connectors as it is all reserved for modules, so I needed to find some solution while building. I could use RCA connectors, but they really wasn`t in spirit of synthesizers. I increased the space between 1st and 2nd sub-panel a bit and start looking for 6.3mm jack that could fit in. I couldn`t find anything suitable so I decided to use female cable connector. Here on the first pic you can see really nice connector from some synth but I couldn`t find anything like it. To secure the cable connectors in place I needed to make 4 piece puzzle which will be screwed to the back sub-panel. The end result ended really nice and I felt great relief because I solved my greatest issue by now. It could all be avoided in designing stage but I already spent months drawing and I reeealy wanted to start actually building it, so never finish the design phase to the end. :P On the last pic in series you can see whole assembly mounted to the hardly visible yellow acrylic back sub-panel.

I don`t know Ultra, the law, regulations, or however it`s called is still pretty old. There is so many "more important things" our government need to discuss first. Mother fuckers... What is it like here... well, if you came here you will probably spend some great time, but living here is shitty. Economical situation is our greatest problem. Rave Against The Machine you said ;D Never seen it... I`m just looking for it on local HUB, but cannot find it. I`m really interested to see where did it happened. Ex Yugoslavia used to have 6 republics (Serbia is one) and there were so many war fronts I cannot count... Documentary is probably made somewhere in Kosovo as it is only part of Serbia with UN troops. Anyway, it could be very nice here, but too many wrong people around...

Yesterday I visited my laserman to cut some parts I needed for other project and I also cut the cardboard panel for my sinth just to ensure everything fits. This is good way and it is much cheaper than milling new panel if there is some error. I was layering down my dummy panel with smile on my face... ...untill I discover greatest mismatch I made in my life. The smile was gone... After few seconds , after I realized what have I done, I started to laugh at myself and how big this mismatch actually is. ;D ;D ;D Craziness! I designed panel, few sub-panels, and some supporting pieces for encoders (Corel, not CAD), but somehow I left display and soft-buttons to finish later on. It was left as it was positioned freehand in space, which looked OK, but it wasnt. :-[ Luckily, this error is easy correctable and I feel glad I cut that cardboard dummy panel before I payed for CNC milling. Huuh.. From now I will always do that, even I`m sure everything is right. ;)

Thanks SLP Why not, but who could run it? I do have online shop of my own, mostly for selling CDs inside of country but people here in Serbia are not used to it yet. To sell things outside it is not legal, you can just export it. I do sell stuff outside from time to time but I need to send it as a gift. ;) If you send same thing too often they become suspicious.

I`ll check it out. Thanks doctor. ;)

They will be glued, probably with melted acrylic. I`m still working my SID...

I know there is something more to recycle except SID and housing... Check out my flickr page for bigger view: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fibra/

Yeah, that is funny nowdays. ;D I rememer my first HDD was 1.2GB and i tought that way too, but there was no mp3 then and no divx. SLP is right... you cannot have too much memory. ;)

Not really... I would agree with Phattline even I dont have much experience clubbing outside of Serbia. Situation here is bit better in one hand... most of the people are on dancefloor, but on the other hand, most of them are teenagers which is not so good especially cause they are high. Older people, from age 25 and more (ex clubbers) are rare at the clubs nowdays and most of them saying like... all clubbs are full of kids, why should I go..? To me that is stupid excuse. Music should be main reason not people, some of those kids really enjoy in music, some are just very drugged. I dont mind if they are "kids" as long as they have positive attitude, but I got feeling there are more and more negative people at the clubs, and that worries me. I can isolate myself in my head and sound but sometimes it is hard to isolate physically... I lived in South Africa for some time and I went to few of their clubs where Indians and colored are 95% and situation is pretty different... The girls are so crazy (and absolutely beautiful) but guys are kinda stiff. I don`t know what direction clubbing is going and dont think it is bright. People are so high in eastern countries, or so drunk in western. :-\

That is right, but I dont think you can invert CCs. Maybe I am wrong, I dont have Live 6 at hand. @henrygr Ableton is not just sequencer so I wouldnt ever compare it to Cubase. BTW I am Ableton fan.

10€ is really unbeatably low. Anyway, looks nice.

I`ll check it lates as you suggested... The output on LEDs is D0 & D1 if it is turned just D0. When I touch the board it lights properly (D1 goes off) and for D1 output lights D3 & D4 if nothing is touched. So it shifts by 2 not one LED. I wouldn`t bother with this much if there is no so many boring bridges to solder on DOUTx4. I hate making DOUTx4 modules and I`m trying to avoid it if I can.

That makes sense, but I couldnt find what is the problem. The schematic is too simple not to work. Could it be that missing other ICs are cosing the problem?

I built DOUTX1 but it works properly only when I touch pin 14 PCB with finger otherwise it lights 2 neighbouring LEDs (1&2, 3&4, 5&6...) Does anybody have a clue what is cosing this strange behavior? I used dout test application for testing All connections looks fine.

Yes, but this is nothing new.

I couldn`t find small D shaft knob for data-wheel so I needed to modify one with different fitting I have laying around. Albs do have proper 35mm data knobs but their precision wasn`t satisfying - I tried few and they wobbles a little bit. ??? Not much, but hey... Albs are Germans, it shouldn`t wobble at all! :-\ First I needed to cut the original shaft from my knob. I cut 3 disks from acrylic and glued them together. I could cut supporting piece from one solid piece of acrylic, but laser beam makes smaller out hole, especially with thicker materials, which is bad, so I compensated it using 3x3mm disks. Final result is much better than Albs knob (no wobble 8) ), but took some time and effort to make it. I also finished LED matrix PCB, so main sub-panel is completed! :) All LEDs are adjusted to be same hight. This could be done much easier if I could wait for my panel to arrive, but I didn`t order it yet. I adjusted every LED individually using small piece of acrylic with 3mm hole in it which emulates main panel. Yes, boring job, but only thing I could do without having a real panel. Now is the time to organize the modules at the back of 2nd sub-panel. It is going to be hairy... I can feel it. :P I hope I`m not going to give up of using 4 SIDs as I am extremely limited with space. Bigger box is not an option.

Wise, those buttons truly looks great! Especially because they are red!!! Sorry if you already answered, it but are those LEDs ultra-bright or regular ones?

It`s not difficult but it`s boring as hell. If you do what you advised to Wise you could maybe find it fun after few of those. :P ;D

Thank you guys. About perfectionism... well, often I wish I`m not perfectionist. ...is it good enough? should I work some more on it? ...never-ending. :) But, nice feeling once you have finish it.

After healing from perfectionism by making of ugly recycled Woody (http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=8416.0), it is time for some fanciness again. :P As I had pretty much free time at work by now, I spend it mostly drawing, moving and removing objects till I was completely, well, almost completely satisfied with the result. Here is the latest look. Here is the result of laser cutting (sub-panels). Very precise and clean, and if it is drawn carefully everything should fit together perfectly. I design it in Corel so you cannot be sure in that as you cannot see the assembly and program wont inform you about part collide or other mismatching. Better use some CAD software and your head wont hurt. I hate to see screws on the panel (except for rack mounting) so I needed to have sub-panel for mounting the encoders. Encoder sub-panel mounted on the main sub-panel. As you can see screw holes on main sub-panel are conned so everything is in in same level! The PCB`s are finished and tested. I add some hot glue to secure the wires. I often brake some wile moving if building last too long. Here is the assembly sandwich of three sub-panels containing encoders, PCBs with LEDs and buttons. Yes, matrix and data-wheel are missing for now. Back sub-panel is there to improve strength and it will carry all the modules. I hope so... :P That is it for now. Hope you will find it inspiring.

Thanks for support, Mickey :)

welcome to the club. ;)

Stryd, nobody collects pics on flickr. Members are joining the groups and posting their pictures on their own. Even flickr is greatest service of that kind, not much midibox pics in it. C`mon people spread the word of MIOS. ;)

Here is the EPS file if somebody need it. It is big enough to be CNC cutted out of PVC sheet. ledrings.zip ledrings.zip