The Anger Generator

Managed to track down the parts to make the Optimised Power Supply for the Midibox SID (or Anger Generator as I call it).
There was one part which I wasnt able to get and that was the B40C800 bridge rectifier. I tried making my own one out of diodes but it made my head hurt. First attempt at building it was a massive failure so I decided to start from scratch today and have been much more successful.
It didnt help that it seems the more visual schematic I was using had the 5v+ pin on the power marked wrong. A bit of prodding with the multi meter soon sorted out that problem.
Giving up on making a bridge rectifier out of diodes I used a DB104 bridge rectifier, which is rated slightly higher (.2amps and 60v) than the B40800 but this is just a max rating so Ive been advised by nILS that this should be fine.
There is one rather unusual thing, in that on the 14v power line Im getting 9.02v. When I put the multi-meter on the output of the bridge rectifier I get just over 12v. Im not sure if maybe the bridge rectifier is dropping 5v out of it somehow,but I thought that would generate quite a bit of heat, and the bridge rectifier doesnt seem to be getting hot. Becuase the power before the rectifier in the circuit is AC I cant really measure it properly to see what the supply is outputting.
Now as I will be using an 8580R5 SID chip the SID power only needs to be 9v. This would normally be regulated by a resistor on the SID module board but Im wondering if now I can just leave that resistor out. I will have to talk to one of the more learned on Midibox.org to see if anyone has any ideas.
I have tried 2 different power supplies, and even though one of the power supplies makes a disturbing buzzing noise, I get the exact same voltage out of it.
Its progress at least, my soldering is getting alot tidier with all this practice and Im getting pretty decent at de-soldering :)
Click the pic for more.

More parts arrivals, de soldering etc

Had a bunch more stuff show up. The complete commodore 64 that I had origionally planned to pillage for parts, the 3 power supplies and the LCD screens.
Decided I dont really need to pull the c64 appart now, I have enough power sockets and switches off the rfacemotherboards I bought so I will keep that complete as a momento for now.
Slight prpoblem with the crystalfontz order, I had ordered a red 20x4, a green 20x4 and a green 20x2. They sent me a 20x4 instead of the 20x2, which is the one I had intended to use for the minimal control surface so not really sure what to do. The shipping cost involved in sending it back to replace it will be huge so I have to think about if I want to do the minimal control surface with the 20x4. Im not really sure what the software implications will be as far as the 4 button interface so will have to do a bit more research.

Also got stuck into some de-soldering and managed to get the power socket and switch off one of the motherboards. It was my first experience of de-soldering and the 20 year old solder did not want to give up its bounty. Finally managed to get the solder all sucked out and the parts off, Im sure it will be alot easier next time.

Tried to get some of the parts for the optimised power supply today. Headed down to Jaycar with a parts list and didnt have much luck. The bins are really poorly labelled and organised and the staff arent much use. Ended up comming home and finding the parts on the Jaycar site. Its worth the $5 shipping to not have to deal with the useless staff there.

Got more pics to upload, will do that tommorow, off out to Sonic Tonics 3rd birthday tonight !

More orders

The refund from http://www.voti.nl/ finally came through on my credit card so I have placed the order again for:


21 x SW-ROT-01 €18.48 EUR

9 x EE-24LC512-DIP €28.35 EUR
shipping €8.40 EUR
Total €55.23 EUR

The rotary encoders will give me enough to build a complete control surface for one mb_6582 a simple control surface for the simple single SID im building first. theres enough also that I can hopefully expand the control surface on the single SID to include at least a filter section.
The eeproms will give me enough to build a single chip banktsick prototype that will store 128 patches and then also a full 8 chip bankstick to store patches, ensembles etc.

CrashTV was saying in chat the other day that he will probably get my order for MB_6582 baseboards, controll boards, core module and SID module shipped today so hopefully will be able to start construction next week.

More arrivals

Another 2 packages today. The first one is the 3 motherboards I bought on ebay the second is the important one, the 10 6582A SID chips!
All of them brand new old stock and manufactured in the same week, week 23 of 1992.
The 6582 SID chip is by most considered to be the best and most stable SID, with the bet signal to noise ratio, made by MOS and CSG. Though there is something to be said for the less stable nature of the 6581 as its the original character of the SID sound and is the most widespread. Unfortunatly though recovered SIDs often have faulty oscillators or filters.
The 6582 was never released in production c64s, they were a replacement part.

Flickr blog posting still isnt working so you can head over to flickr to check out the pics, heres a bit of SID porn for you....

Click for the full set

First parts arrived.

So I got my first delivery of parts last night. It was the PT-10 cases from PacTec.
There are some MAJOR scratches on the aluminium faceplate but its not really a concern as I wont be using those faceplates anyway. Still, pretty poor form.
I have pics on Flickr but the blog posting from flickr doesnt seem to be working. Even test posts fail.

Click below for the full photoset



Also, the order I placed at http://www.voti.nl/ was refunded to allow me to add some 24LC512 banksticks to the order. Of course now I have to wait about 3 days for the refund to show on my card so I can place the correct order. At least it didnt kill my paypal account this time.

The happenings so far.

I have been keeping a log of whats been going on with trying to source parts. It was origionally just going to be a build log to keep a record of the time and money I had spent building these but thought I might as well keep a complete record, including all the painful dealings with Paypal and overseas parts distributors.

Heres what I had so far:

Midibox Build Log

15/09/08 Purchase 2x Mainboards, 2x Control Surface Boards, 200 green 3mm LEDs and 200 red 3mm LEDs from SmashTV for $100us + $3 handling and $33.87 shipping for a total of $136.87us

15/09/08 Won auction online for 3x E-boards from C64s with 8580R5 SID Chips. $49us. Waiting to find out the shipping cost.

15/09/08 Bought PacTec PT-10 Case from nz.farnel.com for $45.51nz +$10nz shipping. Total $55.51nz

16/09/08 Bought 10 new 6582A SID chips from ebay. £128.50uk including shipping.

16/09/08 Decided to build a standard single SID midibox SID with simple control surface as a test and to test the SIDs I have bought. emailed SmashTV to ordered the following from SmashTV to build this:
1 x 02 Core KIT with PIC18F4685. Pic header "0000000000000012" 1 x 06 DIN KIt 1 x 13a SID Kit

17/09/08 Got a response from SmashTV. He advised the best way to add to the order was to refund the order and create a new one The order was refunded but now have a problem with PayPal. Not able to complete and order on http://www.avishowtech.com/ now, I have contacted PayPal. 9 emails so far. No response. Was able to pay for the SIDs using PayPal fine.

18/09/08 Ordered 3x LCDs from http://www.crystalfontz.com/: CFAH2004ARMIJT: 1 @ $30.29 = $30.29 - Parallel Character LCD 20x4 - RoHS Compliant - Red LED Backlight - STN Negative, Blue - Transmissive -20°C - +70°C 6:00
CFAH2002AYMIJT: 1 @ $26.00 = $26.00 - Parallel Character LCD 20x2(CFAH2002A-YMI-JP) - (CFAH2002A-YMI-JT may be substituted) - RoHS Compliant - Yellow/Green LED Backlight - STN Negative, Blue - Transmissive -20°C - +70°C 6:00
CFAH2004AYTIJT: 1 @ $34.63 = $34.63 - Parallel Character LCD 20x4 - RoHS Compliant - Yellow/Green LED Backlight - FSTN Negative - Transmissive -20°C - +70°C 6:00 Waiting to hear back about shipping cost. Expecting it to be ALOT.

18/09/08 Called Farnell to fidn out what was going on with the Pactec PT-10. Was advised that minimum order was 24 units for this part and that there would be a 4 week lead time.

18/09/08 Added my name to a bulk order list on midibox.org for 20 red and 20 grey waldorf knobs

18/09/08 Ordered 2x PT-10s directly from PacTec on thier website for $62.61us including shipping

18/09/09 Made the order wtih SmashTV using Azzas Paypal account. Ordered:
1 CORE KIT, OP1=With PIC18F4685 9.95, OP2=0000 0000 0000 0000, SHP=New Zealand-Express Item # id02 $24.95 USD 1 DIN KIT Item # id06 $12.00 USD 1 SID KIT Item # id13a $15.00 USD 1 6582 BASE PCB Item # id72 $20.00 USD 1 6582 CS PCB Item # id73 $20.00 USD 2 LED3MMRED Item # id44 $10.00 USD 2 LED3MMGRN Item # id43 $10.00 USD
Amount $111.95 USD
18/09/08 Recieved the invoice for the knobs. Wasnt able to pay it due to the same PayPal error that I recieved for SmashtTV
19/09/08 Created a new paypal account, associated my credit card with it and test order to crash worked ok. Emailed Goblinz to ask him to send me a new invoice to that address. Paypal suck.

19/09/08 Got notification from Pactec that my cases have shipped ! Also got an email from Crystalfontz. Total including shipping is $135.92US.

22/09/08 Bought 3x c64 power supplies from ebay for $75AU including postage.

23/09/08 Paid 48.12 GBP for 30 Red and 30 Grey Waldorf knobs.

23/09/08 Bought 20 rotary encoders from http://www.voti.nl/ for $26 euro including shipping of 8.60

Ta da !

Decided to make a blog about my synth construction antics.
I am currently sourcing parts to build a few different synths.
I have managed to source just about everything for the first one, which I will use to get familiar with the midibox architecture ebfore delving into the MB_6482.

1. Prototype Midibox SID.
-single SID chip
-simple control surface
-bankstick
-2x20 LCD display

2.MB_6482
-8 SID Chips
-complete control surface
-bankstick
-4x40 LCD Display

3. x0xb0x Roland TB-303 clone.