D3LL
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Florida

I have a midines that's been giving me trouble.  It's functional for about 5 seconds before the screen glitches and the program freezes.  After the program freezes, it is still possible to switch modes, but midi input is completely unresponsive.  Wayfar's website says to check the 72 pin, and make sure the edge board is clean.  The edge board is clean, and all other games work well so I'm rather stumped.

If anyone else has encountered this problem or has an idea on how to fix it, it would be greatly appreciated.  I can also post a video showing exactly what the screen does.

2PLAYER
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Rhode Island

Only issues I have had with mine have been related to my NES. The couple things I would check would be;
Is the midines board loose? The pins might not be making good contact with the connector in the NES.
Does the midi cable look like it is still fully connected to the board?
Is the cable itself frayed or is the din damaged?
Do you get any strange response from your midi out to any other midi instrument?

e.s.c.
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IL, US

weird suggestion: when powering on your devices, what order do you use? i remember getting issues with midines functionality if i had the midi connected to anything while i powered things up, so i started powering my nes on first (with the midi cable not connected to anything), then all my other devices and then connecting the midi cable as my final step of setting things up. i think many midi devices tend to send a little bit of junk data over midi when they are being powered on, which the midines sometimes reacts poorly to

Last edited by e.s.c. (Jun 11, 2015 12:38 pm)

sugar sk*-*lls
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nashville,tn
e.s.c. wrote:

weird suggestion: when powering on your devices, what order do you use? i remember getting issues with midines functionality if i had the midi connected to anything while i powered things up, so i started powering my nes on first (with the midi cable not connected to anything), then all my other devices and then connecting the midi cable as my final step of setting things up. i think many midi devices tend to send a little bit of junk data over midi when they are being powered on, which the midines sometimes reacts poorly to


Yeah this is definitely true. Sometimes I've found I need to hook it up to a regular midi controller first and then up to my iOS dock to get it to work.

D3LL
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Florida

I tried powering the MIDINES with and without midi plugged in beforehand with no results.  The din looks to be in good shape, and the board is not loose nor dirty.  So far I have only tried using the midines with a keyboard, which doesn't seem to be the problem, but I have no other means of testing it, as my usb to midi cable is male and the midines is male.

herr_prof
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You can get a midi coupler at radio shack. What keyboard are you using? Maybe its sending active sensing or something like that that crashes midines.

D3LL
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Florida

I took a couple videos and pictures as well.  Hopefully they help explain what is going on.

Troubleshooting the MIDINES by sending/not sending midi and watching the response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zJoG-5rJLQ

A closer view of the screen while the image garbles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFOBSSJmn6Q

And then images of the midines cartridge:




Should the midi input be grounded? I know that midi doesn't use the majority of the pins on a din jack but on other projects like the arduinoboy grounds are used.

D3LL
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Florida
herr_prof wrote:

You can get a midi coupler at radio shack. What keyboard are you using? Maybe its sending active sensing or something like that that crashes midines.

Some old Roland keyboard not really designed to be a midi keyboard. I recently bought the MIDINES knowing that it did not work though, although I was under the pretense the problem was the cable.  The cartridge hasn't been damaged in any way though, it simply doesn't work properly.

So while I should probably use something besides the keyboard, I know that the keyboard is not the root of the problem.

2PLAYER
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Rhode Island

One test case you should do is unplugged, midines in, power on. See if it fizzles out.

Last edited by 2PLAYER (Jun 11, 2015 4:43 pm)

herr_prof
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D3LL wrote:

So while I should probably use something besides the keyboard, I know that the keyboard is not the root of the problem.

I wouldnt be so sure. Try hooking the keyboard up to a usb midi monitor on your computer and see if it sends lots of active sensing data;
http://www.rolandus.com/support/knowled … /201936539

Midines can be really sensitive to midi floods.

D3LL
Offline
Florida
2PLAYER wrote:

One test case you should do is unplugged, midines in, power on. See if it fizzles out.

It does fizzle out

2PLAYER
Offline
Rhode Island
herr_prof wrote:

Midines can be really sensitive to midi floods.

This is what I was thinking and why I asked if it craps out even when the midi keyboard is not plugged in. It does, so the keyboard isn't the issue (at least not the main issue).

herr_prof
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yea sounds like something is fucky with the cart for sure.

2PLAYER
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Rhode Island

yup. dont know if it helps much but one thing I did notice on your videos was that it was always taking 8 seconds from power on to failure. so its likely a faulty component crapping out after that time. sorry i cant be much more help.

D3LL
Offline
Florida

Alright, I planned to reflow some of the solder since nothing else is doing anything anyways.

The One Electronic
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Detroit

can someone reverse engineer this already so we can make a better version