Hey,
5 seconds after I turn LC on, LCD goes blank, 7805 gets very hot. I disconnected motors, and dout modules just before, as they started acting wierd. some of the buttons stopped working yesturday. Maybe I’ve got a short somewhere, I’ll take another look.
when I disconnect all but the pots, it works
goin to bed now, I’ll have a look 2morrow bye
I think the stupid LCD needs insulated mounting on metal panel… drives me crazy
OK,
There was a short between a fader connection and the panel… a real dead short across the 5v regulator!
but now for the next problem… since I put the thing in a case, jitter has gone crazy… the motorfaders are very erratic now, they don’t even make it to their positions when they are under power, before they stall due to false jitter, I think
Can someone tell me if I’m on the right track?? I’m about to try the mf calibration tool. It’s wierd, all was fine before I put it into a case. Maybe the aluminum panel is reflecting the RF from the PIC back into the analogue inputs??
any replies appreciated 
from Steve
I’ve been playing with the calibration app, sometimes a few of the faders get left behind. Maybe I need to increase the voltage above the manufacturer’s recommendations??
Did you pull the case to ground?
Maybe a stupid question, but whatever, you know.
Hey pay_c,
 thanks for the reply, it helped!! (sometimes it is a simple overlook) I shortened the ground strap, now its better, but the faders still often get left behind. I think I’ll still need to reduce the resolution of the PIC’s ain a bit.
 bye, from Steve
oh yeah… I remember something about an option to change the way the motorfaders hunt for the positions… quick/accurate… will I find this in the code for LC somewhere? or is this unneccessary?
oh yeah.. a hint for those starting out with LC… download the manual first, and don’t play round with features you don’t know how to use for this program (had to reinstall logic, after I stuffed up all my settings!! now the flip mode works, you have to manually select this in LC preferences)
thanks all!! bye, from Steve 
I just found a solution, I think…
I rounded up some of my midi gear… merger, through box, synth, and made a chain, to create a delay. I put this in line with the output of the LC, to delay Logic recieving the slider positions, as unwanted transmissions happen before the mfader gets a chance to move to it’s correct positions, stalling the fader. The LC behaved a lot better. (was unuseable before)
Now, I want to know if there is a way of putting a short midi delay in the code somewhere, or does someone know where the stray midi data is coming from?? As I mentioned earlier, the errors increase when I bolt the faders to the front panel, and reduce when I remove them. I have shortened the earth strap as much as I can, which helped (the panel is earthed)
thanks, from Steve
Okay,
 I isolated the faders from the panel, using masking tape, nylon washers and bolts… and guess what… It works much much better now!  :D This is a bit wierd, as the cases of the motorfaders are insulated from the actual electrical parts of the motorfaders, but then electronics is wierd sometimes…
 It also works better after removing the delay! ;D I also realised it is better to have a smaller deadband on the motor than on the analogue inputs. 
 Thanks go to my buddy Kieth, who told me to get away from earth loops and keep away from joining dissimilar metals as much as possible. Now this guy really is an electronics freak… get this… he even has a TV station in his house!!! with a multicamera studio (in the kitchen) a control room (not sure what room it used to be) and a transmitter in the garage!
http://welcome.to/TelevisionGladesville/
http://www.zeta.org.au/~richardm/RadioClubs/gladesville/Photos.html
occasionally the faders will stop at the wrong spot, so any more suggestions would be very welcome!! (obviously!!)
bye, from Steve
another thing… how can I stop the faders from buzzing at the end of their travel… The panasonic faders do not seem to have a neutral zone (land at each end of resistive strip that is 0v or 5v) like other faders, a resistive strip all the way… the faders motors are still buzzing away when they hit the bottom of the fader’s travel
what are the hole centres for mounting alps faders??
and what about that fast fader stopping near the correct position, but not quite?? where did I read that??
sorry for replying to myself again, but I’m obsessed with this thing, and I’ve been working on it for 2 days straight!! :o
hmmm must be an 18F thang??
my panasonics are sweet (no buzzing) on the 16F
Im still too scared to try the 18F again
Mmmmm…so I’m not the only one who replies to thier own posts
Sorry I can’t be of help Steve. I sure am making note of your adventures though ;D
Hey Matt…harden up :o :o
;)Ian
So what problems with the 18F have you had, LO?
I’d be happy to help if I can!!
BTW, what platform/software are you using??
I’m about to have another look at that buzzing problem again, maybe its something I don’t expect…
So LO is into hiphop… so what are you into Ian??
grrrrr.. grumble… grumble…
shuddup  Ian just cause your a …wanna-be mios geek
18F and SID workin real nice
18F and motor faders couldnt even get then to move!
So ive gone back to the 16F for a while so I can actually use this thing thats taken so long to build! its great
I will go back to the 18F just not yet, cheers for the offer tho
XP pro, Cubase SX
So your real name is Matt I see!
well… I haven’t used SX yet, but one of my old classmates reckons it kicks protools…
about the panasonics..
under the LC…after countless hours of constant tweaking I have found that the following settings have worked the best so far…
motor voltage 7.1v (yes, 2.1v above manufacturers specs… I hope I don’t kill them prematurely… What voltage are others using??)
mf deadband…3
ain deadband…7
faderbodies insulated from front panel (wierd…but works better)
I tried earthing the front panel to the case of my pc…but this created more problems, now there is no common earth at all! (maybe the wire was too long)
ground strap from pcb to front panel, as short as possible
fader speed in main.asm… default (I think it is already set to the fastest??)
tried running off batteries, may have worked slightly better, but not worth it, as the voltage changes over time, would give inconsistent results.
OK, the thing is behaving much better, only occasionally does a fader get left behind, or move slightly to the wrong spot when changing banks… almost always going down, suggesting a possible small dc offset problem?? but I’m kinda using terms that I don’t know the meaning of here!!
I think the reason that my motors keep going, even when they are at the bottom of their travel is because of a dc offset problem also… as when I move the fader down to the bottom by hand, they only go down to -100dB or so… very rarely will they go to -00dB, or is this a problem of my setting of 7 deadband… creating a 7 bit resolution for software that is expecting 10bit?? I still have a gut feeling that a dc offset adjustment may help me… does anybody with electronic skills know how to do this?? (if no one replies, I’ll just ask one of my electrical engineer friends!!.. they are handy to have!!)
many, many thanks go to all who have helped on this great project, over the last couple of years… Thorsten, Greg, Dimitris, and the other guys who started experiments with motorfaders/encoders, Axel (for inspiration!!) Ian, LO, Basta 73, pay_c and many many more people that I can’t think of their names right now!! Thanks Mum, for putting up with the sound of my PC fan all day!!
Thanks to all the PCB people too.
Thanks to my sponsors, and my pit crew, and all the fans!! Thanks to dunlop for the tyres!
Thanks to everyone who makes this site/forum the best thing on the internet!!
have fun everyone bye from Steve (I’ll probably reply to myself again shortly)
Thanks to emagic for Logic! (please bring back the PC version!! :P)
you crack me up dude
;D