PULSELOOPER
Offline
São Paulo, Brazil

hi folks!

Yesterday I finally started building an arduinoboy with a friend who already built some stuff with arduino, but we´re having a hard time with this one.

We followed the Trash80´s schematics at google code, built it with a protoboard, but here what happens: when arduinoboy is powered on, the leds blink and then the second yellow led (left to right) keeps turned on. So, I send midi clock from ableton live to arduino and all the leds start blinking (one after one, non-stop) and the dmg with LSDJ keeps synching and de-synching (the LSDJ screens keeps showing, "wait"-"synch"-"wait"-"synch").

The good thing is (I think), midi clock is being received by the arduino. Looks like it´s a communication problem between arduino and the dmg. Tonight I´ll check all the wires again and see if it´s not some bad contact issue. But if this happened to anyone and someone could help me in advance, it´d be beautiful.

thanks!

Last edited by PULSELOOPER (Feb 3, 2010 1:08 pm)

low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

double and triple check your wiring. i'm almost 100% sure it's human error.

PULSELOOPER
Offline
São Paulo, Brazil

thanks low-gain. i´ll sure do that. all the parts are there, it must be a "duh" error.

i´ll post the results here.

NeX
Offline

does sound like some how you have either got some code wrong some how, or you have wired it in some way where the button is being triggered by the clock, and so it is changing mode on clock pulse,

luizirber
Offline

Hello all. I'm pulselooper friend, the one who's helping him to build the arduinoboy. Communication between arduino and gameboy is working, and when arduinoboy is in LSDJ Slave Mode it works (so MIDI In is working too), but we can't figure what is happening with MIDI Out. We put arduinoboy in LSDJ Master Mode, and LSDJ starts playing, but there's no MIDI signal in MIDI Out.

I don't have an oscilloscope, so I used a voltimeter to see it was any difference in the signal (dumb, I know, but you need to use what you have big_smile). The GND is 0V, the other two are +5V (4.83V, to be more precise) in standby. When LSDJ is started, voltage drop to 4.7V, so I guess arduino is sending the signals. But no MIDI events are registered.

So, we managed to do the complicated part (and it did take some time to understand the optoisolator), but the easy part is not working. Any guess?

Trash80
Offline
Los Angeles

I have a few suggestions. (and I think your wiring is correct)

1. Use a Midi serial program to see what your sending as a midi clock and no other note data is present, mind you this shouldnt be a problem but LSDJ slave mode has features to allow you to start/stop the sequence with MIDI notes on channel 16. Also it would be nice to know that the sync signal is indeed solid and working as it should.

2. Check the battery life of the Gameboy in question. Usually all of my funky weird results had to do with low battery life on the Gameboy.

3. It could also be the Gameboy or the atmel chip. since there is no electronics from the atmel chip to the Gameboy the only thing that could interfere would be a loose cable connection, a ground short, or a internal issue on the GB itself.

Trash80
Offline
Los Angeles

also note the mode:

Led 1: LSDJ Slave Sync mode, have LSDJ listen/sync to a midi clock
Led 2: LSDJ Master sync, have LSDJ send midi clock
Led 3: LSDJ keyboard mode
Led 4: Nanoloop slave sync mode, have nanoloop listen/sync to clock
Led 5: mGB mode