fussylizard
-
Posts
280 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Posts posted by fussylizard
-
-
My post count hit 50 so I became a "MIDIBox Member" and got a second star by my name...
<proudly wipes tear from eye>
I love you guys.
-
Glad I read this thread since I probably would have had the same problem w/ the upload in a day or two. :-)
Weird w/ the sequencing issue. I would attack this by trying to get as simple a test case as possible that is reproducible (i.e. the simplest sequenced clip that gets it to fail repeatedly), then try to duplicate it by playing the same sequence yourself. Then you can look at the MIDI messages w/ MIDI-OX or something to figure out what's different assuming it works fine when you play it manually. So does it happen with all sequenced patterns (i.e. try a pattern w/ a single quarter note each bar and another pattern with 16th notes each bar), or does it depend on how fast the notes are played, etc.?
-
This probably won't help, but you can always add the code / HW yourself. Anything is possible given enough time, $, and skill. :-)
Most implementations I've seen of something similar (on commercial synths) have an internal clock mode for when you don't have an external source, and and external mode for when you do. So you'd probably have to consider both cases if you do it yourself.
-
@strophlex - Looks good! I didn't see your post earlier since it wasn't in the MIDIBox SID forum. Thanks for the link!
@wilba - the display is a CrystalFontz CFAH2004A-YTI-JT - https://www.crystalfontz.com/product/CFAH2004AYTIJT.html
I used a 2x20 version on something else and really liked it, so I decided to get the 4x20 version. You can get cheaper displays elsewhere, but I've been happy with the CF ones so I've stuck with them.
@m00dawg - yeah, the lighting is off, sorry! At full power the LEDs are similar to the yellow display, but as part of the CS they are much more orange.
I'm not sure if reducing the resistors used to ground the LED matrices would change the color or not. The resistors are only 220 ohm IIRC, so there's not much to reduce. It's probably the 1/8 duty cycle that's the issue, but I'd have to test to find out for sure.
-
Nice! The red theme reminds me of an Access Virus.
Did you use .100 spacing cable to connect the PCBs? If so, where did you get it? I couldn't find it at Mouser (it's there somewhere I'm sure) so I just used standard IDC cable.
Thx again re: the 8-pin connectors.
-
I think I got some of these 8-pin female housings (I guess you mean the housings for the crimp connectors and not the headers you solder to the board) that I bought by accident from Smash TV. It turned out I didn't need them. If you still need them, I could send them over. I think I got eight of them.
Wow, thanks for the offer, but I got impatient and ordered some from Smash over the weekend so I think I'm good. I ordered a bunch of various sizes ages ago, but that was before he carried the 8-pin ones. I really appreciate the offer though, thanks!
-
Here's a few pics, including the top panel showing the orange-ish hue of my yellow LEDs. I also included two pics of the base PCB wiring that goes to the right-angle male SIL strips. Amazingly I didn't take a picture of the CS side of things. I'll have to do that the next time I get a chance to work on it.
The standard IDC cable works fine so far, and the convenience of the detachable CS from the base is nice.
-
I used standard IDC cable since that's what I had, and I couldn't find the other stuff on Mouser (I'm sure it's there, but I just couldn't find it). The standard IDC cable seems fine to me. I soldered the right-angle header strips to the top of the CS, and soldered the cable to the bottom of the base PCB. It worked pretty well. There is sufficient room between the top case and the right-angle connectors for the headers to be slid on/off without having to unscrew the CS from the front panel. I'll post some pics when I get home.
-
The spacers stay stuck extremely well, the screws don't stick as well, as many people discover... :(
FWIW My screws stick great to the FPE panel I got. Those things are never coming off. I think the threaded shaft would break off before the head came unstuck.
-
I liked the idea of puting the J-B Weld on the screw heads instead of on the panel.
It's probably not much better than putting it on the panel directly and then clamping, but it does relieve some of the stress of trying to clamp quickly. I think the standard JB Weld takes a while to set, so it's probably irrelevant.
BTW A quick update on my panel- my CS is pretty much done. I tested the encoders and they all work now. I messed up a via on the base board a while back which broke one of the encoder inputs, but I bypassed the via with a wire so it works great now. Now I just need to solder the encoder tabs.
I was a little disappointed that my yellow LEDs look more amber on my panel than I had hoped. At full power they are very yellow, but on the CS the PICs only power them 1/8 the time (per my understanding of the display matrix) which is probably the issue. It's not a big deal, but I was hoping for pure yellow. On the up side, I tested the stock resistors for the LEDs and the LEDs had a good brightness, so I soldered them in.
I have been unsuccessful in finding bolts/washers/nuts for the 2.5mm holes to mount the LCD, so I ordered some from McMaster-Carr last night. Hopefully I'll have the LCD mounted mid-week.
I decided to use right-angle connector SIL strips for the CS to base board connection. I didn't like the crimp pins I got from Mouser for the SIL headers that are needed to connect the CS to the base board. I had some pins from SmashTV sitting around that worked much better, and he now carries 8-pin female headers. I went ahead and crimped all 66 pins over the weekend and hooked up the CS without headers (being careful not to short the pins together when moving the CS). It worked well enough, and I ordered the necessary headers last night (along with the other headers I forgot about initially for the feedback pots...I already had spares for the fan, passive audio out, etc.) Now I just have to hope the 8-pin headers that SmashTV sells are the same as the other sizes or else I'm going to have to re-crimp all those connectors. :-)
I also discovered that that the passive audio output jack I bought is slightly too big for the rear-panel hole. I'm probably going to just drill out the hole in the panel so it will fit (I have a small metal shop at home) instead of finding a smaller jack.
The exciting part last night was finally mounting the 6582 SIDs I got from Wilba (!). They replaced the single 6581 I had been using. Unfortunately I discovered that CORE2 and CORE3 are not responding (I get a "no MBNet connection" message when selecting those cores). I also get a steady tone on the passive mix that sounds eerily like a 1Khz triangle tone. I'm guessing I forgot to upload the MB-SID firmware to those cores (they are probably running the testtone app), but it was late so I didn't have time to mess w/ it last night.
Anyway, I'll post pics of the CS tonight with the lights and all. Getting close!
Regards,
C
-
Don't forget to check power (incoming and at each IC) and verify the ICs are inserted correctly.
-
I'm sure it will be perfect! I was a bit apprehensive about all the JB Welding, but it was fairly straightforward.
Now how are your cake icing skills for the next step? :-)
-
As promised, here's a pic of my wife (a former pastry cook), using some parchment paper to pipe out JB Weld onto my panel like cake icing. :-)
-
Here's what worked for me. I first clamped everything and left it panel-side up. I attached the bolts in the corners with two nuts, one above and one below the PCB. Then I put a small blob of JB-Weld on top of the bolt head (since the bolt head was facing up, towards the back of the panel) using a flat toothpick (there's not a ton of space to maneuver in there, but just get a small blob on the top of the bolt and spin the bolt against the toothpick to break off the sticky, stringy "tail" of JB Weld, sort of like you would do with a fork and pasta). Then I twisted the bolt to raise it to the back of the panel and tightened the nuts to hold it in place. Once all four were done, I flipped it back over. Easy as pie.
I dragged some pics off my camera showing the process.
HTH,
C
BTW - I hope you ordered bolts to mount the LCD in your McMaster order. They are 2.5mm holes, and Home Depot only carries down to 4mm metric and #4 standard (which is 2.8mm - too big!). So...I'll probably have to order some from McMaster-Carr. I also failed to get screws to hold the PCB into the bottom of the case, so I'll need something for that also.
-
Purdy!
-
That's what I mostly ended up doing last night. With a working crimp tool making those connectors is not a big deal. With needle-nose pliers it's downright tedious, esp. when I need to crimp 66 pins. I realized I have enough crimp pins from SmashTV to do what I need to do, but I don't have any 8-position female headers. So I'll probably just use SmashTV pins bare for now (without headers) and order the headers the next time I place an order with SmashTV.
-
I'll take a few over the weekend :)
Dunno when I will get to start building the control surface itself. The mainboard is complete except for the headphone jacks, but hasn't yet been fully stuffed (still running into lower voltages on the +5V). If all goes well, I hope to at least do the JB Weld stuff.
I just finished soldering the control surface board last night. As long as you take your time on the JB Weld and soldering, it's pretty straightforward. Wilba's instructions were spot-on.
FYI I discovered last night that the 3mm bolts that are used for the threaded standoffs are too big for the holes in the board for attaching the LCD. I'll have to dig around in my scrap box for smaller bolts (2mm?) or buy some at Home Depot to attach the LCD.
Can't wait to see the pics of your panel. Mine's looking pretty nice w/ the yellow LEDs and the yellow lines...pic soon.
-
I found what I thought were similar ones on Mouser (8 position - 538-50-57-9008 for header and 538-16-02-0096 for pins). Last night I searched the forum and found a post that recommended this same line of parts - http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,8498.msg59492.html#msg59492. However, I tried crimping them last night and they were a huge pain and didn't really work with the crimp tool I have. Mouser lists hand crimp tools for these for $300+ (!). The pins from SmashTV crimp perfectly with the $11 crimp tool I got from CuriousInventor. If anyone has had success crimping these pins from Mouser without the $300 tool I'd love to hear about it.
As an aside, I saw last night that SmashTV now has 8-position headers (I swear they were not there a month or two ago or I would have ordered them from there in the first place). I'll give the Mouser pins one more shot this weekend but I'll probably end up just ordering some new ones from SmashTV that are easier to work with.
Regards,
C
-
Just for posterity, in the US you can get a crimp tool from CuriousInventor.com for $10.99 + shipping. Works great w/ pins and headers from SmashTV. It's definitely worth it.
-
Just a quick followup to close out this thread. I ordered a new PIC from SmashTV (got it last week but have not tried it yet). However, SmashTV saw this thread and insisted on replacing the dead PIC at no cost and sent me a refund. So I just wanted to let folks know that SmashTV really has gone the extra mile here which just further confirms my complete confidence in his products and services.
Now hopefully tonight I'll have some time to check out the new PIC...
Thanks again Tim!
-
Wow, great news that it's working!
I may have the same problem with the note being held on my 6581 from my old C-128. I'm not sure if that is normal or what. I've not looked into it yet to see if it's a SID problem, etc. I'll watch this space to see if anything comes up. :-) I have 6582 SIDs on the way from Wilba anyway so for me it's probably a moot point, but I might run 6581s off one core of my MB-6582.
-
You get a tone without a SID because the PIC generates a 1Khz triangle wave signal straight to the /CS line (bypassing other chips). When you connect /CS to the output pin in the SID socket with a wire the 1 Khz tone goes straight to the output buffer circuit, giving you a tone. That tone sure is loud though. I had headphones plugged into the output jack (not wearing them, thankfully!) and right before I powered it up I worried that I might not hear the tone, etc. Well, no worries there. For newbies out there, if you are not sure if you can hear the tone or not, it's not working. :-)
I'm not sure how the test tone works w/ a SID, but the readme suggests it goes through the 74HC595 chips so if you get a tone with the SID installed, your 74HC595 chips are probably OK.
It makes sense that the interconnect test would work with the /CS pin since it comes straight from the PIC and bypasses the 74HC595 chips.
For the interconnect, did you connect the MD pin (you did not include it in your list)? I've not built the standalone modules, but from the schematics and interconnect diagram everything else looks OK per your list other than the missing MD. You should have 7 wires going into J2 on the SID board (or 8 if you connected up the unused SC signal).
BTW It looks like you can grab power (VS and VD) from the J10 Core connector instead of J2, but the way you have it w/ J2 should be fine.
-
Yeah, those look like the item. I'd found them at Mouser, so I hadn't even bothered checking M-C. M-C is great, I've ordered tons of stuff from them over the years.
If you're mounting a fan you might consider getting M3 bolts for mounting it. (You can then use the nuts and washers leftover from the other parts in the order list.) The bolts in the parts list I gave above look sort of weird for this purpose (they are blue-ish to help us Texans remember these are "strange" metric bolts instead of normal, "American" bolts, LOL!), whereas I'd prefer a chromed/zinc look to match the fan guard, and probably a normal pan head instead of the countersunk head. I'm sure M-C has them somewhere. I probably have some bolts that will work in the disaster area known loosely as my shop.
I'm pretty sure I can mount the LCD using extra bolts/washers/nuts from my M-C order, so I should be good there.
I'm trying to keep track of all the extra parts needed for future reference.
I have some work to do today, but I'm hoping to start soldering the control surface today. I got all the JB Welding done Wednesday and Thursday, so I'm ready to solder.
BTW, did I mention how helpful it is to have a wife that's a former pastry cook? She piped all 23 of my JB Weld blobs out like icing in about 2 minutes. :-) I'll have to get the pics off my camera and upload. POIDH, right? Maybe Wilba can add this as the standard way to create blobs of JB Weld on the control surface. :-)
-
Cool, thanks. Good thing I have a Dremel tool!
FPE Panels for MB-6582
in MIDIbox SID
Posted
@Wilba - Well I'm having tons of fun with it. This truly is a great community. I've kept a few notes along the way so hopefully I can contribute some pics and improved documentation.
So what do you get at 2000 posts? :-)
Quick update: I indeed still had the testtone app on cores 2 and 3, so after uploading the MB-SID app all four cores are working. I also enlarged the passive audio out hole to fit my jack w/ a size O drill bit (.316") - see pic below. I have a small milling machine so it was super easy.
I also installed the fan I bought from Mouser. It's super quiet so I'm pretty happy w/ it.
I played about w/ the CS and I think my LEDs are too bright. Pity since I'll have to de-solder the resistors I put in the other day. I may just solder in sockets so I can try different resistors to find the ideal brightness. Glad I kept that assortment bag of resistors I bought from Radio Shack back in, oh, 1985. Better sand those leads a bit to remove any oxidation before I use them...
NB #1 - the encoders are a bit difficult to turn w/out knobs. Can't wait for those to arrive from Goblinz's bulk order.
NB #2 - it's also hard to use the softkeys below the display when the display is not mounted and sitting off to the side. :-) I should get my LCD mounting bolts tomorrow, woohoo!
I've been surprised at how the pins for the headers to my CS have not managed to short themselves despite not having the black female sockets yet. I was a bit concerned about it, but they seem to have stayed fairly well aligned despite opening and closing the case dozens of times. See pic.
Also, my SIDs get way hotter than I'd like. There was a recent thread about heat that I'll have to re-read, but mine are NOT comfortable to touch for more than a few seconds. Hopefully this is normal, but I'll probably look into getting some sort of heat sinks if possible, esp. since replacements will be scarce since Wilba haz no moar SIDz (though I did get two spares just to be safe).
Hmm, 3mm acrylic windows might work well. Where would one get such a thing? A plastic supply store?