toneburst

Incidentally, the hardest thing about making the PSU was actually desoldering the original C64 power socket and switch. Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Ooops... sorry, got the URLs of the images wrong. and, from the bottom (note the numerous places I desoldered bits). Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Well, here it is. It's not quite finished, in fact, because I ran out of SIL pin headers. As I said- not very beautiful.... I now think I could make a much smaller version on tripad board, using more jumpers. Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Thanks very much for all the advice- it all sounds good! I'm toying with the idea of just soldering lengths of ordinary wire to all 16 holes on the LCD module, then using an ordinary plastic mains-style connector block to connect a ribbon cable from the Core board. That way I can at least see if the LCD works and upload the firmware. I can make some kind of more permanent connection once I know everything else is OK. Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Anyone any advice for a struggling newbie on wiring up a 16-way ribbon-cable to to an LCD module with 2 rows of 8 holes? There's a great walkthrough on wiring up one with a single row of holes, but things seem to get much more complicated with 2 rows. Also, the Core board has pins labelled 'B-' and 'B+', whereas the pin number list for my LCD module has pins labelled 'A/Vee' and 'K' (all the other correspond nicely). Anyone know which corresponds to B+ and which to B-? Cheers again guys, Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Hi tel3 and Altitude, thanks both of you for getting back to me. I missed that bit at http://ucapps.de/mbhp_core.html I was a bit confused as to whether J1 and J2 on the Core boards on this site actually matched the ones on the SmashTV boards, since they look quite different. I'll try soldering to the trace and test it to see if that works. It's gonna look messy, but hopefully it will work. I'll post a pic of the PSU board when I've finished it (just need to add some SIL headers and the resistor for the LED). Alex http://www.toneburst.net

I've finally managed to knock together a working PSU from the Optimised PSU diagram, and using the original C64 power socket and switch. I did it on stripboard, and it looks terrible, and I'm sure the layout is incredibly inefficient, space-wise, but the voltages check out 5.13V and 13.88V It's a minor right of passage for me, as it's the 1st actual circuit I've created from a circuit diagram. I'm surprised it works! The only problem is, I fell at the first hurdle when it came to connecting the PSU to the MB Core. Desoldering the voltage regulator from my Smash TV PCB, the pad nearest the big cap came away from the board. I tried putting a jumper across the holes where pins 1 and 3 of the 7805 had been, but I don't think there was enough pad there to make a connection. Two questions: 1. Am I jumpering across the right holes anyway where the 7805 used to be? 2. Where should the 5V output from the PSU be connected to the Smash TV Core board. The Optimised PSU diagram says J2, but J1 on the Smash TV board is the 5V OUTPUT. Should I just connect the PSU to the J1 power input pins on the Smash TV board? I know this is incredibly basic stuff, but any help would be much appreciated. Cheers Alex http://www.toneburst.net

All this is good advice. Thanks guys. I managed to unsolder that stubborn switch in the end by using the desoldering pump to get rid of as much solder as possible, the using a pair of pliers to gently waggle prise the pins away from the pcb from the component side, while heating them from the solder side. I broke the first one trying to do the same thing the 1st time, but this time I was a bit more careful and managed to get the thing off intact on the 2nd attempt. Cheers again guys, Alex http://www.toneburst.net

What's the best method for desoldering components from the C64 circuitboard? I'm trying to remove the main power switch and 7-pin DIN power socket, but my desoldering pump doesn't seem to be doing the job, particularly on the larger blobs of solder nearest the edge of the board. Any advice gratefully accepted. Alex http://www.toneburst.net

What's the best method for desoldering components from the C64 circuitboard? I'm trying to remove the main power switch and 7-pin DIN power socket, but my desoldering pump doesn't seem to be doing the job, particularly on the larger blobs of solder nearest the edge of the board. Any advice gratefully accepted. Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Thanks for your reply Mr modnaR, that's very helpful in narrowing-down the search. I'm afraid I still can't find the rectifier though. I've tried looking for '40V' '800mA' and '0.8A' but without success. You couldn't possibly tell me which one I need could you? Also, any advice on capacitor types to go for would be great. Thanks a lot, Alex http://www.toneburst.net

That would be great! Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Hi guys, thanks for the advice. I've tried RS, but couldn't find the all the capacitors, or the rectifier. I may be looking in the wrong place though. Any advice on what type of caps to go for? Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Hi there, that page looks very useful. I'm about to start getting together the parts for my own optimised C64/MIDIBox Sid PSU, and to be honest, I had no idea where to start before I saw your page. I'm just wondering where you sourced your components from though. I'm guessing from your domain name that you're UK-based. I can't find the the B40C800 rectifier from any of the usual UK suppliers I've used in the past. I'm also having problems tracking down the 100nF and 330nF and 2200uF/25V caps, and have no idea which of the multitude of available types to go for. Any advice for a struggling newbie? Cheers Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Hiya, I'm a bit of an electronic construction newbie, though I've soldered-up various pre-designed kits in the past. I'm trying to work out how to convert the 'mbhp_4xsid_c64_psu_optimized' circuit-diagram into a stripboard layout, and am a bit stuck as to how to approach the task. Does anyone happen to have made this particular circuit on stripboard, or have a diagram of it I could look at? Alternatively, any general tips on planning a job like this would be very much appreciated. Cheers, alx http://www.toneburst.net

I've so far managed to scavenge 3 SID chips from C64s bought on eBay. All 3 have different revision numbers, however. Should I anticipate any problems using all 3 (+ a 4th eventually) in the same 4-channel SIDBox? Alex http://www.toneburst.net

I just tried putting a variety of coloured plastic gels over the blue/white LCD on my Novation XStation, and it looks really cool! Some of them make the display unreadable (dark blue obviously doesn't work great), but most work really well. Orange and red seem to work really well. This is pretty cool, because it means you could effectively make yourself an lcd display of more-or-less any colour you like, as long as the lcd is bright enough to start with! Possibilities, possibilities.... Alex http://www.toneburst.net

hi again Moogah, I was looking at this company's products a couple of weeks ago. What I was particularly interested in was non-standard coloured soft-touch knobs (white body with different coloured pointers). I got in touch with them and they were quoting a minimum order of 1000 units- a bit OTT when I need about 15! The grey ones might go well with the old-style C64 cases, but the colour chart ( http://www.sifam.co.uk/colour-2colour-push.lasso ) suggests they don't have the grey body ones in stock. I'm hoping to get hold of a red neg-mode LCD, so I'm be up for getting hold of 15 black-body/red pointer ones. I'm in the UK though, so postage might be pricey. Alex http://www.toneburst.net

I don't know of any music kit with a similar coating, but my girlfriend has a nice Dualit food mixer that's coated in a black latex-like substance. That's what gave me the idea really. Alex htp://www.toneburst.net

Sounds like good stuff then. Cheers guys, Alex http://www.toneburst.net

I pre-ordered a Kore system some time before they were actually officially released- mainly, I have to admit, because I thought they looked cool. When the thing eventually arrived I was a little disappointed with the generally 'plasticky' build quality. The headphone monitoring system (when oyu use it as a USB2 audio IO) is a bit odd, too. On the plus side though, the knobs themselves feel solid enough, and the way they light up in red when you touch them is really cool! In terms of overall usability, I must admit I haven't really used it enough to be able to tell. My overall impression is that it's really designed as an interface to the NI Komplete plugin package, with support for other plugins etc a bit of an afterthought. I'm waiting to see if templates for 3rd-party plugins start to appear, because it could be a really nice interface. I'm also waiting for NI to get around to 'Intelising' their plugins so they work on my Apple MacBook Pro as well as on my desktop G5. I have Kore on it now, but have barely used it because I find it really annoying that it presents you with this endless list of exciting-sounding presets, none of which of course work, because the relevent plugins aren't installed. Ultimately, I think it's mainly a sales device to lure people with some pretty hardware into buyinh Komplete 3.... Not that that means you can't use it for other things too... Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Sounds right Davo. Also it would be pretty expensive to get enough of the stuff to dip a decent-sized enclosure... Have you ever used the spray-on stuff? Alex http://www.toneburst.net

I was thinking along similar lines myself. I'm intrigued by the possibilities. Still need to find a decent case though- which is proving more difficult than I ever thought it would... Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Anyone tried this as a coating for small ABS enclosures? http://www.plastidip.co.uk/index.cfm?page=products&prodId=5 I've always loved the idea of 'soft-touch' rubber-type boxes (not that I'm kinky that way, you understand), and I wonder if anyone has ever tried dipping an entire box in this stuff. They also do http://www.plastidip.co.uk/index.cfm?page=products&prodId=1 which is similar, I think. any thoughts anyone? Alex http://www.toneburst.net

Cheers for clarifying for me moogah. That certainly does sound very different from the description. Mind you, maybe the one pictured on their site just has the contrast turned down lower (I'm guessing the contrast can be adjusted in some way).... I may be completely wrong on that one though. Maybe some sort of dark gel over the display would calm it down a little. Alex http://www.toneburst.com