Troubleshooting help with Midibox Clockbox

[Nick-ES]

Hi Midiboxers !

I would need your help with troubleshooting a Midibox Clockbox Project I recently bought on ebay.

It was sold "as is" without powersupply and therefore untested.

I figuered out that the unit uses an external regulated 5V and 12 V line as PSU.

The 5 Volt Line for the midibox Core ( has no regulators on board of the core) and the 12 V line to

power the very big  segment LED display.

so I wired up an PSU I had for powering external HDD's that gives 12V and 5V.

So the PSU part is worked out but the unit does not function

If I start the unit the LCD display shows Mios V1.9  Copyright 2007 by T. Klose and after this hangs up with:

Test DIN&DOUT Module Pin: D0 (like seen in the fotos) and stays there forever.

Any help from where to search for errors would be very apreciated especially what the message means ....

I checked all voltages around the boards  and they look ok 5Volt on Core, DIN und DOUT board.

12v that gets regulatet to aprox 9v on the board for the big segment LED display.

As the project is not my build it is very difficult for me to troubleshoot, but it looks really well built.

hope you guys can point me in the right direction.

regards

Nick

 

[latigid on]

Have you asked the seller about it? Was it sold as working or as-is/for parts? You should connect it to MIOS Studio via MIDI to see if you can communicate with the Core, thereafter you can try to upload the correct application.

[latigid on]

http://www.ucapps.de/mios_download.html is where you'll find the firmware.

[tashikoma]

Latigid is right , it's the test application loaded not the clockbox application! 

after that:
There an empty socket for the big LED segment ... IC is missing ... i think without this IC the big LED won't work.

there certainly a problem here ... that's why test app had been loaded.
what is the identity of regulator and the IC next the missing IC for the LED segment?

Edited March 11, 2016 by tashikoma

[Nick-ES]

Thanks for the replys,

it was sold "as is" from a band break up and the seller wrote that he does not have a PSU to test it.

but  reading that I expected that I'll have to fix it...

I did not know that there exists a Test Program, so I thought the message was some kind off error

message.

I will try to install the right firmware and report back. I did not try to upload firmware as of now as I thought

that the unit maybe uses a special firmware and not the standard one from the ucapps page and didn't want to

delete it. But if there is just a testprogram installed I will try to overwrite it with the right firmware.

I took some more pics from the display board from the big LED display with the missing IC.

Regulator is L4940V10 (low drop 10V regulator) and works (input voltage is 12,3 V and output is 9.93 V - so I think thats correct)

But I think the unit should work without this IC or the whole board ?? Or I'am I mistaken and the Core senses

that the LED display is missing and so the rest will not work ?

 

regards

Nick

[latigid on]

Sorry, I see that you wrote "as-is" in the OP. 

For the IC, it's probably the same LED driver for the second 7-segment. I guess the decimal point is not wired. The main functions should work fine without this connected.

[Nick-ES]

some more news:

I uploaded the the 3 firmware versions that I found here on the forum:

clockbox_v1_5ekx

clockbox_enhanced_v1c

clockbox_simple_v1c

The core module seems to work, as I can upload the firmware correct.

but the problem is that only few buttons work with the firmware and do not

do what they are labeled as I think that the box I bought does not use the standard configuration.

I think my only chance will be to contact "Braintu" as I think he is the one that build it,

maybe he can help. He had posted about the construction of the unit back in 2008 here on the forum:

 

[latigid on]

That the test app was loaded is a big clue that not everything was well (tashikoma). So now your task is to check the hardware connections, make sure all boards and shift registers are working, then get the correct firmware loaded. Without any photos of the unit running it's difficult to say how far the original builder got. But if you dive into the firmware files you might find the switches etc. can be customised/tweaked to the hardware you have. Best of luck!

Edited March 11, 2016 by latigid on

[tashikoma]

i think too that the missing IC is another td62783apg but not important for debug....

if Braintu doesn't respond:
if all the DIN/DOUT board are ok
you can draw a schematic with wich switch DIN pin is wired to... same with led and DOUT.

and editing the firmware with the correct DIN/DOUT map (there is one encoder it's like two switch)

how to compile a new firmware:

http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/application_development

it's a simple project (i never build the clockbox but another projects about the same boards) and it's a midibox ....well documented ...good support... it's gonna live!

Edited March 11, 2016 by tashikoma