Uhm… Wow. The Crystalfontz CFAP2002A-Y-ECS PLED / OLED Module looks absolutely amazing. The power draw from it is also amazingly minimal. It’s just… Wow. Yeah. I can’t wait to see this in the finished synths. :D
Oh, here’s another photo of the display from much closer if you’d like: Crystalfontz CFAP2002A-Y-ECS PLED / OLED Module
There we go, the three MIDIbox SID-NUXXs which I’m assembling.
The top one is
The other two are mine, with the top one being a 12V version for a 6581 SID, and the bottom being 9V for an 8580. Neither of these have been fitted with their socketed ICs, and I also left out the resistors which control LED brightness. Of course, this means that neither of mine have been tested, but they should work.
With any luck I’ll have a pair of OLEDs to play with sometime within the next few days. Provided these work as expected, they are what I’ll be using to display things on my MIDIbox SID-NUXXs.
< smile > This is finally all coming together.
Well, the herbs are growing quite well. There’s parsley, green onion, dill, and basil almost fully grown. In fact, the basil has begun flowering. The small sprouts between the green onion and basil are cilantro, which I planted a few weeks ago. Hopefully that’ll grow nicely as well.
Now, what to do with it all… I’ve got no use for that much parsley, but the basil could become some great peso. If I only had cheese…
Ah well, I’ll worry about that later. For now I’m going to go finish building the last MIDIbox SID-NUXX PCB, the one for my MOS 6581-based box.
Yay! Leave it up to me to screw up yet something else on this synth project…
1) The black screws from McMaster-Carr are a bit larger than I’d figured, so they won’t sit quite right in the holes on the front panel. And since I want them to match on both panels… Well… I need to try and cancel the orders tomorrow, then resubmit them.
2) I ordered a $9 bag of 4-40 bolts with captive lock washers. Not bad… Except I needed 6-32. I must have clicked the wrong fscking thing. :\
Ah well…
I have just ordered the last of the parts needed for building the first MIDIbox SID-NUXX. Provided everything goes as planned I will simply have to wait for the parts to arrive, then assemble the synth. If that goes as planned, I can build one for Bryan, a second one for myself, then determine what will be done with the other two PCB sets. :D
Oh, I had to pull a weird hack to order the front panel PCBs. It will require me to cut out the center of each board, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Now I’m going home. :D
Making paper models of the mechanical parts for things is really handy. For example, the bottom two ones up above there helped me identify a problem with the alignment of the LCD and pushbuttons. Takes about 20 minutes to make, works out really well. Those bottom two are the front panel itself, and the PCB which is sandwhiched between the LCD and the front panel, in order to hold the LEDs, rotary encoder, and pushbuttons.
Oh, and yes, this project is starting to wrap up. As soon as I finalize the design for the front panel and order the parts, it’s all a matter of waiting. Then provided the parts all fit together, it’s all then a matter of final assembly and documentation and the MIDIbox SID-NUXX will be complete.
Huh. Imagine that. It fits.
That’s the paper version of the rear panel for the MIDIbox SID-NUXX being test fit before I order a metal one. I’m pretty surprised that it fits, but… I must have done something right earlier. I may make the Audio In / Out jack holes a little larger just to be safe. And I also want to reword the copyright stuff along the bottom, I think.
Oh, and those angled white bits at the top are vent holes. They’ll be open in the real panel.
That right there is my proposed idea for the rear panel of the MIDIbox SID-NUXX. The angled slots at the tops are vent holes, the grey rings around the corner holes are countersinks, and the hashed rings around the Audio In and Out holes denote the space taken up by the plastic retaining nuts.
So, what do you think of it?
I’m not sure about the labeling beneath Power, and MIDI In / Thru / Out. I think that maybe it should be moved up a bit… But when the labels aren’t in a straight line, things look odd. Done. I think it looks okay.
I’m also not sure about the ‘MIDIbox SID-NUXX’ text. It should fit in well, because in real life the vent holes should appear dark. But should I have a bit more text beneath it? Maybe www.nuxx.net? Changed this too. I think it still looks all right.
It works. All of it. Everything on the board. Except for one little snag (one part label is printed backwards) the whole thing works as designed.
The input buttons, the LCD, the MIDI LEDs, the memory, all of it.
The voltage regulators run a bit hot (~150ºF when the LCD is connected) when using the 12V SID. Using a 9V one instead should make things a bit better. I don’t like this, but there’s really no easy solution short of using an external switching power supply and redesigning the board. Which I’m not going to do. It’s well within tolerances, though.
I think that next I’ll build a board to handle the 9V SIDs, then I’ll have two complete boards for myself. Then I’ll build either one or two enclosures. I’m also tempted to shove one into someplace interesting… Like a MIDI keyboard. :D
Well, they are here. This means that tonight I’ll be assembling the first of the MIDIbox SID-NUXX Mainboard PCBs. Hopefully they will work. :D
For now I’m going to get some cheese bread from Hungry Howie’s for dinner. I know it’s not healthy, but it’s cheap and easily obtained.
Oh, I need to keep sticking with cheap because I just committed to spending $2525 to have the central air conditioner in my house replaced. This new one should be more efficient and it’ll actually work.
