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

Paper models of the front and rear panels and associated PCB for the MIDIbox SID-NUXX.

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.

MIDIbox SID-NUXX Paper Rear Panel Test Fitting

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.

MIDIbox SID-NUXX Rear Panel Beta
(Click for full res view…)

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.