fadedpaper

Wow, only took me several months, but I FINALLY got the optimized psu figured out, and it solved all of my woes! Happiest day ever! Thanks again for your help guys!

Cool thanks for the suggestions! I'm kinda nervous about switching the psu setup now that it's all built, because I'm not sure I understand it enough to know which components to swap. If I get to that point, I'll definitely have a few more questions for ya.

Hey guys, thanks for responding. The circuit I used to power the whole thing was from the schematic on the sid page called "mbhp_sid_c64_psu.pdf. It's the simple drawing with only one sid module. I'm using an L7812CV on the sid. I'm getting 15V input and 11.94V output. Is that close enough, or should it read 12V exactly? And yes, the Audio input is grounded. And perhaps it's a silly question, but which ones are the filter caps? I just followed the instructions for smashTV's kit, so I'm pretty sure I put the right caps in the right places. Another thing worth mentioning, I re-used the big 470uf cap from the original c64 unit for the psu. Could the fact that it's old be a source of noise? Any other thoughts, places I should look? Thanks again for your help!

It's the original C64 power brick.

Hello, I built my MBSID a couple years ago and never got it working perfectly. Now it's driving me crazy and I would like to get to the bottom of this. I'm having 2 main issues and I don't know enough about electronics to even guess where to start looking for solutions. 1) There is a constant loud buzzing around 120hz. 2) When I change patches or turn the unit off, there is this EXTREMELY loud, falling high pitch sound. Imagine a C64's version of a cartoon bomb being dropped. I've attached sound clips of both issues I'm having. Be careful with the file called "turn on, play, turn off" because the turn off sound I'm talking about is very loud! Keep your volume down when listening to that one. Note I am not touching the gain at all on any of these sound clips, but the volume of the SID's output seems to fluctuate a little right when I first turn it on. As if it has to charge up or something. I think I built the SID V3, and I used a kit from smashTV that says SID R3A and core R4D. It's only got a single SID 6581 chip in there. Anyone got any ideas how a total newb like myself can get this thing working properly? Thanks. constant noise.mp3 turn on, play, turn off.mp3

Thanks guys! Glad you're liking it. Our first album "Dynamo" will be released in a couple weeks. 12 songs total, and we're extremely happy with the way it all turned-out! Help us spread the word. -Kael

This may be a silly question, but there's no legal issues when using the MB SID for commercial releases is there? It's not like the sound of the SID chip itself is under copyright by anyone, right? I just have to be extra careful in this business (Music for TV and Film).

Hey all, I'm a relative newbie here. But I got my MB SID working and have used it in several of my band's songs lately. Check it out: www.myspace.com/fadedpaperfigures Hope you like it, -Kael

Well, I gave up on my optimized PSU and went back to the standard one. It's working again. Slightly buzzy, but better than not working at all. Thanks for your help anyway guys.

Thought this picture might help shed some light. Keep in mind I have no idea what I'm doing. Oh, and the case is made of plastic, it's kinda hard to tell from the photo. mbsid shot1.JPG

Sorry to be completely ignorant here, but my midibox sid puts off nothing but noise. I've built it with the Optimized PSU, exactly as the schematic shows (as far as I can tell). The thing that puzzles me most is that even when the power is switched off, I get tons of noise coming out of it. When I switch it on, the noise just doubles. I've noticed that when I touch certain parts of it with my finger the buzzing gets a lot quieter. Is this a grounding problem? What could fix it? Also, the noise I get out of it when it's switched on sounds like digital static. I get the faint startup sound (behind a wall of noise) and then comes the digital static. After the startup sound, the sid is not responsive, but all my debugging leads me to believe that it should be working. I cannot for the life of me figure out what's wrong with it. ??? Any suggestions?

Hmm, it's better, but still skips 2, 7, and 12 for some reason. Any other ideas?

Anyone know of a good way to run the SID interconnection test on a Mac? I hear Midi-Ox is the way to do it, but only on PC. MIOS Studio only let's me adjust the mod wheel in increments of 5 or so, skipping half the pins I need to test.

Wow, that was exactly what I needed to know. Thanks a ton warland! :D Just ordered the parts so we'll see if I can finally get it right.

My bad... Still, I'm lost as hell. I tried building the OPSU but I've had no luck getting it to work. Now all I get is noise when I turn it on. If I listen really close, I can hear the little SID startup sound very faintly behind a wall of buzzing and noise. Here's why I'm so confused and would really appreciate some help rather than just another "find it yourself" kind of answer. The writeup at http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp_core.html mentions the following: "J2: When used as +5V input: for supplying from J2 of another core module, or from an external stabilized Power Supply Unit (PSU). In both cases the voltage regulator (IC3) should not be connected, also the rest of the voltage stabilization circuit between J1 and J2 (X1, C5, C6) can be left out." Ok... so bust out your schematic and you'll see that between J1 - J2 there's more than just X1, C5, and C6. There's 2 other capacitors in that chain. So that's where my confusion comes from. The writeup says to do 2 different things. Do I take off the whole "voltage stabilization circuit between J1 and J2?" or just the parts in parenthesis "(X1, C5, C6)" ? Also, does this apply to the SID module at all? I've read so many conflicting things as to how this is supposed to work, and obviously what I tried was a mish-mash of all of them, and it's not working. Seems like this should be so easy, but I can't find a solid answer anywhere.

anyone? ???

Let me rephrase that... To build the optimized psu, do I need extra caps and rectifiers? Or can I build it using only the parts that came in SmashTV's kits for Core and SID module, leaving them off the modules themselves?

Hey all, I'm building the optimized psu and I can't seem to figure out if I can use the caps and rectifiers from the SID and Core modules to build it. I could be very wrong, but from what I've gathered I should be able to use these parts for the psu and leave them off their respective boards like this: Core: USE: X1 ----> X1 C5 ----> PSU C6 ----> PSU IC3 ----> Left Out C4 ----> Left Out C3 ----> PSU SID: USE: X1 -----> Left Out C9 -----> Replaced by 2200uF/25V on PSU (left out of SID) C10 -----> PSU Will that work? If I do it this way, what do I need to bridge besides the obvious 7805 on the Core? Do I need to bridge any of the places for the caps on the pcb itself?

Yes!!! Thanks again midiboxxer!!! I am now officially up and running! My midibox is making sounds, and I love it! Thank you all.

Using the PIC18F452 from SmashTV with BSL 1.2B

Ok, figured out my midi in troubles (at least I think?) I can now get MIOS uploaded to my core and everything seems to be working fine. I then go to upload the SID program and it goes fine until I get to: Sending block 000080000-000080FF Recieved error code 05: Write Access failed (invalid address range) - used by 1st level bsl It tries 16 times and aborts the upload. After that, my midi in reads the following messages alternating every 2 secs: "Sysex message: F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7" "[EE 02 04] Channel 15: Pitch Bend value: 514" Also, my LCD displays, "Rebooting MIOS" After all this, if I reupload MIOS everything starts all over again. After reuploading MIOS, my LCD displays, "Ready." and I get the single "Sysex message: F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7" Then, I try to upload sid program again... same thing all over. I'm lost.

So I'm not getting any midi in to my core. I've tried all the tests on the troubleshooting page and failed mostly all of them. I'm sure it's not my midi interface since I get LEDs to light when I connect it straight to the midi cable. I built the circuit to test the optocoupler (http://www.ucapps.de/howtodebug/mbhp_core_opto_test.gif) and I get +5V whether the switch is open or closed. Does this mean my optocoupler's bad? What causes an optocoupler to go anyway?

Great, thanks! I'll triple check my connections there.

When I power on my core module with sid and lcd attached, I get 2 rows (top and bottom) full of black boxes on the lcd. I've read that you're only supposed to get 1 row when MIOS is not installed. Yeah? Anyways, I've found that by turning it off and on a few times eventually it will come on with just the top row blacked-out (like normal I suppose). In MIOS Studio I'm getting this message every time I turn it on: Sysex message: F0 00 00 7E 40 00 01 F7 I've been trying to upload MIOS to my core, but not sure if I'm having any luck. I don't even know if I need to, cause I bought the pic from SmashTV, and it has a sticker on it that says "BSL V1.2b MIOS V1.9f" So does that mean MIOS is already uploaded? Yeah, so I'm obviously a newbie, sorry bout that. Can anyone shed some light here?