The reason for the short…

I thought this project would be completed tonight. I guess not.

That right there is what I found after removing the power connector from my final MIDIbox SID-NUXX PCB. That small bridge between the annular ring and the groundplane just happens to be on one of the AC power lines, and that has cooked two of my wall wart type power supplies. This isn’t a huge deal, but I was looking forward to having everything done tonight. Now, beyond trying to fix or replace the two bad PSs I need to unbox and check over the boards in both of the kits I’d assembled. < sigh >

For reference, that photo is the same area as the three large holes in the outline labeled PWR in this photo.

I guess they’ll go out in a few days. I don’t want to risk this with them, though. Mine will be easy (enough) to fix with a Dremel, as will the others if there are problems. I doubt there will be any found, but I’d rather that I find them now than have other people be stuck with potential weirdness.

Also, I’ve learned to put self-resetting fuses in all my power supply designs from now until forever. Not that this would have helped here (if I’m thinking right the short really took place between ground on the bridge rectifier and half the AC signal), but it still should be done.

Ah well.

At least Danielle and I swung by the cider mill today and grabbed six gallons of Yates finest. Five of these are sitting in a sanitized carboy in the basement having recently received a room-temp yeast inoculation. With any luck there will be wee bits of foam on the surface in the morning, and tomorrow I’ll have a fully active fermentation. Now to decide what to do with the cider. Thus far it only has yeast, yeast nutrients, and two pounds of honey in it. I’m thinking maybe a few (five?) pounds of berries would do well. Blackberries would be nice, but maybe strawberries…

Now, bed.

So, today the MIDIbox SID-NUXX metal panels came in. Everything is great, except when assembling the last one — my 8580 — the external power supply dies.

I do a bit more testing, find the PS to be giving out only a few mW, so I grab another one. That one dies.

Turns out the thing somehow has a hard short between one of the AC pins and ground. I have no idea why, unless the PCB is somehow defective, right below the switch. So, tomorrow I have to do some more digging. < sigh >

Now, off to the post office. No, the synth kits aren’t going out tonight, but I have to send some x0xb0x artwork to someone, and I said I’d do it today.

Well, I finally calculated the price for the MIDIbox SID-NUXX’s, parts only. Looks like it’s ~$197.54 for the enclosure and ~$82.57 for the main PCB, all parts, and power supply. Of course the actual cost was a lot more because of all the development work done and such, but that’s all part of the fun. :)

I should be getting the front and rear panels for it all (the most expensive parts) tonight, so if things go according to plan I’ll have my two and ‘s assembled tonight, and I’ll be able to post the ones to and tomorrow. Woo!

The breakdown of prices can be seen on the Mainboard and Enclosure pages. I’m still updating things here and there, but most of the information is stable.

Huh, so it looks like I’ve got one of the last P3s:

Folks,

There is a news update just posted to the Sequentix web page, which I'll quickly summarise here...

I am ceasing production of P3 after the current run has sold out.

The production cost of P3 in its current form has proved to be much too expensive.
With the benefit of experience, I believe I can design a replacement that will be more efficient to produce, and which can be assembled entirely under sub-contract.
But I'm not able to devote the necessary time to that adventure while I'm still putting P3s together.
I expect to take a few more weeks to assemble the remaining units I have parts for, and after that, there will be a hiatus of at least a few months while I get the new unit ready for production.

This does not mean the end of support for P3.
I fully intend to finish off the remaining few things I want to add to the P3 OS, and will be just as fastidious in clearing up any unlikely bugs that may emerge.

The last few P3s will be available though the usual suppliers, at the same unrealistically low price as before.

I'd like to thank all P3 owners for their support and feedback over the past year, and welcome any suggestions you might have for the future Sequentix sequencer.

Best regards,
Colin Fraser
Sequentix Music Systems Ltd
http://www.sequentix.com

(Taken from the analogue-sequencer Yahoo! Group.)

The first round of 9090 parts are here. There are tubes of IC sockets longer than my forearm.

Last night I ordered the first round of parts for the PCBs for the TR-9090 I mentioned yesterday. After ordering just the resistors, sockets, diodes, on-board pin headers, and transistors there are 852 parts to be installed, totaling 2546 solder points. This does not count any caps, nor any of the bits from the front panel, MIDI, audio out, etc.

And strangely, Mouser bumped the shipping up to UPS next-day air. I’m not sure why… I think they are dragging their feet a bit on the shipping (overloaded?) so that’s being done to ensure there isn’t a huge delay. No bother, I’ve got other things to do in the mean time.

TR-9090 Main PCBs (Click for large versions…)

Now that the Sequentix P3 is done I’ve begun thinking about the next project. A few months back I purchased a PCB set for Trevor Page’s 9090, which is a clone of the synth part of the classic Roland TR-909.

As you can see from the PCBs above, it’s not going to be very simple to build. Additionally, the kit came with just the PCBs, ROMs, and microcontroller. All the other parts need to be sourced myself, and the only thing I have to work from is this PDF parts list. That is, no part numbers, no sums of numbers of parts needed, etc. Designing the case will probably be the most interesting part. I’m hoping to put it in a sloped-front metal enclosure something like one of these, but I’m still not sure yet. For now I’m going to build the boards, figure out the clearances I need, then work from there.

Well, actually, for now I’m going to keep building the part lists…

There are around 92 discreet transistors. And more than 50 IC sockets are needed. This isn’t going to be cheap, either.