Jaicen

Ok, i'm convinced! This is GREAT!!! I never really thought that speech synthesis would be great, but I can see the 'vocal' synth sound being really useful. This is some damn good work AudioCommander.

If you're in the UK, I wouldn't mind taking a couple of the RAM chips off your hands for spares. You say the boards held 8580's, so i'm assuming that they're the later C64C motherboards?

Oooh, tasty! Do you have any details about that SSL comp?? I think that'd be something i'd be interested in building, especially if you have a PCB layout. Does it use any odd semiconductors? On the subject of Muriatic acid, i'm pretty sure that's Sulphuric Acid isn't it? That's something I definitely would not want to mess with, especially in my home! On the subject of PnP, does anyone have a source in the UK that doesn't charge £15 for 10 sheets?!

Nice tutorial there Art, though most of it's old news to seasoned 'cheapo PCB' verterans like myself ;) I do have a couple of things i'd like to add though. Firstly, don't use cheap PCB stock. If it's thin, it will etch quickly, but you're also more likely to get traces that etch through or lift when you're soldering. For the same reason, Fiberglass is recommended over phenolic. I actually use the Avery backing label method for my quick and dirty layouts, but it's prone to pitting when etched, which is where the photo paper scores higher. Secondly and more importantly, if you're re-using etchant (after having etched something previously), DO NOT heat it in a microwave!!!

Yeah, I was successful with a 16F84 and a 12F675 later this evening (after I made the adapter). I'm stocked that the 12F675 worked first time as it's the primary reason I built the burner. (I'm using it do MIDI sync my DR-110). It's a bit of a learning curve but simple once you have it all down and working right. The free floating end of R8 just needs to be attached to the +5V rail to hold pin1 high. I didn't wire to JP2, I just wired directly to GND and the +V input, just to save a jumper or two. Talking from experience, if you're getting something like 10v from the 7805, and it's getting hot, you've probably got it the wrong way around. :-[ The T092 style case (as shown in the layouts) has an opposite pinout to the larger heat-sink type (not sure what case style you call them). Basically, with flat side down, the pins are IN GND OUT (left to right). Ermm, i'd say you should check the LED's orientation, as both my Vpp and Vdd's were initially the wrong way around. Vpp is grounded through R15, whereas Vdd is the oppsite way around, going to +5v through R7 (on the layout, schem is numbered differently ::) ). Anyway, that's enough success for me for one night. I'm off to bed to dream of the day my Dr-110 synchs to MIDI!

Hey Jidis, I just thought I'd let you know that I finally got my programmer working. I had to jumper the ground as i've mentioned before. I'm sure that someone else must have had this problem, but I guess they haven't posted about it before. Anyway, to get it working with ICProg you need to select Tait Serial and invert both MCLR and VCC. As soon as I did that it worked straight off; burned & verified perfectly. I guess we can put this thread to bed now, hopefully it might save someone else three days of headscratching and frustration!

Ok, well I swapped out the 40106's for 74HC14's, and it didn't help. I then realised that the LED's for Vdd and Vpp were the wrong way aroung :-[ I swapped them, and I can now get the programmer to respond to the commands that P18 sends out (ie, Vdd ON/OFF etc..). Unfortunately, I still don't seem able to program anything to the 16F84A I've been trying. Using various different PIC programmers, I can get the software to recognise the burner, and it tries to write, but I get errors such as 'Error in line 0, programming aborted' (from WPicProg16 V1.20). It seems that P18 doesn't recognise the 16F84A, so is there any other (english preferably) software that uses the MBHP burner??? Or is it a hardware issue still?

Ok, so the burner is now being recognised when I plug it in, but I still can't get it to respond to the hardware checks. (I had to add a ground wire to the schmitts, as their ground plane is isolated). In P18, when I click the Vdd On button for example, the LED doesn't come on, however if I click Check Data IN, I can toggle it between 1 and 0 using the SDATA on and SDATA off buttons. I tried to communicate with the burner using ICProg but it's the same story. Can anyone shed any light on this because it's driving me up the wall! I've blown a whole weekend trying to get it working :-[

I don't know if it's important, but I couldn't get any 74HC149's so I used 40106 IC's instead. As far as i'm aware they're pin for pin compatible, and they're only buffering the data lines anyway. I measured voltages at the parallel port pins and they're all held at +5v with nothing connected. I also checked the PC port by shorting pins 2 and 10 with a 100ohm resistor but P18 still didn't recognise the burner. Where am I going wrong??

Ok, i've built the PIC burner+ as per the eagle layout posted, unfortunately it's not 100% working just yet, and i'm scratching my head a little. I'm getting 13.14v (to program a 16F84) and +5v (7805 runs real hot!) and the green LED comes on just fine. However, when I run the hardware tests, I can't get the yellow or red LED's to come on at all, which is strange. I did stick in a 16F84 and tried to burn some stuff to it using IC-Prog, which seems to work initially, but fails on the verification. When I read back the hex it's just a string of 0000's, so i'm guessing there's a problem with the data lines. When I load up P18, it doesn't recognise that I have the burner connected. At the moment, it's plugged straight into the back of the PC so I can rule out cable problems. Is it a problem with WinXP affecting the parallel port? I've had problems running 64HDD under XP, I had to make up a DOS boot disk to get it to work properly. Does any of this sound familiar, or is it just me being an idiot??

AH, that sounds sweet then! I still need to get my MBSID started. I was just planning ahead for my next SID project when I get a 6581.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind taking them off your hands. The only thing is that you say you've mounted the cores, and I don't want to take on a part-finished project and have to error check everything already done. For example, how do I know that you've not damaged any of the components when you soldered them in? If you could supply some photo's of the work already done, it may provoke more interest.

Ok, i'll bite. How about £3.43 and half a packet of cigarettes??

AFAIK, and i'm far from an expert on these things! The difference is just that the A can handle more current. Just check the datasheets on microchip.com.

Just wondering if anyone has modified the firmware to integrate an external filter into the MBSID. I've seen TK's stuff with regards to the CEM filters, but I'm still not clear on how it works. I assume it requires an AOUT to get CV's to the filter?

I'd say it doesn't really sound like a NES or a VIC chip, the square wave is quite aggressive, so i'd take a guess at it being the Pokey?? If so then i'd like to see more of this project, as it's quite a powerful sounding thing, if maybe a little limited. Add a Moog filter and you could have something magic! EDIT: I just read your other post regarding the NES motherboard, so I guess I should re-consider! Also I took the liberty of hosting your example on putfile so it can be heard online without downloading, hope that's cool Vedge. http://media.putfile.com/GuessTheArpingChip

If anyone's interested, I think I've worked out how to adapt the burner to suit the 12F675 I need to burn for my DR-110 sync mod. The diagram i've uploaded shows the connections needed from what I can gather.

Thanks for that Jidis, i'll have a trawl through those links at some point when I get the chance. I do have another PIC burner question though: Does anyone know how I adapt the burner to allow me to program 8-pin PIC's like the 12F675??? According to the info I've found, the hardware and software support them, but I've only found the info for using an 18-pin adapter (as in the burner+). Can anybody help? This is all a bit confusing for me right now!

I actually did download eagle to view the burner+ board, which is good. I just can't seem to find the option to turn off the components. Anyone got any ideas? Edit: I've done it! I found the option to turn off the components. Gotta say, it's a bit of a fiddly program. Nowhere near as simple to use as ExpressPCB, but then it is more powerful. If anyone's interested I can mail the board jpg. It's a 350dpi Image ready for toner transfer.

Yeah, I don't have Eagle unfortunately, so I was hoping someone might have a copy of the layout in .pdf or .jpg format.

Just another quickie. After pontificating on this for some time, i've decided that the MBHP PIC burner is the one for me, as it seems to support every PIC I plan to use. I did plan to buy one from MIKE's PCB shop as the price is more than reasonable, unfortunately shipping costs more than the programmer, and since I don't really want anything else right now it's a bit of a bummer. So, does anyone have a PCB layout of the burner they'd be willing to send me?

Have you tried the MIDIMan USB MIDI interface? Plug and play with WinXP, and provides 2xIN and 2xOUT with Activity LED's. Pretty damn cheap too.

Yeah, bad luck on that man! I'd quite like another one to keep in my 'collection' of sorts, but the prices they've been fetching lately has been pretty high. I think £40 inc shipping is about right, but they're going for upwards of £60. There's a DR-55 on ebay right now that's at £50 with 3 days to go, and it's unboxed!?!

Just had to share this with you guys, I don't think my girlfriend really understands ;) This is my new baby, complete with the original Practical Electronics manual used to build it! I'm very excited! Only downside is that she who will be obeyed says I can't play with it till christmas (good thing she's at work when it arrived! I had to test it...) It's a wierd little box, sounds a bit like a DR-55 crossed with a CR-78 and programs in the same way. Actually, I think it's closer to the CR-78 with the brush and noise cymbals. Either way, it sounds great! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MASTER-RHYTHM-DRUM-MACHINE_W0QQitemZ230049205781QQihZ013QQcategoryZ38069QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I tend to agree, I think the hats on the DR-110 are probably the nicest analogue hats i've ever heard. I actually plan to put the noise & chime generator from the 110 into my 808 clone, with switches to select between them. That way I can get the best of both worlds with the Snare, cymbals and hats! EDIT: Actually, I just looked up the schems for the 808 and found something interesting. The Cymbal section is almost exactly the same as the DR-110, right down to the values of the twin-T noise filter! This means that it would be a very simple job to substitute the noise and 'chime' sources. From what I can tell, the only real difference between the two versions of the hats and cymbal are the specific frequencies chosen for the schmitt oscillators, and the fact that the DR-110 uses a harsher digital noise source.