Smithy

Sweet! Thats a great minimum order price too, especially when mouser/reichelt is like 100 euro outside of europe (cant remember really). Have you got a scanner flip? Any if you do, is there any chance you can some pages of the nice knobs? ;) Unless someone beats you to it, and finds piccies online first!

Excellent work dude. Just one question from the pics.... I notice you didnt solder the components in order of height, (from shortest to tallest). Did you find it tricky to solder the shorter components? I found soldering the the short ones first, as recommended in the core module construction manual, much easier. Just wondering what youd recommend.

Yup. and Yup. Well i guess theyre not a necessity if youre careful, but you cant be careful all the time! ;) Its how reproduction is still possible in this age of contraceptives!

Slap the manager with a large trout, and tell him to upload the friggin catalogue! If they have one! That site could badly do with a pic for each product.

Yup! you make now!

Hehe, this definitely isnt an obvious one thats for sure! Wilba came up with the idea of using extra IC sockets for the Sids, that would mount on top of the ones that are soldered on the board. Standard IC sockets have flimsy legs, just like the legs on an IC are flimsy. So what he did is use premium IC sockets, which have much stronger legs/pins, in between the existing sockets, and the Sids, to prevent you breaking the pins of the Sid chip, everytime you insert or remove one.

Btw, did anyone use a helping hands or board vice to hold the PCBs in place while working on the mb-6582? I dont know if you can get a board vice that size easily, id imagine it would be pretty expensive unless you DIY.

wheres nils' brush when you need it.

Haha, *digs an abyss* Its not been my week on MB certainly! :P I can just picture all the other crazy german stereotypes on here saying: "Wer ist dieser crazy Irish person"

Their site is pretty awful for pics isnt it? theres about 5 pics attached on the knob stocklist page. Will you try emailing them to get up some more pics? Its a real shame you cant just click on a pic, and order 1000s of the suckers if you like them!

What is it you're building? There are connection diagrams, for buttons/encoders available for the existing MIDIbox projects on uccapps, maybe take a look at them for ideas on how you will order them. :)

THE FINITE ENCODER'S A LIE, YOU CAN HAZ ENDLESS! *Smithy is very naughty because he has never read Secion 2, Question 4 of the midibox faq I somehow managed to mix up POTS with Finite Encoders, a long time ago on here, thinking that you had a choice between Endless Encoders, and Finite Encoders for midibox sid. I did not realize that everyone who has put Rotary Encoders in their MIDIbox, have all used Endless Encoders. The confusion came from the knobs on my midi controller, and on my digital synth. Because you can only turn them so much, and because theyre both digital devices, i automatically assumed that they must use Encoders with a finite rotation. But now that it was pointed out by nILS, they most likely use POTS with an ADC. Sorry for the epic mis-understanding! :-[ Interested to see this. For the MB-6582 + albs knobs, endless seem like a good idea, since it feeds back the value, via the meter on the LCD Display. For a MIDIbox SID with a 2 line LCD (or knobs with a white mark to indicate position), finite encoders seem good to me, although i dont know if it displays back the current value of the knob you turn via numbers? What are your thoughts on this?

Ooops, should of said "I think" hehe. Actually id say youre right, he probably meant a screen as in a display, not a screen to cover the lcd. No problem man. The wiki should provide you with everything you need to know. And failing that, search the wiki, ucapps, and the forum and you should be flying!

Oh ohhhhhh, the Tag Gestapo has arrived! :P

I heard the pcbs will be pink this time. ;)

Awesome! You seem to know exactly what youre doing so! Well you will need the ribbon cable smash sells, to connect the LCD to the base board. You will also need wider ribbon cable to connect the 2 PCBs together. I think the one wilba used is in the wiki, its a stiffer higher quality one, which is less likely to break. Also look at the recent thread by fuzzylizard to see strategys of connecting the 2 pcbs together. Midi Sockets are supplied with the base board parts kit, and they are PCB mounted, (pins are soldered on the pcb ), not panel mounted. The back panel is designed so the holes fit right over them. Pretty sure 100 will be enough, if you have a look at the mb-6582 parts list, on the wiki page, it will show you how much you need. Youll also need a 20x4 character LCD display, i think maybe this should be added to this bulk order too, in pings listed i see LCD Screens, which i presume is the window that covers them. 4 X Dual Gang 500K Potentiometers are an extra, if you want to do the feedback mod. Also you can add that DB9 connector (the one that looks like an old printer port), if you want to do more mods, for example, hook the audio input of the sids upto it, and make a DB9 male to 4 stereo Audio jacks cable. Other extras are a fan, and heatsinks for the sids if they get hot. The heatsinks can be seen the same thread by Fuzzylizard.

Welcome to the board flip! Just in case if you havent figured it out already, this is a bulk order for the extra stuff you need, besides the PCBs and base parts kit. You can get the Base PCB, Control Surface PCB, and base parts kit from smash tv: http://www.avishowtech.com/mbhp/buy.html If you didnt already know this have a look here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=wilba_mb_6582 If you did, then at least this info might be useful to another new person looking at the thread. ;)

I dont think its fair really to add the cost of tools, into the cost of making a sammichSID. I mean youll have those tools for life, which will be useful for a lot of non-MB related stuff, or for simply testing/repairing power supplies around the home, and all sorts of stuff.

Ah cool! Sure i suppose they couldnt find any reason why the sidstation is better, apart from that you can buy one! ;)

Hard Sid - for people who like VSTs, and controlling a synth with the use of a computer. Midibox Sid, for hardware people, who dont want to boot up a computer everytime they want to use a synth. Midibox Sid with full conrol surface -> for people who like dedicated knobs, with names, who dont like staring at screen to control a synth. Elektron Sidstation -> for people with lots of money who dont want to solder a far superior sid synthesizer themselves. Id love to see the flame war thread that got deleted on the elektron forum btw, If anyone can find it send me a pm, im very curious as to see the reasons they thought the sidstation was better, apart from that you dont have to DIY.

Extremely cheap when compared to maplin anyway. And since the postage is free. I broke up mine for the caps, because 17 != 8, so i have plenty left ofter. Someone on here said that seller is good for supplying things in smaller quantities, but ive aslo heard the seller is extremely busy and doesnt always reply. Hes selling the SIL header sockets also: http://stores.shop.ebay.ie/ALLPARTSPIPE__W0QQ_sacatZALLPARTSPIPEQ5fQ5fW0Q51Q51Q5fsasiQ5A1QQ_sasiZ1QQ_sidZ290502855?_nkw=header+socket&submit=Search

I got mine here: http://cgi.ebay.ie/17-28-PIN-GOLD-DIP-IC-SOCKET-PANEL-ADAPTER-SWAP-G28B_W0QQitemZ270238757600 Remembered it being cheap when i bought them, but i dont remember it being that cheap. ;) btw, i dont think Smash has the premium or machined pined sockets which i assume ping is referring to. ( at least when i ordered my parts kit) If you cut up the ic sockets they make for good Capacitor sockets for the sids.

If anyone would like to contribute some of their MB SID patches contribute them here. I think someone mentioned they had a site especially for this in the pipeline, but we can use this thread for now. You can haz no patches from me, kthxbai* (* until i start making some!)