Goblinz

It's not to do with price at all, we don't get a discount for getting bulk orders, we organised a bulk order so that we could get them at all. These knobs are coming straight from the manfacturer, I haven't found anybody else stocking them. When it became apparent that we were going to be needing these knobs ALBS were contacted and they said that they wanted us to organise bulk orders as opposed to loads of people making small orders. Companies producing things like these knobs are used to dealing with large orders of parts for the manufacturing business or for retail. I will probably be sorting out some knobs for the x0xb0x which has been mentioned in another thread so can do an order for both this and the SID at the same time. If a manufacturer of things like this keeps getting lots of small orders for 15 or so knobs when they are used to dealing with requests for hundreds then I can imagine that they may get a bit short tempered. When I initially sent an email asking for a few knobs I didn't even get a reply. Rest assuered that there will be another order happening soon and I am happy to keep on doing orders as long as there are enough people wanting them (they are very good knobs). If there's a lot of people who already have their synth built up and the control surface and case finished then I will do this order sooner.

Hold fire for a little bit yet, I'll start a new thread once I get this batch over and done with

It would be best to get another bulk order together as ALBS have said they would prefer this to everybody ordering individually. There's a few people who have shown interest already so I will start to organise another order mid November. The first lot of knobs have not arrived yet, we've been experiencing postal strikes in the UK so they should be arriving at some point soon when the backlog is cleared. G

That's a lot. I wonder how many are still working/ haven't been chucked out. No doubt about it though, people pillaging them for parts must be driving up the prices on ebay. I may end up just making a very simple SID-Synth for a friend with the spare chip. G

Yes, already though tabou this. Obviously the person who has stripped it down will know what chip has come out of it and I can always check the voltages. Thing is, if I end up buying a new C64 to play games on then it will mean I have two SID chips and the temptation to turn them into something musical and stereo will be too much ;D

No, I have one, I just need to rest of the Commodore 64 bits to make it in to a working computer. I already have a case too. I like old computers so now I have the SID chip spare I can put it into another C64 board as mine is broken. G

In a way I think it's a bit of a shame that people are pillaging parts from them, sooner or later there won't be any working C64's left. Obviously Wilba is doing his bit for conserving old C64's by providing alternatives to ripping them to pieces. I've had a PS2 at home for 3 years now and have only ever bought 4 games for it and hardly ever play on it. I still play games on my Atari STE, Atari Lynx and (my favourite) the Atari Jaguar (I need to get the CD add-on for it at some point)... I'm a bit of an Atari addict to be honest. I like the way that tehre's so much hardware available that I could never dream of affording when I was a kid that I can now get on ebay for next to nothing... Just bought myself an Atari 40mb hard-drive, got a MP£ codec to go with it too, I can fit about 7 MP3's on the drive :D G

Sounds like a serious SID habit, either that or he should wear a dust mask whilst packing them. G

Hi, I never got round to throwing out my C64 away after it broke and was going to use the 8580 chip in a SID. I now have some 6581 chips coming from Wilba so the 8580 is spare.Has anybody in the UK got bits for a (new style) commodore 64 for sale that they don't want. I'd need the power supply, datasette and computer bit (minus the SID). I know this is a bit of strange request but I have tons of games that need playing! G

Are people organising group buys for all the rare pieces, is going to be easy to get them? G

Wilba, are you sure that you're not actually making these chips in your basement or summik? G

Keep a look out, I'm sure he'll start a thread if he finds some more, I know he's done a couple (at least) of batches so far. There's somebody in the bulk order forum selling 6581 chips at the moment, and also varios SIDS keep showin up in the fleamarket section. Keep an eye out and you will find some. G

Could you not use a surface mount LED to make things smaller. Solder some wires to the LED terminals, glue it on the front of the LDR and cover front of the whole thing with insulation tape. G

No, afraid not. Keep an eye on this thread though. G

Will these be any cheaper and of better quality. 300 sounds like an awful lot though. I do like the idea of being able to say."yes, the displays nice, we got them made especially" 8) In reality does this mean that Crystal fonts will be paying somebody to manually de-solder the LEDS fromt he green version and swapping them for red LEDs? ;D G

I saw them on hackaday earlier this week, do they have a wireless reciever built in.... there seems to be some sort of wire coming out the side and I couldn't work out if it was an airial or an input cable. Can you give me some more details when you get yours delivered, i'd like to know what the quality is and if they're any good. G

Just had a mess around on the shopio site. You can get up to 10 displays delivered for $16, then the price starts going up... AFter that point it seems to costs and extra $0.70 per extra display ordered, this seems very reasonable. G

In that case then I'll probably sort out another order at the end of November sometime, give people chance to get their names in. G

I quite like the amount of other effects and the fact that it's all midi enabled. I have heard good reviews on the 1204 but they're mainly based on what you get for your money. I don't think zoom is such a bad make, my mate has an effects pedal which is amazing for the (ebay) price he paid. I think I'll follow what stry_one suggested and try and get it working, at least that way if I do ebay it then I can sell it as working. I would love to be able to builf a vocoder, but haven't found any schemes as of yet, surely it would be possible to filter off the different frequencies and then modulate them with something???? Gonna have to read up on some synth theory and see how easy it would be... I wonder if it would be possible to write a MIOS vocoder app... Got a lot of learning to do before I even think of looking at something like that. Thanks for the pointers. G

I bought a zoom 1204 effects processor from ebay last year as I wanted a vocoder to play with. It arrived dead and after a long battle and threatening legal action I got a refund but the guy refused to arrange for return of the item. So I know have a dead effects processor sat on my desk and want to have a go at getting it working before I think about stripping it down or sticking it back on ebay. The unit is completely dead, no lights come on or anything, I've taken the cover off thinking that it would be a burnt out fuse but it doesn't have any internal fuses, I've also checked for broken tracks and dodgy joints. Can anyone give me a few pointers in what to look for to try and get this thing fixed, I'm thinking that I should check all the components with a multimeter, but what do I do about IC's? G

I'm a little confused now, Is the distributor shopio? I thought they charged a rediculous amount for P&P per item, ie $16 per LCD, or have you managed to negotiate a cheaper postage rate? Would there be much of a saving by bulk buying these? G

If there's enough interest then I may organise another bulk buy of these in a month or so, If it's a small order then it may be best to agree on the same colour. G

I was thinking lego technic. How about maccano? There used to be some nice ling racks and easily usable pinions in some of the sets. G

I didn't expect them to be so bright and so opague, they look different to the picture from the picture on the site. They still look like decent knobs though. If they're not acceptable then let me know, there's some others who didn't get in on the order so I'm sure we can work something out. G

I know, it's just annoying to get messed around like this. You sent money by registered mail?.... You're a braver man than I am! Glad it turned out OK... I only ever use paypal or postal orders when sending money abroad. G