Flying Panther

I unfortunatly wouldn't know about that.. I'm still putting my own Core and SID boards together, so I'm not really an expert on the whole thing.. But I'm sure there are more experienced people around, who can give some usefull comments on those values.

You should connect your multimeter to ground and one of the selected pins, not +5V and the selected pin. Probably you'll get better results now :) All pins should output 0V except for CLK which is +5V by default. For A0 for instance, you have measured the difference between +5 and the 0V that A0 puts out (when not modulated), that gives 5V. The CLK was 5V already, so there's no difference, hence 0V. If you measure from ground however, A0 will read 0V and CLK will read 5V. If you now send a modulation signal to A0, it should read 5 volts. The same for all the other pins, except for CLK, which will read 0V when modulated.

And the pictures say it all: Core01.JPG Core02.JPG Core01.JPG Core02.JPG

Update: These items are sold and have found a new owner. These PIC's have been waiting for me to finish the boards for a MB-SID v1.7. Now I finally have the time to work on the boards I decided to upgrade directly to the MB-SID V2 which needs other PIC's. Therefore I have for sale: 4x PIC18F452 with bootloader v1.2 and MIOS v1.9 pre-programmed from SmashTV Programmed ID's: [0000 0000 0000 0000], [0000 0000 0000 0001], [0000 0000 0000 0002] and [0000 0000 0000 0003] The PIC's are still in a sealed bag from SmashTV, but I'll have to break the sealing before sending out the PIC's since I will be needing the Bankstick EEPROM's that are in the bag aswell ;) I'm asking €6,- + shipping from the Netherlands to you for separate PIC's, €20,- + shipping for all of them. Please PM if interested :)

The 3.2 volts are indeed measured with AC selected on the multimeter. Thanks for your information about the internals of the PSU, I'll better spend some time looking for a different PSU, instead of trying to fix this one.

When testing my C64 PSU I read a stable 5.24 V on the 5VDC lines. The AC-lines only give 3.2 V, but should be delivering about 9V. I know the PSU did deliver just a bit above 9V when testing it for the first time, so therefore I reckon that something must have died.. Since it does give some voltage on the VAC-line, that gives a little hope. On the other hand I have the 'brick' PSU version (the square ribbed one) that came with a C64C and also has no access to the fuses from the outside (not that I would need that right now, since a burnt fuse would give me 0VAC, right?). There seems no option to open the PSU, except for brute force ;) As I don't want to waste a lot of time with a screwdriver and hammer to open it up and then discover that there's nothing to repair inside, I need some advice. Is this type of PSU also filled with epoxy and therefore unservicable? In other words, should I throw this one away and find a new power supply?

It looks a bit like the knobs you'll also find on electric guitars. But that's just me guessing ;)

I had to look for 2 minutes before figuring out that there's also a part of the heatsink under the SID, but now I get the system. ;) Looks pretty decent, and may also cool well because air can flow 'through' the hole in the heatsink.

Just curious, any news on the LCD's? ;)

This is interesting.. I was also thinking of designing my own PSU with +5 (cores/other modules), +9 (sid) and +9/-9 to feed an op-amp for an active mixer. I was going for just one 2x12V transformer, but you made me doubting again. ;) I think you can join grounds this way (I was thinking of joinging them in about the same way), but I'm not sure myself if this is right, since I don't know much about this kind of electronics.

Today (when I was placing the order) I found out that Texim only sells to companies, and that way I can't order them there >:(. So it seems I'll have to search for a new way to get my hands on a nice red LCD..

Wilba, that just looks awesome!! Very nice design :) But on these pictures I can't see the illumination of the encoders.. Is that just the picture, or did you remove / redesigned it? Anyways, congrats with this marvellous little box :)

Hey, the Endorphin-at-night shot looks very nice :D About the heat inside the case, isn't it possible to use heatsinks and perforate the case close to the heatsinks? Like most amplifiers do. That way you wouldn't have to use fans. On the other hand, I'm not sure if that will work okay in such a small housing as this one. Also, have you checked for Papst fans? They're really quiet (about 15-18dBA), and you have them in 5V or 12V versions and in 25 and 40 mm (what I could find, they might as well offer 30mm ones).

Judging from the picture you did a pretty good job at the hacking ;) But I can imagine that 3mm of acryllic dims the light lot.

I've got some more information from Texim! They can deliver the LCD for a sampleprice of 13,50 euro exl. shipping from Texim to myself (should be about 2 or 3 euro's). Deliverytime is about 3 to 4 weeks. If I need to order an extra LCD of this type (black characters on red background) for someone else, please let me know asap, as I will order them tomorrow. :)

I've contacted the dutch establishment of Texim-Europe (dutch distributor of Winstar products), they don't have red-backlit 20x2 lcd's in stock, but they can deliver them on request. Texim-Europe is going to check on prizes and delivery time; when I know more, I'll let you guys know :). They do have Winstar 16x2 RGB-backlit lcd's in stock, don't know what they cost though. Also, interesting stuff about the military aircraft panel design! :D

I haven't come to calling the dutch distributor yet, but I'll post here when I do :) I found a page with official european distributors that you may find usefull: http://www.winstar.com.tw/Archive/about_us/distributor_Europe.html

If you still have some 8580's left, i'd like to buy 2 of them. :)

Thankyou! :D They are indeed Winstar LCD's I think. I found a dutch firm that imports Winstar products, now let's see if they can deliver the lcd I want ;)

Since the dutch section of the forum doesn't show much activity, I might as well try it here :) I want to implement a red backlit LCD (2x20) in my MB SID. I was very happy when I found one at crystalfontz.com, but I was less excited when I've had a look at the shipping costs to the Netherlands. Shipping would be about 40 USD, and since the LCD itself costs about 27 USD, I'd like to know if there are other retailers (in europe) who sell the same kind of LCD. I've searched a lot, but without success, I only found redirections to crystalfontz :(

I was thinking: If you connect all grounds right after the bridge rectifier of the Core and the Sid module, then the Core and Sid will share the same ground. Is this possible, or would that also involve ground loops?

Those knobs look very pretty! I also came across the illuminated pots from Hallucinogen, and on his pictures you can see the light doesn't spread very well on the center of the knob due to the D-shaft. How's that on your knobs? (because you use 3 leds and Hallucinogen uses only one if I'm right). And I see you connected the led's serial, what voltage do you power them with?

In that case, I might not connect the 7805's directly to the 12v AC ;) Thnx

Hmmm... Should have thought about the minimum input/output difference.. thnx for correcting that :)

The LM317 can handle 1.5A max, if I'm right. You might want to use a LM350 (3A) or even LT1038 (10A). Don't know how hot they will get though with a 2.5A load. (But since they only need to dissipate 0.25V I think that should be allright).