Hawkeye

Good job! It is always nice to see a newborn MB6582! :-) There are not nearly enough on this planet! :-) Many greets and have a great weekend! Peter

Many thanks for sharing these tips and including photos, jjonas! In retrospective, I have to admit, that the flat-top-LEDs are a major pita to handle, especially when you have to remove the panel from time to time. I managed it for two display exchanges (LCD->OLED (burned that, ouch! :-))->VFD) and then the installation of the knob backlight LEDs, but don't want to open her up anymore, if avoidable :-). Getting the flattop LEDs back into the panel, always was big joy! You must avoid force (otherwise they bend to the side, making things worse), and look at every LED individually, and bend it from the top (through the panel hole with a small screwdriver) to make it fit. It takes about 30 minutes minimum and a lot of sweat is guaranteed! But then, it is a kind of advanced zen meditation :-). JB-Weld itself also is only strong, when the surface area is not smooth as a newborns behind :-), you definitely have to sand things, to get some "rough grip area", but even then, I am also not totally convinced by the stability. If a new panel was built, I'd probably go for some countersunk screws on the frontside, spacers and screws on the bottom of the CS PCB, just like you did! Many greets and enjoy! Peter

Cheers! Sounds like a happy end! And we have learned something, thanks for reporting back! :) Many greets, Peter

Totally! If you add the DINs and DOUTs ahead of the CS, you will have to renumber the CS buttons in the hardware config file (on the SD card). If you add it behind the CS, you can keep the original Wilba hardware configuration file mostly as is and just add mapping for your new buttons and status LEDs connected to your additional DINs and DOUTs. Many greets and enjoy! Peter

No problem! In total, you should not use more than 16 input shift registers and not more than 16 output shift registers... so adding a DINx4 and a DOUTx4 module in front of or after the CS board works well. Many greets, Peter

Good idea with the long standoffs! The initial top soldering tip came from jojjelito, by the way! :-) It is good fun and also helps, if you are really-space restricted like for ultra-flat builds, where you don't have that extra 2 millimeters on the bottom for your solderwork. Wilbas CS panels manufactured by Tim/SmashTV are thru-plated and you can solder bottom or top or both for that long-durable build that you want to hand over to your childrens children :). As a small speedup tip and if you do not insist on top soldering: you can also tape all components after inserting them with packing tape to the topside and then turn the board over, without fear of the whole stuff falling out, snip off the legs and solder in a huge batch. This is a bit more time efficient, but not as much fun! :-) Many greets! Peter

Not many hints despite maybe a noisy (or underloaded, yes, this happens with some switchers) 5V PSU. Can you 'scope the 5V rail or try another (maybe linear regulated) PSU? Many greets and good luck! Peter

Yes! A great extension (DOUT+DIN combined) is the famous TPD module, btw! :) Many greets and enjoy, Peter

Afaik, the STM32F4 only has a (very small) 3.0V regulator onboard, that is very easily overloaded, e.g. if you connect more than a few OLEDs or a power-hungry display. You can test that with your fingers on the regulator of the STM32F4 board. If that small regulator gets insanely hot, it is overloaded and that will garble up your display. A quick solution (that helped me to drive 24 OLEDs) is to install a simple LDO 3.3V voltage regulator and feed its output to the output of the 5V/3.3V selection jumper on the Core. Many greets, Peter

This must be one of the most flashy MIDIboxes evar! :-) I love it! :-) Many greets! Peter

You're welcome! The NG or MIDIO would most likely do the trick! The flatsequencer also works nicely together with the piano - i have not done any optical improvements yet (black aluminum profiles) due to general lack of time atm, but it is on the (long) list! :-) Many greets and enjoy! Peter

Sounds good. Please report back, so we know, if these TTL-level shift registers are unusable! Many greets! Peter

Hola, On the Track Events page, where you set the track mode to "DRUM", you can configure the MIDI notes sent out for every one of the drums (BD, Snare ...). Does this help? Other than that, you would need a different MBSEQ track, if different output channels (not only different notes) are needed. But it often makes sense to separate drums anyways, so you can mix/blend them nicely when playing live :) If it is really necessary, a little MIDI processor (e.g. in form of a custom small MIDIbox core) might help to achieve your original goal... Many greets, Peter

The 74HCT vs the 74HC provides TTL-level input capabilities - i did a quick datasheet comparison and cannot see dramatic differences... they both are fine operating at around 4.75-5.25V, the TTL version is slightly slower (in the nanosecond range) and that's it... if everything else fails, swap for the HC version, but I don't believe it is the problem... To be precise and to learn a bit: CMOS input levels: 0V to VDD/2 is seen as low, VDD/2 to VDD is seen as high TTL: 0V to 0.8V is seen as low, 2V to VCC is seen as high This should match up nicely in the MBSID. If you have some other shift registers lying around, or even with the same shift registers, you could swap them cyclically and see if other regions of the CS fail. This is a good test to see, if a particular shift register IC has failed (which does not happen very often). This test and following the traces just as arumblack said should lead you to the problem. Most likely, as jojjelito and latigid on said, probably some bad soldering on the baseboard around the shift register(s) controlling the failed CS regions is the reason... Many greets and good luck! Peter

Hola... the problem should be fixable :) First... have you checked for correct type and orientation of the input/output shift registers on the baseboard? Many greets, Peter

Very impressive work, keep it up, man! :-) Many greets, Peter

Still a bit unsure about this new "standard". I think i somewhere saw discussions about possible shorts during plug-in/out... While the "MIDI Electrical Specification" recommends to take care for shorts: https://www.midi.org/articles/midi-electrical-specifications it appears, that up to 0.5 Watts need to be burned by a current-limiting resistor in that case. Now, if a 3.5mm plug is not completely inserted by mistake, you may have a permanent short, potentially burning up that resistor (especially if some manufacuteres did use low-specced, e.g. 250mw current-limiting resistors). Maybe it is not a real problem, but i would not dare to connect an expensive/retro/pre 90s synth to that... Many greets, Peter

Hi there, The bicolor LEDs are of "common cathode"-type, see here: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=wilba_mb_seq_parts_guide Many greets, Peter

ok, das ist dann schwieriger :-) sollte auch gehen mit sehr dünnem Kupferlackdraht zum nächsten Verbindungspunkt, aber ist es fast nicht wert, da die Boards ja echt bezahlbar sind :) Ciao! Peter PS: Es spricht, denke ich, nichts gegen eine direkte 5V Versorgung, das sollte durchverbunden sein...

Hi, genau das ist mir auch schon passiert, Du kannst die USB-Buchse definitiv wieder hinlöten, mit etwas Fingerspitzengefühl und ner kleinen Lötspitze. :-) Ciao, Peter

Hi there, it is doable and the SEQv4 can be customized to your needs. But I'd recommend to stay with two 40x2 displays for use, otherwise the display routines would need to be adjusted. if you look in the phototutorial linked below, there is a description of how to build your own control surface... of course you can use very few buttons, but I think a good compromise would be 2 displays, 16 pushable encoders below the displays (use the push function as buttons as the row of general purpose buttons) and a handful of additional switches/leds. You'd need something like MENU/EXIT/SELECT, the datawheel encoder, the pattern/track selectors for good use. You can also totally do that on veroboard, as it is a custom work, not really necessary to learn PCB design. Of course, if you want to learn it and make a PCB, go ahead! :-) Of course, it would also be possible to avoid displays at all, if you just want to use the TPD as a track indicator. But this would make editing really hard and I'd recommend investigating the V4l instead... Many greets and have fun! :-) Peter

Just a reassurance: I received one of these panels from EsotericLabs last year and used it in the last SEQ, they are great and you can buy with confidence! :-) Many greets! Peter

Looking good, already! :-) Now, be patient and do not remove these clamps too early :) Many greets! Peter

Hola and welcome to MIDIbox! If this is your first MIDIbox project, I'd recommend to start small and extend over time... With MBNG you have all options to grow your controller and adjust it to your needs, but if you want to do all at once, this might be a quite big step. While everything on your list is basically supported, when fully completed, it will be a complex setup, and you need to dig into the MBNG documentation and the general MIDIbox hardware platform documentation -> ucapps.de is your best friend! :-). So, the recommendation is as follows: Make a plan of things you would like to start with immediately. Keep that list small. The hardware module list looks reasonable by the way, but you need to make a few choices regarding the control surface now. As you want to put it in an existing case, you could start with a few illuminated tactile switches (you need to source these from one of the many electronics suppliers) and encoders and put them on veroboard and then put that inside your existing controller box. There is currently a bit of short supply of available LEDring boards, but there are alternatives developed in the community by different users. Just look around and find out, what you want to start with, make a plan, try to get an experimental Core running MBNG and a few controls up and running and report back, when there are further questions! :-) Many greets and have fun! Peter

001 taximan pcb case 002 blatboy pcb case parts 003 Macotronic pcb case 004 lukas412 pcb case parts 005 Hawkeye pcb case parts 006 u-link pcb case 007 nebula pcb case 008 synaptech pcb case 009 Phatline pcb 010 gidien pcb 011 Karg pcb case parts? 012 doc007 pcb case parts? 013 Richie pcb(x2) case parts 014 arumblack pcb case parts 015 pat_00 pcb case parts 016 monokinetic pcb case parts? Thx for your kit efforts! :-) Many greets, Peter