Help
Heres a project completed in one evening over coffee, during conversation with some visiting friends..
Its a MIOS MidiMon built into what was once some sort of SMS style comms system for Lorry Fleet communications.. or something along those lines. The units where made in the mid 90's contain a 4x20 screen with backlight. a Pic board.. 4 buttons and not much else.
Two of the buttons where removed to conveiniently allow the (somewhat slapdash) mounting of two midi sockets. One pic module was dropped in the back, along with a 9v battery for portable use & two switches where installed on the back. One switches between external power supply & internal battery ..facilitating power off when on battery. and the other turns on and off the backlight for battery saving.
Future tweaks will consist of dumping the 9v battery for 4x aa rechargeables and a trickle charge circuit which will run when switched over to external power source & The connector on the back will be hooked upto various commonly used ports on the pic board ..so that this unit can be flashed with other firmwares and instantly be used to work with new hardware being built ...or for that matter to test / diagnose exhisting hardware.
..oh and a led circuit to indicate low battery level will be implimented.. this & some of the above will be useful for all midi box projects running from batterys :)
The mounting bracket on the back makes for a useful stand ...but could also allow for seccure mounting in the future..
Got afew more of these boxes ..and i really should put them to use with other dinky projects here :)
If you see them for sale anywhere ...pick them up ..they make for a cheap source of lcds & a good case to build simple projects like this one ;)
Admin.. please feel free to move this post to the appropriate section ...the midibox gallery i guess ..tho i wasnt sure if i had the permissions to sumbit my own postings in there.
Ta, ta for now ...on with other things next.
