fussylizard

Well, it's a nice tray and all, but the tray shipping means that I have to insert each display into an anti-static bag, tape it, wrap it in bubble wrap, and tape it. That box 'o LCDs in bubble wrap is sounding pretty good! :-) BTW I did a quick test of the first tray of LCDs and they look fantastic. Maybe it's all in my head but the right side of the sample I got from Mouser seems to be just barely brighter than the left. Very trivial, but the new ones look perfect. I ended up writing a simple MIOS app that fills all 80 chars with letters and used a male DIL header pressed into the solder-plated holes like you suggested for testing and it works great. Thanks again for the advice!

Current stock: 18 reserved, 1 unreserved. Thanks to everyone for their interest! People who reserved LCDs on the earlier thread have until the end-of-day Friday to get me their orders. If you did not reserve LCDs but still want some, go ahead and send me your order per the instructions and on Saturday I will let you know if I have enough available to fill your order based on reserved LCDs that were not claimed. I *may* have a few extras available later if no shipments are lost, so email me your order to secure your place in line for any extras. If there is a lot of continued interest I *may* be willing to do another carton (80 pieces) based on how shipping the first carton-worth works out (and if Optrex still has stock available at the sale price). To those who have ordered already I will send out PayPal invoices later this week and will pack orders this weekend. Shipments should go out sometime next week. Thanks, Chris @Wilba - Let me know if you want two more for a full tray, but a box that big will probably scream "INSPECT ME!" to your customs office. :-)

Update - Just got the LCDs from Optrex (see pic!). I need to order some anti-static bags (good thing it is one day shipping from Mouser to me) then I can do a final weight check and send out invoices later this week. Current stock: 25 total, 7 unreserved

Stock remaining: 32 (Assuming everyone who expressed interest on the earlier list buys there are only 12 units still available.)

To answer a question posed to me in email - these displays work "out of the box" with the MIDIbox core module. I've tested it on both R4 and R3 revisions from SmashTV with success.

LOL, what can I say, Wilba's a tough act to follow! :-) For the record, rosch wins eternal glory for getting in the first official order (thanks!). All hail rosch the nimble! Stock remaining: 71

Ah, right. I remembered the jumpers on J71 and J72, but forgot that J4 was open. Sorry for the confusion!

@rosch - Thx for starting the list on this thread. I think once you have a list going, it sort of makes it "official" and ensures it will happen. :-)

All, I just posted the ordering instructions at http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,14045.0.html. Come and get'em! What You Need to Do Now If you've already added yourself to the informal list in this thread, (thanks!!) you need to follow the instructions in the new post to get your order to me. I'll reserve the requested number of displays for you for a week (until Sept. 18). After that, it's first-come, first served! If you are not already on the informal list, just send me your order as described in the order thread. --- BTW The boxes for shipping just arrived...I wasn't expecting them until next week. Displays will probably be here Monday (I'll post pics!) and I hope to start shipping orders next week. Thanks for everyone's interest and support! Regards, Chris

*** This bulk order is closed as of 2009-11-10 *** 40x2 Green-on-Black Optrex Displays Update- Stock remaining as of 2009-11-07: 4 [This is a dedicated thread for the bulk order discussed at http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,10847.msg120640.html#msg120640] THE GOODS This bulk order is for Optrex 40x2 green-on-black displays (see pictures below).  Optrex part number C-51850NFQJ-LG-ACN (http://www.optrex.com/products/partdetail.asp?PartNumber=C-51850NFQJ-LG-ACN).  This is the same display used by Ultra's MB-SEQ as seen in this post: http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,11802.msg113232.html#msg113232  (Note in the picture the display still has its protective plastic in place so the surface looks a bit rough.) You can use this in your MB-SEQ (2 required), MB-FM (1 required), custom MIDIbox control surface, etc. Also, please see this post before ordering: To get the best out of the displays, also see here: PRICING These displays are normally available through Mouser for US $40 each + shipping (http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=C-51850NFQJ-LG-ACNvirtualkey51610000virtualkey805-51850NFQJLGACN).  By ordering a full carton directly from Optrex I am able to offer them to fellow MIDIboxers for US $26 each + shipping/insurance. There are 80 pieces available, about half of which are already spoken for as of this initial posting.  The remainder will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.  See top of this post for remaining stock. HOW TO ORDER I am organizing this order Wilba-style based on discussions with Wilba about his experience running numerous bulk orders, so we'll be following his 3 rules: 1. If you don't have the cash, don't waste my time with an order. An order means "I can pay now", not "I can pay when I get paid next month". 2. After emailing an order, you are expected to check your emails daily and make a PayPal payment as soon as you receive a payment request. 3. Email your order exactly as described so I can easily copy and paste the details into a spreadsheet. That means, no labels, no blank lines, no address all on one line, capital first letters, forgetting what country you live in, etc. Email your order to: midibox-lcd@fussylizard.com with email subject: Optrex 40x2 Bulk Order (Note the address is "fussylizard" and NOT "fuzzylizard".) The contents of the email should be (without labels!): your MIDIbox username your real name your postal address line 1 (e.g. street) your postal address line 2 (e.g. city, state/province, postal code) your COUNTRY (in capitals) your contact email address (same one you are using to email me) your PayPal email Address (the one you use for PayPal) your desired quantity of displays example: FunkyPunky Johannes Schmitt Oberammergaueralpenkräuterdelikatessenfrühstückskäse Str. 29 10997 Berlin GERMANY Johannes.Schmitt@gmx.de Johannes.Schmitt@gmx.de 3 Once I receive an emailed order I will reply with an email informing you I received your order, usually within 24 hours.  I will then issue a PayPal request which you should pay immediately.  Once you have paid I will ship your order and confirm shipment with an email.  If I have sold out, I will inform you via email and will not issue a PayPal request. In the unlikely event there are any problems with your order, please contact me via e-mail, PM, or post a message to this thread in the forum. ADDITIONAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS These displays are sold as-is and all sales are final.  They are new from the factory but at my discretion I may pre-test one or all to ensure they work prior to shipping.  If you are violently opposed to pre-testing, please PM me after emailing your order. PayPal requests not paid within a 48 hours are subject to cancellation at my discretion.  Remember that I'm fronting the $ to purchase the carton so I want to sell them as fast as possible so I don't get stuck with half a carton of unsold displays.  The upside of my pre-ordering is you don't have to wait for a full carton of orders to accumulate which allows you get them faster. I will include insurance for orders at my discretion based on reliability of the postal service in your country and the quantity of displays ordered. You are responsible for any import duty/taxes due when the parcel arrives in your country.  These fees/taxes are NOT included in the purchase price.  I will declare all goods at actual value on the U.S. customs forms I must use to ship internationally. Have fun with the displays! IMG_4553.JPG IMG_4554.JPG IMG_4553.JPG IMG_4554.JPG

First double check all your jumper settings are correct and that you have the correct regulators in the correct places and they are oriented correctly. If you're using heat sinks make sure they are not touching since some regulators do not share a common ground. I'm not sure how you would test power at J4 since that is for configuring how voltages are routed. I would recommend testing for 9V/12V at say J1_SID1. Clip ground to the ground pin of J3 (pin nearest you when looking at it from the front) and test for 9V at the left pin of J1_SID1 and for 12V at the right pin of J1_SID1. You can test for 5V at J3.

Absolutely encouraged! The fewer parcels I have to deal with the better. :-) I'm upping mine as well. Once we get to 80 we'll have to limit changes until the initial "pre-order" folks have had a chance to order, then I'll sell the remainder until they're gone. fussylizard 5 strophlex 4 nsunier ~10 rosch 4 ssp 2 (maybe 4) gtxdude 2 matoz 4 lucem 6 enth 3 flemming 1 kyo 4 wilba 6 dstamand 1 olga42 5 latigid on 2 kokiPsiho 2 Tamiflu 4 audioguru42 4 ---------------------- ~69

FYI Bubble wrap, tape, and labels arrived today. Boxes and LCDs should arrive next week. I should be able to start getting order details from everyone this weekend and hopefully start shipping displays out next week. Thx, C

Ha, good plan! Just ordered the boxes, bubble wrap, etc. Who knew that stuff was so expensive? BTW Optrex said everything should ship out tomorrow (Wednesday), so I'll probably get the displays Friday or Monday if everything goes smoothly.

The bulk order is a GO for green-on-black 40x2 LCD displays. I just ordered 1 carton, and I'll set up a real bulk order page once I get info on when the shipment should arrive to me. I'll run it Wilba-style where you'll need to email me your order info (once I get the page set up, not before please!). Folks who have already added themselves to the informal list on this thread will get first priority (so if you've been lurking, add your name to the list now!) It's one carton, 80 pieces, and about half of it is spoken for based on the informal list. First come, first served! fussylizard 2 strophlex 3 nsunier ~10 rosch 3 ssp 2 (maybe 4) gtxdude 2 matoz 4 lucem 6 enth 3 flemming 1 kyo 2 wilba 6 (possible per discussion w/ fussylizard) ---------------------- ~44 Stay tuned! Thanks, C

I love FL Studio (I'm on the FL forum VERY rarely though). A Synthedit/synthmaker plug would be interesting. I've not tried the JSynthLib editor so I'm not sure how easy it would be to use it to control the MB-SID. You could try using MIDI Yoke to have multiple in/out to the MB-SID so you could use the JSynthLib editor to tweak parameters while playing notes from a MIDI Out in FL. I use a similar scheme with my Mopho and it works, but not nearly as nice as an integrated VST of course.

Quick update. I just got the shipping quote from Optrex today. They have some weird tax form I have to figure out what to do with, but once I sort that out I'll know the exact pricing and will set up a proper bulk order thread and can place the order with Optrex.

Check out the MIDIbox SID V2 page at www.ucapps.de (link is from the front page, direct link http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid.html). I'm not sure about the old version of the core PCB but you might be able to just get a new 18F4685 PIC (about $10 from SmashTV) and then use V2 using your current PCBs. But you'll have to do some research to verify your board will work with the new PIC.

Oh, sorry, I tested this two nights ago and forgot to post my results for you (mind like a sieve I tell you). I didn't have any luck either getting MIDI output, so I think the answer is "no", but you can always hack the firmware if you are so inclined. :-)

Great, we're getting there! I'm thinking once we get closer to interest for 80 I'll just order them and resell them at cost + shipping. I'll offer them to folks who signed up on the list first, then offer them to others until they are all sold. That way there are fewer problems with collecting shipping info and $ and then having a big delay while the order is fulfilled and people changing their minds, having address changes, etc. It also gives you that ever-so-important instant gratification. :-)

If you are interested in a total software solution you might try FL Studio (http://flstudio.image-line.com/). It is a more "loop oriented" package than things like Logic, Cubase, etc. and is super easy and quick to use. I use it to record and sequence external synths all the time, and it has a fantastic piano roll editor for entering notes manually if you like. They have a free demo so you could try it out and see if it works for you. Of course MB-SEQ is great project (I'm waiting for Wilba's design to finish and I'll build one). Definitely watch (one of Stuart's videos) to get a better idea of what all it can do. That might help with your decision.

Regarding the plugs you mentioned, those ones from SmashTV you linked to are great. I always order a few extra whenever I order from him so I have some on hand. Get a crimping tool like http://www.curiousinventor.com/store/product/71. It is *easily* worth the $13. (They also sell crimp pin housings and female crimp pins if you need them, but their selection is more limited than SmashTV's.) I used to hate making connectors like that, but with the right tool it is a breeze.

Not sure where you are on this but did you verify the wiring between the core and the SID boards? I can't tell from your earlier picture if it is correct or not. Basically you need to connect the following signals from core J10 to SID J2: S0, RC, MD, MU, and CLK. You can also power the SID board from the core by connecting Vd and Vs on core J10 to Vd and Vs on SID J2 (it looks like this is what is done). There are other ways to connect power to the SID board but for a single-SID setup like you have this scheme is fine. Since it appears the 74HC595s are not working (per your results of the interconnect test) I would especially check MD, MU, and RC since these are the signals that come from the core that control the 74HC595 chips. If you find something wired incorrectly, fix it and re-run the interconnect test. If the wiring is OK you could try removing IC3 and running the interconnection test with just IC2. This will only allow you test A0-A4, but it could isolate a problem with IC3. You can then put the chip that was in IC3 into IC2 and test A0-A4 again. That will help isolate if there is a problem with the chip that was originally in IC2.

OK, I have good news and bad news about the green-on-black Optrex display. The bad news is it looks like I fried it. The good news is that I got it running and took pictures of it before I toasted it. It was a real bummer. I was testing my MB-FM build and having some issues along the way (turns out I messed up a few pins on my PIC or it was bad to start with). At one point I plugged in the 2x8 connector between the LCD and the core incorrectly (only one column was connected) and the display stopped working after that (or I did something else to it during that same timeframe). The backlight comes on but no characters...sigh. Stupidly I did the same thing a little while later with a 20x2 CrystalFontz display, but it survived. So maybe the Optrex displays are a bit sensitive? Anyway, on to the display. I took a few pics for reference. It looks pretty good, but my only gripe is that I couldn't quite get the character backgrounds to disappear completely. The backgrounds are slightly brighter than on the yellow-on-black 20x4 CrystalFontz display I used on my MB-6582. It's not a big issue, but I thought I'd mention it. Look at the pics and see if it bothers you or not. I'm not sure if the background can be adjusted by changing the resistor values on the core board. May give that a try. IMG_4553.JPG IMG_4554.JPG IMG_4553.JPG IMG_4554.JPG

Sending filter control data from a sequencer is fine if you want to do filter sweeps, etc., but if you want to have say a filter controlled by EG5 you have to connect it to the core. These are really two different cases. I've considered this same issue with my MB-6582 (and I'm working on a MB-FM now). I think the ideal case would be for the MB-FM to have CC parameters for the AOUT controls, then you have the best of both worlds: you could send CC messages from your sequencer or controller to control CV gear as desired, or control the CV gear from MB-FM signals (e.g. EG5). I just reviewed the CC implementation chart for MB-FM (and MB-SID) and unfortunately there are no CC messages for the AOUT controls that I saw. Perhaps it could be added? There may not be enough flash or RAM left in MB-SID for this (it is at the limit of the PIC from what I understand), but perhaps MB-FM would have room. The other approach I considered was building a MB-CV and adding an additional port for a connection from the MB-SID or MB-FM core. You can pass +5V on this connector and use a simple circuit to multiplex the lines going to the AOUT module in the MB-CV. So when +5V is coming in from the MB-SID or MB-FM, the AOUT module is controlled by the MB-SID or MB-FM. When no +5V is coming in (e.g. the MB-SID or MB-FM is off or the cable is disconnected), the AOUT module is controlled by the core in MB-CV. You could also or instead add a switch to select which input goes to the AOUT module.