toneburst

Connecting all the audio outs is a great idea lucem! I hadn't thought of that. You could make a nice neat multicore audio output lead using this socket, though the wiring might get a bit involved, if you still wanted the feedback pots to work. One thing I did would be cool would be to connect analogue outs for external CV/Gate control to this connector. I'm considering making one of sepoman's stereo filter boxes, and it would be great to be able to control that from the MB-6582. I should concentrate on getting the basics working, though. Still got sometests to carry out on my mainboard, which currently isn't behaving as it should. a|x

It's been a while, but I've finally made a tiny bit of progress on the MB-6582. I've got my replacement LCD working. I'm going to try to get hold of some red lighting gels from work, and see how they look in front of the display. I think I could probably make this more or less any colour I like. Still waiting for my LED order to turn up- it's been more than a week now, and it's from a UK supplier, so it really shouldn't take this long. Following a long-running thread on the forum re. the evils of blue LEDs, I decided to go for either green or red. Since they're so much cheaper than the blue ones I had ordered before, I got a full set of each, and I'll see one appeals most when I've seen them in action. a|x

OT, I know, but talking of the SIDStation, I read somewhere that Elektron bought up most the the remaining stocks of 6580 SID chips. The SIDStation is ridiculously underpowered compared to the MIDIBox SID, particularly a v2 with 4 Stereo channels! a|x

Great work TK! Any thoughts on implementing CCs for the other engines? I was thinking it would be cool to have similar controls across the different engines share the same CCs, wherever possible- so, for example, filter Cuttoff and Resonance would use CC#4 and 5 on the Lead, Bassline and SuperPoly engines. This would make producing editing templates for the controls easier and more intuitive. What do you think? a|x

This is normal, I think. If you look carefully, you will notice there also isn't a backlight brightness-adjust pot for cores 2>4. a|x

Hi Wilba, I will go through those steps carefully. I was trying to be as logical as possible with my troubleshooting (my work involves a lot of troubleshooting, so I'm relatively used to trying to track down the causes of problems). With a completed mainboard though, there are a LOT of variables, and my knowledge of electronics is minimal, at best.... I guess I'm just a bit overwhelmed by all the possible things that could be going wrong, and not fully aware of the ways the different components interact with each other. Anyway, thanks very much for your patient and considered replies; I appreciate your help (and of course all the work you've done in putting your design out into the public domain, and documenting it so thoroughly). Cheers, a|x

Hi TK, thanks for getting back to me. Unfortunately, I don't have a control-surface setup yet (waiting for LED order to arrive). Maybe I can do this using the editor software.... a|x

Sorrry :( a|x

Anything else I should try? I'm a bit stuck, unfortunately... a|x

I think I broke something while using the testone app to test the output stage of one of the SID slots. I must have connected the wrong pin of the SID socket to the wrong pin with my probes, and instead of getting a tone I now just get noise from that SID slot. I tried re-uploading the testone app, but that doesn't seem to have helped, so I'm guessing it's a hardware thing :( I tried the core PIC in another socket, with the same result, so it's the PIC, rather than any of the other components.... I don't have the facilities to re-upload the bootstrap loader, unfortunately, so I guess I'll have to order a replacement PIC from SmashTV again. a|x

Consider me suitably (and appropriately) nagged, guys, and thanks for your concern. Now, with that sorted, I just have to get my mainboard working... and I seem to have trashed one of my core PICs too, now, so I'm a lonnnng way from seeing those green LEDs in action, sadly... Thanks again, a|x

OK, I understand all the explanations given (and thanks for taking the time to make them). What I don't understand is, if our eyes have receptors for Red Green and Blue light, and LEDs, by their very nature tend to emit light over a narrow range of frequencies, why are Red and Green LEDs inherently any better than blue ones, because we're presumably no more used to seeing Primary Green or Primary Red in the natural environment? I guess you're saying the human eye is inherently less sensitive to blue light that other frequencies. I admit defeat though: I'm going for green diffused ones instead. Thanks again guys, and sorry for being so sarcastic in my last post. I do genuinely value your advice. God knows, I'd be lost without it on this project.... a|x

So, ALL colours are bad? And white LEDs are bad too. OK, I'm going to hook up some kind of apparatus to automatically light and extinguish tiny candles instead. It will be bigger than the rest of the components by a factor of several, and will require its own gas supply, but there will be no danger of any eye damage at all. Just of explosion. And fire. Small prices to pay, though, as I'm sure you will all agree... ;) a|x

Wilba's original MB-6582 had blue LEDs, and a green-on-black PLED display. a|x

OK, I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing here, but it seems that each core's pin 36 are connected together. R80 is connected to 5V The 'upper' sides of each D1_COREx diode (not the arrow end) are connected together, and all are connected to R80 also. Any advice on which pads to test for shorts between gnd/5v? Should I be testing for shorts to gnd/5v at J71? Also, I've swapped core PICs 2 and 3 into core slot 1, and they all seem to be able to control the SIDs in slots 1 and 2. I've also tried all the SIDs in SID slot 1 and 2, so SIDs 1 > 6 are working, and core PICs 1 > 3 are also working. Core PIC 4 still has the testtone app, so I don't want to test this in slot 1, with SIDs connected (or should I try this?). I did notice that the LCD connected to core slot 1, when it's hosting the two core PICs that were slaves before, doesn't show a patch name. Are the slave core PICs setup differently because they weren't in slot 1 when they had the SID app installed? a|x

Anyone want 100 water-clear ultrabright 3mm LEDs, for a MIDI-controlled light-show, perhaps? Free, to a good home ;) a|x

I'm in London, in the UK. a|x

HI guys, sorry for the late reply. I don't think they're quite the same as the Sifam ones, though they are similar in shape. I eventually did buy them from Novation. I was given the option, and went for the ones without the marker line. The only slight issue is that they're only fractionally wider than the holes in the MB-6582 front-panel, so I'll have to get my encoder shafts exactly centered, or you'll be able to see the edge of the cutout. a|x

That's a good idea, actually. I know what you mean. I live in London, and you'd think somewhere in this great metropolis, there'd be an electronics-supply shop... sadly not. All there is really is Maplins, who aren't that great anyway, and most of their smaller branches don't stock much in the way of basic electronic components. It's been mail-order all the way for me on this project. I've ended-up getting a lot of stuff from eBay suppliers. Yeah- lots of places selling Ultrabright ones, and cheap, too, but the only non-ultrabright ones I've been able to find have been either out-of-stock, or £1+ EACH (which is ridiculous, considering I need 112 of the little buggers). Very annoying. And I only decided to go for a blue theme because of the difficulty of getting hold of red 20x4 character displays, without paying a fortune in transatlantic P&P. a|x

Oops, so it is. The other Ultrabright ones I've seen have quoted 10000+ mcd though, so these are much dimmer. I can stop them down a bit with heavier resistors though, can't I? a|x

How about these? http://cart.rkeducation.co.uk/index.php?p=product&id=387&parent=54 They're 2000mcd, which seems a lot less that the ones claiming to be 'ultrabright', and they come in a tinted blue case. Good price, too. a|x

The ones I linked to in my last two posts aren't ultrabright, I don't think. The ones I have currently ARE, but they also have water-clear casings, so I'm not going to use them, anyway. a|x

I'm actually wondering if these ones http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380067695990&ssPageName=MERC_VI_RSCC_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores_IT&refitem=200258902512&itemcount=4&refwidgetloc=active_view_item&usedrule1=StoreCatToStoreCat&refwidgettype=cross_promot_widget&_trksid=p284.m184&_trkparms=algo%3DDR%26its%3DS%252BI%252BSS%26itu%3DISS%252BUCI%252BSI%26otn%3D4 could actually be painted blue. If they don't get too hot, maybe they could actually be tinted with some blue transparent ink. I like the idea of them being visibly coloured when not lit, as well as when they're on... a|x

I've noticed that IR transmitters show up on digital cameras, too :) Despite your friendly warnings, I think I'm going to go for blue ones, anyway. I'm thinking these ones http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380067695990&ssPageName=MERC_VI_RSCC_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores_IT&refitem=200258902512&itemcount=4&refwidgetloc=active_view_item&usedrule1=StoreCatToStoreCat&refwidgettype=cross_promot_widget&_trksid=p284.m184&_trkparms=algo%3DDR%26its%3DS%252BI%252BSS%26itu%3DISS%252BUCI%252BSI%26otn%3D4 Or even better these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260351822695&_trksid=p2759.l1259 if the 3mm blue ones actually do come in a blue casing. I'm honestly probably not going to spend too much time staring at the panel, anyway. I anticipate using the MIDI editor for most sound-editing/creation duties, and just using the panel for the occasional realtime tweak. a|x

That's probably because the white light has a large UV component, that is invisible to the human eye. The CCDs used in digital cameras are very sensitive to UV though. They have filters to try and reduce this sensitivity, but point light sources that emit lots of UV can still look strange when photographed. a|x