m00dawg

I sort of view it as the celibacy versus safe sex argument that often comes up around election time here in the States :) If there were a good, solid, PSU design that people could use, it would be safer than having them try to come up with it from total scratch. See, I understand what TK means about not being the instrument of death for a person. But if that person would have been stupid enough to ride the lightning with a kit PSU, it's highly likely they would have done the same thing building one on their own. So, if it's about protecting people - first and foremost, being able to buy a ready-made PSU is best, second to that having a good, solid, "MidiBox Certified" PSU design that folks can use would be great.

Actually, there is a linear PSU noted a bit earlier in this thread that you can buy now too. It's more expensive than the switcher ($150 I think) but something to consider. Where is the feeling of adventure? :P Designing a basic linear PSU isn't hard at all. Yes, you're messing with mains voltages but only on one side of the transformer and yes you need to be competent and safe but it really isn't difficult. I am still in the "we need a PSU kit" camp or at least a standard PSU design to settle on. Even if that is something like the above linear PSU or the Mean-Well, having something that is "certified for MidiBox" would be pretty neat. I get what TK is saying about not providing information that could potentially do great harm to people. But if they are going to attempt it anyway, might as well give them a solid design - less chance they will blow up capacitors, as you say (though really, that's rather easy to avoid).

You don't need to be an electrician (I think you mean electrical engineer) to design a build a PSU. You need a sense of safety, common-sense, and some concepts (many of which you can find on this very thread).

PSU Option B would allow for both the 9V and 12V SIDs. I haven't tried it myself but you can mix and match SIDs on the MB-6582. You can't on the sammichSID if memory serves.

Err well just to be clear: 6581: 12V 6582/8580: 9V Also, it is best to use the same revision for stereo pairs so you can put to 6581's together and two 6582 or 8580's together.

Haha I wasn't dispute your knowledge of vinyl - just pointing out I was listening to the real deal over the timecode black magic stuff :) I don't DJ with it though (still use Traktor for that). I hear most people say that you should go with the MB64E. The difference is really the 'e' means Encoder. The MB64 only works with potentiometers. The difference is that encoders are usually infinite whereas pots have a start and end (think of a volume knob). Both have their pros and cons. I *think* the MB64E supports both pots and encoders though so generally 64E is what you want. Don't hold me to that though :)

I think there have been a few designs that have had at least jogwheel style platters. I myself have actually just gotten into actual vinyl (the stuff with music on it, not the timecode stuff) and I'm enjoying the hell out of that :) Check out the wiki and this sub-forum as good places to start to see what people have done. While that's not a common MidiBox solution, depending on what you wanted to do, you could probably put something together. The MB64/MB64E platforms are typically for connecting knobs (pots and encoders), sliders, buttons, and LEDs. The firmware makes it rather easy to do some pretty cool things depending on what type of MIDI data you want to sent out from the assortment of knobs and things. There is also some support for motofaders. The new MidiBox platform will combine all of those together into a single MidiBox application I believe, but that is all still being actively worked on. Point is, I would still start there - if what you are wanting to communicate back to VirtualDJ can be done with MIDI, then whether or not you use a motorized table to do it should be immaterial, though an exactly solution to that escapes me.

So points 3 and 4 are what I was looking for. The truth is that, while building your own stuff is very fun and rewarding, it is by no means inexpensive (can be quite the contrary) or quick to build. In your case some of your requirements aren't things that MidiBox supports (USB mass storage device hosting) currently. Consider the price of an aluminum front panel as being at least $100, depending on size, and you're already up to the price of budget DJ controllers. Getting past that, embarking on such a complete project as your first MidiBox project might be asking a lot. If you really want to start getting into this, I would do it a step at a time. Chances are that some of the parts from your first projects can be used in subsequent projects since the MidiBox platform is typically fairly modular. Have a look at ucapps as this is where the documentation lives for most of the MidiBox core modules and projects. Specifically, you probably want to focus on the MB64 and MB64e. If you live in the states, you can buy kits from SmashTV or at least get an idea on pricing if you want to go the modular kit route. Most of the other tidbits you need you can find off Mouser and other electronic mail-order shops. I said start small because there's lots of steps between design and reality, particularly when it comes to having to design a control surface that will set you back $100 as noted above. If you miss a measurement or it doesn't feel right, you're out all that dough. Which is one reason why it's quite time consuming to build something like what you want from scratch. Don't doubt it, though, it is rewarding, but you should consider if it is worth the time investment plus cost or worth just saving your money to buy a commercial solution. My personal thought on that is that if I am going to spent that much money to buy a commercial thing, I could spend more money to build my own :) Anyways hope that helps! And despite the not totally warm and fuzzy (but realistic) comments above, welcome to the forums!

Why do you want to build your own over just buying an NS6?

I used acrylic for my sammichSID and while it looks grainy up close, at normal distances my blind ass can't tell :)

Damn that looks nice! I, too, opted to use green (though I have a black case) although it didn't work out as well this time as when I painted my sammichSID. Looks like you have much better luck than I. It looks fantastic!

Awe sorry to hear that nILS. Hope for the best, whatever shit you might be in right now! *hugs*

I was going to make a CMoy-inspired amp to put on the end of the MB6582 passive mixer design. Works fantastic for cleaning up and amplifying my NES so that's that route you could look at. The sammichFM design also uses op-amps for amplification, so you might check that as well. I haven't seen a need to use an amp myself - line-level from the SIDs sound pretty loud to me using the passive mixer on the MB-6582. I am mostly doing the CMoy route as a way to get a volume knob and protect my inputs a bit.

The large electrolytic caps are generally to smooth out the AC voltage after it has been rectified. So you can likely just use the larger caps after the rectifier and share it amongst all the regulators. See my above deign for a bit what I'm talking about that. To put it another way, you likely will want to use smaller caps around each of your regulators (check their spec sheets for the sizes) but probably don't need to have a big electrolytic cap before each regulator. If you wanted to go above and beyond, you could use larger electrolytics and more of them but share them amongst all the regulators. I'm having trouble describing it without a picture I guess :) Some designs I have seen used 4x 1000uF capacitors to help smooth out the AC current amongst them. Supposedly that was better than using one big 4000uF cap though I've never put that to the test (I don't have an oscope to get a good reading for that). Err I hope that helps :)

Ah I didn't realize you were using 2200uF caps for every rail. Have you thought of sharing those amongst the rails instead and using bigger caps or putting some in series?

My plan there was to fix the other regulators to the side of the chassis itself. You cannot do that to the 7912 without insulating it so I figured a heatsink would be better than since I didn't expect it to throw off too much heat. I haven't finalized the design yet as I am working on the control surface bits of the synth and I want to finish all that first. Despite that fact that they are massive, I do like nILS' design :) EagleCAD even had those type of heatsinks in its built-in library if I can find the part numbers of them to buy off Mouser. As far as your attachment, I didn't see it in your last reply? I saw your previous one though.

w00t! Congrats!

Holy damn! What are you powering with -/+ 15V? I thought the AOUT stuff all ran on 12? Regardless that looks pretty pro, but I would expect nothing less from the likes of nILS :)

That's exactly what I've done, only I used 2 4Ohm resistors in series with my old design. I don't have all the circuit protection stuff put together yet but you can look at my latest attempt here. That said, the linear PSU you can purchase mentioned in thread is compelling so I'm not sure which option I am going to go with at this point.

Oooh that looks very nice!

Is D5 really doing that much though? You could perhaps add a power resistor to knock the voltage down more before it goes into the 7805. Like the regulator, the resistor will throw off excess as heat but I found some ceramic ones at Radio Shack that have a large surface area and seem to be heat tolerant. Plus if you have a metal chassis you can just mount the resistor to it making the chassis something like a heatsink.

I wish I knew what sort of protection and stuff was built into those things but otherwise, yeah, those are a great find! I like building PSUs but it would be nice to work on designing the stuff that makes noise more than the stuff to power it :)

Well, to be fair, you would still have to build it if it were a MidiBox project - keeping in mind the safety considerations when doing so. Having it as a MidiBox project just means it might be easier to get ones hands on pre-printed boards, kits, and schematics. That's not to say having a place where one could by new C64-compatible PSUs would be a bad thing - it just can't be a MidiBox project according to the license (as I understand it anyway).

In my opinion, this should be turned into an official MidiBox project and be the preferred way to power most MBSID setups over using an existing C64 (or in cases where they are hard to come by). Has my vote anyway.

Oh wow that looks really nice! Very very cool! I'm gonna share this with some local folks here as I know they'd be interested in a C64-alternative PSU as well!