Juel

Arrived! Lovely ;) Also the GM5 chips have been shipped today. Perfect timing :)

Usually children are always grounded in one way or another: Saliva at younger ages snot in kindergarten age pranks in elementary school and finally unnameized smoking / beerdrinking when they are in their teens. ;)

The late British monetary system is quite nice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%A3sd

That's good to know. Never heard about mil before, but I had a hard time finding a casing for a 8.800x1.925 meter board ;). I wonder what the HC18/U footprint of the crystal means. I can only find HC49/4H in my regular shops.

That was the golf accident, but it didn't include rook, ear or ball. edit: Just removed some stuff that had 30 days archiving period ;).

I'm not really sure. Could have been when I listened to my brother playing drums as well. Btw you don't think this thread is getting out of hand. Just asking since you are the moderator.

I lost my sense of rhythm in an unfortunate chess accident, but I will just wave a bit then, maybe even stomp a foot.

[me=Juel]does not know the "it's working" dance, but he was smiling all day and felt rather confident until he hurt his fingers with a screwdriver while fixing a broken fan.[/me] FYI that fan is still broken and will forever be. >:( (Not smashed (no hidden anger), but surely disabled. It is also going to be sent back to my "supplier" for further processing. ;)) About the scope: It is old (1978) and bad so you can't make any serious measurments with it, but it is a great compliment to a dmm (and FREE :)). In fact I suspected a bad soldering or something until I saw the waveform. Also I could trace the signal backwards and I was suspecting the PIC in the end, since the output was quite meager. But I am not sure I would ever have tried to upload the mios again without you guys. :) :) :) Also I updated my second topic, but I don't know how to change the name to "Solved: ..." Thanks Juel

Update As you can see in my other mbfm topic (Strange output from mbfm) it is now working. :) :) :) The problem was a bad mios upload. So probably both OPL3:s were ok (since switching them gave exactly the same error). So I guess the YMF:s can take quite a punch before breaking (don't know about any long term effect though). Again Thanks Juel

Working!!!! :) :) :) (But noisy, almost like my sidstation.) I guess it must have been the mios after all. A bit strange since I know I would have seen any upload errors. And that the OPL3 module could have inflicted on the upload also seems strange, especially since I am quite sure that it was not connected at that time. So after all you were right and it was a software problem. Thanks a lot everyone. Also a great thanks to my supplier Linneberga (the junkyard). I think you can guess where I found my oscilloscope ;), in original box, with manuals. I don't think it was even used once. Thanks again Juel

All information I have given is dedicated to you, since I have noticed that you usually remark on that ;). But then it turned out that you haven't read it all anyway :o. (TK seems to think it is enough though.) Well actually it is not true, since I am a mathematician and know exactly what you mean in your troubleshooting guide. If you understand the problem it is already solved. So you need all the info you can get. edit: The info is also useful for other troubleshooters. Ok, back to the topic. I haven't tested the mbfm app yet (currently out of electricity because of some maintenance work). But before that I tested the freshly uploaded mios and testtone, and the result was different. Apart from RC4 (RS) being 5V now also RC5 (WR) and RB5 (D5) were 5V (the others still 0V). I am not sure what effects this will have but I am moving on to mbfm test and then soldering the OPL3 again. Since I have changed between testtone, interconnction and mbfm apps several times it seems that it could be the mios upload that was corrupted (I don't recall any error messages though), or it could be that I uploaded with the OPL3 attached before. Still both of the cases seems strange. I'll be back when I have tested mbfm with and without OPL3. PS. Your info was great TK :). Especially about the testtone app. DS.

I use it with both smart mode and wait for request. I have now uploaded mios (1.9f) and testtone(1.1d or something). The full logs can be found here: mios http://juel.homeip.net/midibox/mios/hex_file_upload_window.txt http://juel.homeip.net/midibox/mios/midi_monitor_in.txt http://juel.homeip.net/midibox/mios/midi_monitor_out.txt testtone http://juel.homeip.net/midibox/testtone/hex_file_upload_window.txt http://juel.homeip.net/midibox/testtone/midi_monitor_in.txt http://juel.homeip.net/midibox/testtone/midi_monitor_out.txt The only thing to remark is the timestamp [unknown] in the output. I don't know but could it be that there is no midiclock present? I haven't measured the outputs after I uploaded and I haven't got time to do it now so I will tell you tomorrow.

That is what I am using. Even without reading the posts ;) But I can add that I have some problem with running midiox and MIOS studio at the same time. Maybe I have routed wrong with midi yoke, but I don't care at the moment. It works fine when midiox is not running.

But I have desoldered the OPL3 module now so I will test again without it. Last time I only did uploads and it worked well with midi sending in both directions. I also checked with midiox that it was responding during upload. Are there any other miditests I could do? Also I tested the interconnections without the OPL-module, but the result was the same (except for perhaps a little less noise, 1-5 mV or something) +5V on RC4 (which should connect to IC#) and 0V on the rest. So it could help if someone know it the PIC sends data continously or just once during the testtone program. Finally it is only a minimal setup so I have neither LCD or LED:s. I want to get the synth working and try it out before I buy the expensive parts for the CS. Correction: The -5V mentioned above was false, I forgot to switch the scope to DC mode so the offset was wrong. Sorry

Both soundcards where salvaged from the junkyard, and both where inside computerchassis. Also I never use the junkyard as a source when it has been raining in the last week, except for when I found a commodore 128. That one I found while it was raining, but it worked perfectly after 10 restarts (old hardware is amazing, almost like a rusty old mechanic machine). Actually the only thing i found and tested that didn't work was a SCSI harddrive that I took from a pc and used in my amiga. It developed a read/write error quite quickly. Regarding the chips it seems strange that both produce exactly the same result, which seems to indicate that either both are working or they have the same error. Regarding the second question I am not really sure what you mean, but I have followed the signal path backwards several times with both chips. I'm not sure if I tested the core module alone, but at least I didn't test it with my oscilloscope so I will desolder it asap and come back with info.

I have built a minimal mbfm setup with only opl3 and core module. The problem is that it seemed to be completely silent until I tried it with my oscilloscope (I didn't use it before because it was hidden very carefully when we moved last time). (For all measurements and checks below I used the testtone program.) I found the same signal on all outputs and it looked approximately like this: Before providing any data I need to point out that it is a really bad oscilloscope, only 10 MHz so I was astonished that it even could trigger on some of the signals I tested. Also all values I mention should are very imprecise and just approximate. The output had a frequency of about 50 kHz and 10 mV peak to peak. The capacitors worked since there was no DC component. I then followed the signal path backwards through the op-amps which seemed to work correct. Now for the interesting part. The right hand side inputs on YAC:s all (except TST1 and TST2) had the same signal, a weaker version of the outputs. I don't know what all the connections are used for but it seems strange that all have the same values. Also everything was completely symmetrical over both chips and all channels. On the other side of the YAC:s I found a discrepancy. The DIN, or DOAB and DOCD had different values. Both seemed to be digital and both had a period of 10 us. The difference was that DOCD had about 0.5 us of 5V and the rest 0V, but DOAB had 2 us of -5V :o and the rest at 0V. Even more interesting is that this didn't change when is switched chips, therefore it seems that it doesn't depend on the chip. Appart from this SMP1 and SMP2 were identical (I just noticed I forgot to check CLK). Regarding the inputs to the YMF I have checked it with the interconnection test and it passed. But still the input looks weird. All connections (except IC#) between PIC and YMF only had a 15 MHz, 10mV peak to peak sine signal. Could be a disturbance but it was very steady in frequency and form, but sometimes a little pulsating in size (probably because of my lousy oscilloscope as I observed this before). Regarding IC# it was 5V but still with the same small sinewave overlay. Next step is the core module, but as the YMF is directly connected to the PIC I can't test the signal path any further. Still I haven't found any problem with it . It swallows any upload nicely without any errors. Powersupplies for both modules work flawless. Midi IN/OUT is "responding" as well. I haven't checked the oscillator on the core though. I would be very happy if someone has any idea of what is going on. Maybe someone knows what signals should be sent or at what speed. Also the -5V is a mystery to me (I have checked for shortscuts etc. ) and even more why the final outputs are all the same. If one or both of the YAC:s is broken they should probably not produce the same result, the same applies to the YMF as nothing changed when I switched it. It is also strange that most signals are so very faint. Again I have to point out that every value I have given is very imprecise, I would guess that for small time measurements the error is at least 20%. So I hope this information can be of any use and I would gladly supply more. EOF

OK, now I decided my chip is not broken. I switched the chip for my spare and the result was exactly the same. In fact I used my really bad oscilloscope to check every signal that could be interesting. (I will make a new topic for troubleshooting.)

You shouldn't be scared. Actually the soldering wasn't that difficult, but the desoldering needs some care not to harm the YMF.

Hi, I have some trouble with my mbfm. I'm building a minimal setup with only core module and fm module. The problem is that it is completely silent. I have some ideas of what it might be, but before I start describing every detail I wonder if anyone has any experience with broken OPL3:s. Are there any typical symptoms or are they just dead? I wonder this because of the history of my chip(s). I salvaged some soundcards from the junkyard a couple of years ago (I must be psychic because I didn't know about this project and I always wondered why I saved ISA-cards ;)) , although I took them out of a computer they have most likely been exposed to a lot of moist (but hopefully not rain). I might add that they empty the used electronic bin quite often, so it is not likely that the computers had been there for more than a week or two. After that they have been stored in my "playingroom" in boxes and only touched when I was looking for some card (have helped quite a lot of people with my stock :)). Finally I only had an unregulated soldering iron with a max temperature of 450 C when i desoldered them. I was quick and and they were not even warm on the outside immediately after I was finished, but you never know about the inside. I have one spare OPL3, but before I switch I want to be sure there's no other problem. /juel