Hrm. I got stuff done today. Personal stuff, but stuff none the less:

· MIDIbox SID-NUXX PCBs ordered: v1.0 S1 (photo gallery retired) (S1 means ‘set one’, as in, the first set of boards I ordered)
· MIDIbox SID-NUXX Bill of Materials mostly published to the forthcoming wiki, which will eventually become all of nuxx.net.
· Watched STS-121 lift off and reach orbit.
· Made more iced tea, and drank almost all of it.

Getting the PCBs to the state of ordering took a lot of time. Much of it involved manually looking over parts and ensuring things are exactly what I wanted, and that they fit. Then the documentation… Waiting for the online DFM check… Needing to eat… Writing a new CAM job… etc.

Anyway, yeah. Now it’s time for bed.

MIDIbox SID-NUXX PCB (In Progress…)
(Click for 300dpi version.)

Ah. It’s finally coming along. I’ve redrawn the schematic (image no longer available) and laid out the board. Now comes the few days of tweaking and polishing and validating that everything seems to be right. Then… The scary part. That is, the day when I plunk down $80 or so to have five of those boards made. And hopefully I’ll have done everything right and they’ll work.

So, yeah. It’s coming along well. I’ve also got all of the basic parts here for the front panel, so I can begin laying that out. That will take a slightly different approach, because I have to fit this LCD, a rotary encoder (or two buttons), six buttons, and two LEDs in the front panel of something about the size of an external hard drive enclosure. Oh, and build a simple board so it can all be connected with a few simple cables.

If you can’t tell, yes, I’m looking forward to it. I really like doing this kind of stuff.

MIDIbox SID-LC v1.0-PROTO PCB Layout Draft 1
(Click for 300dpi version…)

Wow, I didn’t think I would get this finished tonight, but… Well… I have. This is the first draft of the PCB layout for the MIDIbox SID-LC v1.0-PROTO. That is, the first draft of the design for the prototype for the MIDIbox SID kit I’m hoping to produce and sell.

While it is true that I’ve already built a working SID-based synthesizer (photo gallery retired), I want something a bit more. So, I’ve come up with this… It’s a bunch of the MIDIbox modules all squished on to one board. Basically, this is everything one needs to build a MIDIbox SID Step A (Basic Control Surface) on one easy to assemble board.

I’m feeling pretty tired now, so I think I’ll head to bed. Well, as soon as I make a backup of all that work.

Suffice to say, I’m pretty happy that things have come this far… Now I just need to order a complete set of parts for it, confirm that they all fit the on-paper layout, then order a set of prototype boards.

If that all goes well, then I’ll start seriously looking into what it will take to assemble 50 or 100 kits and sell them.