From nothing to 2 working SIDs?? (mono6581 and MB6582)

[jooks]

I´m a complete newbie at electronics but stumbled upon the midibox sid surfing the net. Used to own a Elektron Sidstation which I loved and have missed ever since (but way too expensive these days..). The midibox Sid seems even much better and I´ve always wanted to learn some electronics and soldering so...here I am;-) I think it will be a loooong journey before I have a working sid but this is my Mt Everest or something :D

Been here daily reading for more then a month now (this forum is incredible! And many many thanks to TK, Wilba and all others) and yesterday the package from Smash arrived!! I really recomend Smash btw. It took me quite some time to open the package and get to the parts (very very very well packaged!) and the parts look great! I have now gathered parts for a mono sid 6581 with step A CS and for a 4 track MB6582 with 2 stereo 6582, 1 mono 6582 and 1 mono 6581. The MB6582 will have a Doug Wellington case/panel and for the mono I found an old wallwatch (?) from the 60´s with woodpanels and some alu.

My plan is training my soldering step by step beginning with a dout (for future expansion maybe), then a din and so on. This is more of a 5-yearplan since I´m home with 2 kids (oldest is 2,5 year). Soldered the dout while they were asleep for an hour today;-) I´m very excited to start this project but time is my worst enemy...

The dout was my first solder except for a a simple 3 channel mixer and an Atari punk console (which was a pain to solder..) which I bought mostly for soldertraing. I´d love some feedback on the soldering. I know some is more like a ball then cone (to much solder or to much corrosion?) and some has to little solder and don´t fill out the solderpad. But how bad is it?

This is the dout in all it´s glory

[chimchim]

It looks very good for the most part but with a few exceptions; some of the more "blob" looking joints (as opposed to "teepee" shaped) could indicate a cold solder joint.  Likely the component lead was hot enough but the PCB pad was not.

In fact I can see some of the IC leads where the pad is not fully covered in solder.  If the pad is hot enough solder should flow into the hole and across the entire pad.  Sometimes just reapplying heat (making good contact with the pad) will be enough to get the solder to flow.

Other than that good work.......I don't see any char marks or lifted pads so you've done better than many noobs :)

[rosch]

i like smash's proper pcb design very much, too! very clean, it has even room enough for better connectors.

here's mine, less clean performance i must admit... n00b after all

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,12947.0.html

[jooks]

thanks for feedback! I think you are right about some of the pads didn´t get hot enough. I tried to be fast due to my fear of adding too much heat and probably ended up with too cold pads. Soldered a Din today when the children slept and tried to apply some more heat to the pads. I think I did better but still one or two "round ones". Smash Tv is the greatest btw! Had my laptop next to me and just followed the info for the module on his site. Makes it so much easier for a newbie :)

Here´s also a pic of the case I´ll probably use. 2x20 LCD and 10x10mm switches with green leds in them Don´t know how to hook the switchleds up though so any suggestions are very welcome! Been thinking of connecting them to "power on" so all 10 lights up when it´s on (yes one will only be for looks ;)) Or maybe some random light from a dout? I don´t really know what´s possible here....but I liked the looks and feel of them.

[stryd_one]

case looks nice jooks, i realy like the endcheeks.

Hey you might like to use the width setting in your img tags (Search for it), or better yet, attach them to the post, rather than hosting offsite.

[Sasha]

Jooks, congratulations on a build. Beautiful wooden sides. :) I also like those screws. But I don`t like much how top panel is lowered. What was the reason you mount it that way?

[stryd_one]

Hmm yeh I didn't notice that inset panel. That reminds me of some mil gear, where the faceplate is inset to the same depth as the switches... Idea being, if you drop it on it's face, you don't touch any controls.... Not sure if that was the intention though.

BTW, are the ply endcheeks stained or?

[jooks]

The endcheeks are solid but I don´t know what kind (old wood from the 60´s ;)) The inset panel is because this is the existing mount for the watch so really easy to just slide in a new panel there. I might mount it on top of the alu in the end though, haven´t decided yet. My playing isn´t really that wild that I need to protect the controls this way :D

The panel will probably be black (schaefer).

Today my goal is to start on the Sid module while kids sleeping for an hour. Only problem is that I need to take a shower also which steals some minutes from my work! Hmm I already have a wife and kids soo....Sid module here I come!

[Sasha]

My playing isn´t really that wild that I need to protect the controls this way :D

Heheh, after stryds reply I started to imagine you as a cyberpunk jumping with that SID all over the place so that panel seams as a good solution.  :P

Only problem is that I need to take a shower also which steals some minutes from my work! Hmm I already have a wife and kids soo....Sid module here I come!

I don`t have a kids, but I know exactly what you mean. I think midiboxers shouldn`t have full time work. So many things to do, and the list is getting bigger all the time. Midibox is for teenagers, with plenty of time. If I have a teenager son one day, I`ll introduce him to MB so I don`t need to care about him taking a drugs, alcohol, or bto fall into bad company. Bad thing is that he could ended with soldering iron as his first and only true love.  :D I was so lucky there was not MB when I was teenager. :)

[stryd_one]

Today my goal is to start on the Sid module while kids sleeping for an hour. Only problem is that I need to take a shower also which steals some minutes from my work! Hmm I already have a wife and kids soo....Sid module here I come!

Case in point: I also skipped the shower to cut code, and I have no wife and kids. Not surprising, they can probably smell me in the next suburb.

[jooks]

Hmmm better watch myself so this midibox virus I got doesn´t take total control over me ;) I´ve just started to look at the other possible builds aswell....c64 midi, Fm-synth etc :P More time this way please!!

Almost finished the Sid module yesterday (actually took a shower also but a very short one). Can I just solder the extra cap suggested at J2 vs-vd in the c64 optimized psu directly to the solder pads or pins or? (as mentioned I a super newbie, tried to search for an answer/pic but hasn´t found any clear enough for me to understand...)

[jooks]

Sid module finished except for the C1, C2 caps which I will use machine sockets for (so I can change filtering). I feel more and more confident soldering but I don´t think it´s that much improved. I imagine it´s a bit like plaing golf. It´s easy to hit the ball perfect once but to do it hundred times in a row is really difficult!

Almost finished core module also but had troubles cutting the DIL headers (they broke...). I have spares but am afraid I will only trash them too...need a better cutter me think;-

[philetaylor]

Looking good.... Still a few solder blobs that I would be tempted to reapply heat to though  :)

I always use a craft (stanley) knife for cutting both SIL and DIL headers, I find that normal wire cutters tend to snap them (as you found out).

I just place them on a hard surface and cut down. You can also then use the knife to tidy up the cut if you really want it to look neat!

Phil

[jooks]

Looking good.... Still a few solder blobs that I would be tempted to reapply heat to though 

Yep, I think I´ll have to take a close look at all modules and try to fix up bad joints before I add power :)

I always use a craft (stanley) knife for cutting both SIL and DIL headers, I find that normal wire cutters tend to snap them (as you found out).

I just place them on a hard surface and cut down. You can also then use the knife to tidy up the cut if you really want it to look neat!

Great tip! It works like a charm:-)

Finished the core yesterday. Unfortunatly the midi I/O were not my best joints so far. It was hard to hold them still and in place and I sat in halfdark talking to my wife at the same time but I think I know how to do it better next time anyway....

solder side

Started on the LCD also. Made a sketch with all cables I/O so hopefully it will work. It´s a real nest though....my lcd had a 8x2 row instead of 16x1 so all cables cross each other...good fun soldering it though :)

[stryd_one]

If you have a temperature controlled iron, turn it up a touch, and go a bit faster. You'll avoid those cold-ish joints. (they're not that bad anyway)

[philetaylor]

I know they're not that bad, I was just being picky :)

I still use my temp controlled Weller soldering station that I got when I was at college a looong time ago :) still works perfectly and has outlasted many many cheaper irons...

Phil

[stryd_one]

Was supporting jooks, not accusing you ;) You're right to be picky...

[jooks]

I appreciate both picky and supportive comments:) I´m very happy that my soldering seems to work ok but I´m very aware that I have a looong way to go before I´m any good at it. I can´t belive how fun it is though. I´m afraid this midibox stuff will make me spend more time building stuff then actually playing/making music!

[stryd_one]

my soldering seems to work ok but I´m very aware that I have a looong way to go before I´m any good at it

I think you've taken our collective picky-ness a bit too seriously ;) You're already good enough. We're being picky, we'd give you advice on how to improve, unless it was already 'perfect' - and I don't know anyone who can solder 'perfect', myself included ;)

[Labelwhore]

I´m afraid this midibox stuff will make me spend more time building stuff then actually playing/making music!

I definitely hear that! Not necessarily midibox related, but I have a crap ton of DIY projects queued up and/or half finished. It's getting out of control.

[jooks]

while waiting for some parts for the mono 6581 sid I started building the MB6582. And I just couldn´t stop once I´ve started! Just tested voltages on cores, sids, octocoupler etc (5.20, 9.05 and 11.90 seems ok?). Only problem I´ve had so far was soldering a 1k resistor at core r9 but I manage to replace it without destroying anything...

Tomorrow I´ll probably hook up the midi to see if it works :P Actually the MB6582 seems an easier build since everything is connected and psu already there! Many thanks for this brilliant build Wilba, smash and TK :) Ordered another 3 6582´s today so I have the option to fill it with 8 if I´d like (my plan is to have 2 stereo 6582, 1 mono 6582 and 1 mono 6581) I´m having so much fun!

[jooks]

YES!

[Twin-X]

Looking good Jooks. It's nice to hear you enjoy your build.

Keep it up. You are our noob role model now ;)

[jooks]

Done some testing and got good and bad news out of it. Good news is I got sound out of it!! Uploaded app mb6582 to core1 and tried it with one sid and everything worked like a charm :) But...core2 just gave me a row of boxes on the lcd and no response in mios studio :( Core 3 is working "ready" and I haven´t put in the pic in core4 yet. Have no idea why core2 doesn´t work. The trouble with resoldering a resistor was on core1. Will go over it visually first but I have to wake up the children now and feed them. Any ideas what could be wrong are very welcome ;) All voltages are tested and ok.

core1 :D

core2 ???

[jooks]

Keep it up. You are our noob role model now 

Haha, I feel the pressure, no cursing, smoking and such ;)

Anyway, I made some voltage tests and came up with this for my non working MB6582 Core2:

IC1:  5.18V

IC11: 5.18V

IC12: 5.18V

IC14 (OSC2): 2.74V

IC20: 5.13V

IC25(Tx): 3.99V

IC26 (Rx): 5.18V

IC31: 5.18V

IC32: 5.18V

I guess all should be 5.18V or? Any input is most welcome! Might the different values come from bad soldering joints?

I will try to go thru all parts on the core and check continuty and shorts. Some joints look a bit dodgy but not much worse then anything else. I guess it´s hard to judge just by looking though (especially for a noob;-) I also discovered that the optocoupler wasn´t seated perfectly in the socket. I fixed it but it made no difference.