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Building the MB-6582 Control Surface - Photo Tutorial


Hawkeye
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I like these sockets, for example, but you also need corresponding plugs with crimp pins, ofc :)

http://www2.mouser.c...UNWgEEmG64gM%3d

Bye,

Peter

If I use those parts on the control board, do you think there is room to use the non-right angle version of that (http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/TE-Connectivity-AMP/280373-1/?qs=NCegfZXRvjjzCEJiYYjYfiA5umXozxJqNairr85cg%252bI%3d) on the main PCB? I think I'd prefer to do that than solder directly on the header and use heat shrink...

The plugs that go with both parts are here: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/TE-Connectivity/280361/?qs=pyJNMv4wmxfbeWN9ZX56LQ%3d%3d

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The referenced connectors might be a little bit too large, there is really not much room in that area of the case, especially if the connectors are upright and not angled - you could try with a temporarily screwed in CS board and the baseboard and a "dummy connector", with the size from the datasheet, to see if it would fit... On the other hand, I really would not make both ends detachable (it is a bit overkill imho), but of course, it is your choice...

Bye,

Peter

Edit: I don´t think these connectors are much bigger than orange_hands, they may just fit, if you have the coin, order two full sets of them and if it does not fit, you can always fall back to soldering to headers + shrink tube. Don´t forget the crimp pins themselves and a crimp tool, if you don´t have it yet... it is well worth the investment :)

Edited by Hawkeye
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Hmmmm. I suppose the only reason I'm shying away from soldering directly on the headers is my lack of experience w/heat shrink. We do have a heat gun in the basement, last time I checked. It would be cheaper... and I wouldn't have to mail order the heat shrink... as I can get that at a local store... tempting...

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Thanks again for the help!!!!!

w

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  • 1 month later...

Hey Hawkeye,

In Step 14 you call for 4pcs M2.5 x 10mm screws (Reichelt SZK M2,5x10)... is there enough room in there to use 12mm screws? 10mm are hard to find around here without buying in bulk...

Thanks!

[EDIT] Actually, buying 100 is pretty darn cheap... so I'm just gonna do it.

Edited by Blatboy
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  • 1 year later...

Thats great information Hawkeye, thanks for that. I just ordered the PCBs and components the other day and seeing/reading your post makes

me wanting to have  'em here right now! Well all will arrive somewhen during my holiday and its going to be a hot soldering party. (joy)

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Thanks, Towel - enjoy the construction phase!

Wilba did an outstanding job with the integration of TKs modular MBSIDV2 into the MB6582.

Methinks, you will not regret it, I had a great time building it and an even greater time playing it (until now every other day or so :-)).

 

Many greets,

Peter

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  • 2 years later...

I just finished changing the display and all the leds in my MB6582, and I thought I'll share the experience here, because this is by far the best MB6582 building tutorial I know of, and probably more people will benefit if the following info is here rather than in its own thread.

So I had a display where the backlight couldn't be dimmed – either it was broken or it didn't have the ability; anyway there was no problem with the base PCB end, so I got another display, this time red with a negative backlight.

Originally I had built the control surface with JB Welded hex spacers and flat top leds. Already when I was first putting it together I found that the flat top leds were not a good idea, or at least not practical: the holes in the frontpanel were quite tight, and it was a major PITA to get all the buttons and leds aligned with the fronpanel holes without any of the leds bending.

Anyway, I managed it more or less. One MOD matrix led died in the process, but I didn't feel like opening the panel just for that, so it stayed like it was.

However, now that I had decided to change the display, I decided to change the leds as well, and make it more practical this time. However, as I separated the frontpanel from the CS PCB, I found that before I could get down to changing the leds and the display, I needed to solve another problem: almost all of the JB Welded hex spacers were shaky, like teeth that were about to come loose. Only a few seemed firm, so I just picked all of them off and dremeled the inner surface clean of JB Weld.

I realised quickly that hot-glue won't work because you need to press the frontpanel to the hex spacers attached to the CS board, but hot-glue will solidify much too quickly, even if you tried to fasten only one hex spacers at a time. In the end I decided to leave the hex spacers out completely and just use the four aligned corner holes in the CS PCB and the frontpanel. My solution is four black countersunk 16mm M3 screws coming through the frontpanel corners, on the inside there's an M3 nut and a 3mm plastic spacer. The Pactec enclosure fastener metal piece is there too (under the nut), even though I have drilled out the threads. (I haven't filed out the "fangs" of the metal piece though.) CS PCB goes on top of this, and the buttons protrude above the surface quite comfortably. I bought four 16mm screws, and it seems like it's the absolute minimum; probably 20mm would have been better, even though 16mm was just about manageable.

large.screw-spacer.jpg.61065456cb95b5792

large.leds-countersink.jpg.06a4463c86422

In addition to the corner screws, the frontpanel is attached to the CS PCB only by having a washer and a nut in the sustain/phase encoder (on the top side of the frontpanel). In my opinion the push-button feel is fine, the PCB doesn't give too much way anywhere, even though the hex spacers are gone. The previous image also shows the countersunk corner screw. Originally the frontpanel didn't have countersunk corner holes, but I used a drill bit and a press drill to make them so. Then I used black marker to colour the bare aluminium for a more uniform black appearance.

Then the leds.

I desoldered all the flat top leds and used a mechanical suction pump to clear the holes for new ones. Fortunately I didn't lose any pads in the process. I bought "normal" 3mm tinted red leds and put them in place, but this time I soldered them a bit lower than usual so that their "thick parts" don't really go into the holes. This way the frontpanel can be removed much more easily, and in practice you only have to worry about aligning the push buttons with the holes. It would look more cool if they did come out a bit, but from a repair point of view I find this solution far superior to the flat top leds or protruding "normal" leds.

large.led-height2.jpg.78de7ac226dcc8f29c

large.led-height.jpg.fbeb5d58d0fa47f8e01

I soldered the new leds the same way as Hawkeye in his tutorial: put the leds in place, join the CS PCB to the frontpanel, cover the led holes in the frontpanel from the top with masking tape, and guide the leds into their holes. The tape prevents them from getting too high, and holds them in place to some extent as well. When they are placed in their holes, pick a led group, solder one leg of each led, remove the tape, and if it looks fine, solder the other legs too.

One final word on the red negative backlight display: I was surprised that the viewing angle of the display was clearly worse than for the "normal" display I had earlier. The negative backlight LCD is ok from a "sideways" angle (a shallow angle from "left" or "right" side of the display) but sitting straight in front the of the display, a shallow angle either "above" or "below" the display shows very quickly just the red backlight and obscures the text. Fortunately with the placement of MB6582 in my setup this is not an issue, but it could easily have been.

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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

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  • 11 months later...
On September 29, 2011 at 4:13 PM, orange_hand said:

Hi,

 

today I received my new MB6582 rear panel which was made by Schaeffer AG in Germany. I love the German quality work :-)

 

22.jpg

 

As you can see it is still in its protective cover. You will recognise that I have modified the panel with some features:

 

- I increased the hole for the mix out jack

- The following descriptions were added: Mix Out, On/Off, MOD1-4, Audio Out, Fan

- There is now a hole for a standard on/off switch for the fan, as well as an indicator LED for the fan

- I also added the device name, the serial number of the box as well as the name of the builder :-)

 

I connected the fan with the switch and the LED:

 

20.jpg

 

I connected a cable to the mix out jack:

 

21.jpg

 

Here you will see the completely assembled rear panel:

 

23.jpg

 

24.jpg

 

Here is the final rear panel (apart from the pot caps, which I haven't installed so far):

 

25.jpg

 

26.jpg

 

27.jpg

 

I hope you also like the minor improvements....

 

Cheers

orange

Oh no, all the pictures are gone! I'm trying to redesign the rear panel and a 1/4" mix out Jack is high on my list of priorities. I'm trying to get a sense of how to position it so that it'll fit with the CS installed and I can't get an idea of where it should be placed.

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How did I miss that?!

Anyway, that's great. I'm pretty sure my design places the Jack right around the same place. I need to double check that it'll clear those capacitors, but otherwise I'm pretty pleased!

 

BTW, thanks so much for all the help @Hawkeye. Pretty sure I literally would not be able to do this project without it.

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  • 2 years later...

Hello, I would like to have an acrylic window made by Schaeffer to give a more professional look.

For good alignment on the front face, this plate should have 1.5mm thickness. However, the minimum thickness by Schaeffer is 2 mm. Has anyone found a solution?

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On 2/25/2016 at 1:36 PM, Hawkeye said:

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!

You wrote this kind of a long time ago @Hawkeye but can I ask why did everyone used JB-Weld in the first place vs just having screws from the top? People didn't want to see the screw heads on top of the panel?  

Why not use the encoders to attach the front panel? Looks like there is room to lower the panel a few mm - was the height dictated by the original LCD height?

Apart from the flat-top LEDs being a bit of a pain, anything anyone would do differently with their build? I've read all the big threads and really studied the wiki pages. Looks like an exciting project!

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@niles JB-Weld was the way Wilba proposed it, so that's what we did :). It has the advantage of not seeing top-down-screws, and my MB6582 still holds well (after nearly 10 years, omg :)).

The height (frontpanel - control surface pcb) was dictated by encoder size mostly, i would guess, it allows to perfectly fit on those "Waldorf" knobs, which are really nice.

Nothing much i would change, no - recommend to go for 8580s and omit the fan, go for an OLED or a VFD as a display, a better PSU and a 6.3mm direct mix out, but the rest was just pretty perfect from the start :).

Many greets and have fun building it, it's a great synth!
Peter

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3 hours ago, Hawkeye said:

much i would change, no - recommend to go for 8580s and omit the fan, go for an OLED or a VFD as a display, a better PSU and a 6.3mm direct mix out, but the rest was just pretty perfect from the start :).

Many greets and have fun building it, it's a great synth!
Peter

Many thanks, Peter. I got a deal on 8580s from meeblip awhile back, I'm working through PSU option E.  Got an OLED screen.  I'm thinking of panel mounting the switches directly above the window so I can flush-mount the screen. Probably just build my own enclosure, it looks pretty cramped in the PT-10 and I like a little more room to work with. Based on your one post about how much of a pain the flat leds are I'm thinking of just going with regular round ones.  

The PSU is tricky for me since  Jaytee's build guide leaves off necessary components from the original Wilba build guide, which makes sense since its original intention was a retrofit but a little confusing for scratch builds.  I think I can figure it out.

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  • 9 months later...

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