Category electronics

So, Friday morning, or was it Thursday night, I received a bunch of information (two massive pieces of email, in fact) from Scott at PAiA about troubleshooting a FatMan. After running down voltages and checking to be sure I didn’t have any cold solder points, I decided to swap EPROMs with another FatMan I have here. (It’s a friends and I’m looking into fixing it up.) I had tried swapping the microprocessor earlier, because I had suspected that to be a problem, but it wasn’t. This time, on suggestion from Scott at PAiA, I did, and poof, the problem was gone. So it looks like either I have a blank, or at least misburned, EPROM.

I just sent off some email to PAiA asking for another EPROM. Hopefully this one will work fine… Thus far I’m finding them to have great customer support and nice kits that are easy to assemble, but a bit of a problem packing the orders. Missing parts, unburned EPROMs, etc. They seem good about replacing bits as needed, but it still shouldn’t happen in the first place.

So, as soon as I get the new EPROM, I can get the thing tuned up and ready for use. Whee!

Today I feel defeated by…

…a synthesizer kit!

I’m trying to think of what to check, but it’s just. not. coming.

All ICs seem to be receiving appropriate voltages on the pins you’d expect power to be coming in on.

Something seems weird with the voltage regulator ICs, but I might be metering them wrong, I think.

< sigh >

Next is to ask the smart people at PAiA for help.

So I got the PAiA FatMan assembled… And it doesn’t work. The power LED lights, the MIDI LED blinks when a signal is sent, nothing smokes, but it just doesn’t work. Needless to say, I’m slightly disappointed. I’m going to email PAiA with a link to all the photos. Hopefully they’ll be able to help me out or something.

Can anyone recommend a good brand/model of digital multimeter? I’ve got a decent Radio Shack-braded Fluke knock-off, but I’m having mild concerns about it’s accuracy. I don’t want to spend too much, but some nicer tools would be handy.

Due to a lack of something to do, I’m *really* tempted to pick up a Paia Fatman (with the desktop case) and putting it together. Hopefully it won’t take too long… I think it’d be kinda disappointing if I wrap the whole thing up in ~8 hours. heh.

One update on the last post… If anyone needs some decent-quality RCA interconnects, I’ll make them and charge only parts. Other people going in on cable will let me afford the slightly larger spool. (500′ is only 3x the cost of 100′) Let me know ASAP.