MiSTer FPGA Forum

d0pefish wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 10:15 am

Filmcriticbeta wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 8:02 am Hi. I bought an MT-32pi hat recently from you. Works like a charm, however I was wondering if there was any recommendations for case/baseplate for a raspberry pi 3a+ that was compatible with your hat?

See the first question under "Miscellaneous" in the FAQ
https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/wik ... rry-pi-3-a

D’Oh!

Well that was a somewhat embarrassing oversight.

Sterbi wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 12:13 pm Hi Nat. Do you have any update about availability of those cables?

Currently with good old Parcel Force, at least they are in the UK now. I expect delivery anytime now.

Due to many requests from my South Korean and German customers I have added the Helios Yellow case, It is a perfect match for the yellow OLED mt32-pi HATs

It's crazy the amount of new orders I have recently been receiving from South Korea. It really is awesome thanks so much for supporting my store, the MiSTer scene must be really taking off there!

Here is a few pictures of the new colour way:

At the beginning of the month, I ordered all of my add-ons from Nat for tomorrow's birthday build and received everything well ahead of time. Everything arrived here in the Netherlands just dandy. It's taken some serious restraint not to rip into everything!

Nat, I absolutely love your regular acrylic covers and how you opted to just scoop out where the button access is. I’d love to see more colours at some point; like pink, purple and even opaque black and opaque white. I'd buy the lot! (I'm such a diva).

Seriously though, black base and trans. purple top, or white base and trans. pink top. That'd be so sick, man. I'd even contemplate building a second MiSTer just so I could rock both combos simultaneously.

I've just received my MT32-pi hat today. Haven't tested it yet, but it looks fantastic. Much smaller than it looks in photos, excellent craftsmanship and really fast shipping. Can't wait to try it (my Pi 3 A+ case should arrive tomorrow, now to order a short USB 3 cable).

I have now received a fair few emails asking for some advance notification on when the next batch of mt32-pi HATs will be on sale, as they sold out so quickly last time. This next batch consists of 30 units of each OLED colour screen version (white, blue, yellow).

mt32-pi orders will be open on Sunday 21/03/2021 @ 2.00pm GMT

Buy an mt32-pi

The last batch of mt32-pi HATs sold out again, this time it was in six hours

Thanks for all the orders! I will have another batch in production shortly as I have enough parts to build another 90 mt32-pi's.

Popular item! Can you confirm that we'll be able to order an MT32-pi cable as a standalone component, then? (when they're available, of course). I bought a hat this round, but it will be nice to be able to connect it to the MiSTer.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0891X229X/ this is the one i bought.. works fine..

Does someone know if there are some extra delays at the moment when sending goods from UK to European Union? It seems that my order left UK 11.03.2021 but after that nothing has happened on tracking.

venalaine wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:04 am Does someone know if there are some extra delays at the moment when sending goods from UK to European Union? It seems that my order left UK 11.03.2021 but after that nothing has happened on tracking.

Sadly yes

Stupid stupid stupid brexit and our excuse for a government's inept attempt at implementing the customs changes means that goods moving in and out of the UK, and particularly to the EU, can be subject to long delays. I had to wait 3 weeks for my DE10 to leave a warehouse in the UK once it arrived from the States a few weeks ago.

Nat wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 8:13 pm I have now received a fair few emails asking for some advance notification on when the next batch of mt32-pi HATs will be on sale, as they sold out so quickly last time. This next batch consists of 30 units of each OLED colour screen version (white, blue, yellow).

Hi Nat,

I've just received the mt32-pi hat from you, I'm very pleased with this cute little thing. But I've got an issue, the synth and button control do work, but the screen doesn't display anything neither on OSD. I've tried playing around with the mt32-pi.cfg file with no result.

Thanks!

Edit: I’ve finally RTFM on GitHub and everything is working like a charm now, my dream retro gaming setup is almost complete!

P.S. I was worrying about the display I've picked, but I'm glad I've chosen yellow.

BigMac2 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:24 pm I'm very pleased with this cute little thing.

Glad you like it, I love mine!

Okay another mt32-pi batch should be available over the weekend, I have been shipping out the orders from the last batch all week and should be finished tomorrow.

So far the most popular OLED colour is white, but my personal favourite is yellow

Just wanted to thank Nat for being a superstar and having next-level customer service. Got my MT32-Pi and replacement power cable (which he forced me to have!!) yesterday and couldn't be happier. Thanks pal!

Just a quick update hopefully giving you plenty of time to put an order in over the UK Easter holiday weekend for an mt32-Pi HAT.

I have completed another batch. All OLED screen colours are in stock but I expect white will sell out quickly as it always does, I also have USB3 male / male cables available to be included with your order should you need one.

Buy your MiSTer mt32-Pi HAT here

Sending more love Nat's way, I upgraded to a 128mb ram module, it arrived promptly and it works flawlessly. Thanks Nat.

allyourbasekris wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:56 am Sending more love Nat's way, I upgraded to a 128mb ram module, it arrived promptly and it works flawlessly. Thanks Nat.

kris's next video will be all about the bad apple demo..

Nat wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:56 pm Buy your MiSTer mt32-Pi HAT here

Nice. I just did, thank you. Also dropped you a quick mail via the contact as well since I'd ordered a new PSU the night before so both can go together to save you on the free shipping if that works out better for you!

excellent, ordered!

@nat gonna order a MT32 and acrylic case. There are so many colours... Do you have photos of the other colours? Like what's the difference between clear and looking glass? Thanks

Edit: The pictures of different colours loads after you select that option. I can see it on Desktop, but on mobile, it didn't happen.

@nat I just received my USB hub, acrylic case and a few other bits. They were very well packaged and everything works just great. Thanks! My bare naked MiSTer looks much classier now. Next up: wireless controls and eventually a mt32-pi, but I'll need to save my pennies a bit for those.

bazza_12 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:12 am

allyourbasekris wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:56 am Sending more love Nat's way, I upgraded to a 128mb ram module, it arrived promptly and it works flawlessly. Thanks Nat.

kris's next video will be all about the bad apple demo..

No videos for a couple of days at least. My computer is currently scattered all over my house while I wait for a new desk to come, my old one kind of fell to bits and dropped a monitor and my camera on me. It's a shame I wasn't filming at the time.

allyourbasekris wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:56 am Sending more love Nat's way, I upgraded to a 128mb ram module, it arrived promptly and it works flawlessly. Thanks Nat.

Thanks, I'm really enjoying your content, the BBS videos really do bring back memories flooding back.

guddler wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 12:27 pm

Nat wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:56 pm Buy your MiSTer mt32-Pi HAT here

Nice. I just did, thank you. Also dropped you a quick mail via the contact as well since I'd ordered a new PSU the night before so both can go together to save you on the free shipping if that works out better for you!

I will make sure both your orders are combined.

No videos for a couple of days at least. My computer is currently scattered all over my house while I wait for a new desk to come, my old one kind of fell to bits and dropped a monitor and my camera on me. It's a shame I wasn't filming at the time.

do a video on putting the new desk together..

My order arrived safely today - thank you!

I'm not sure, but I think I might have been a bit hasty adding an MT-32 to this order. While it would be nice to have the Roland MT32 support for MiSTer cores, I also wanted to used it as a general midi device controlled over USB. Now I realise that this is a custom version of the MT32-pi hat specific to the mister. Can I use it for general midi as well as with the mister, or is it mister only?

[EDIT] And by general MIDI I merely mean trigger it from my Midi keyboard. I believe the MT-32 predates the "general midi" standard coming in?

re: "general-purpose MIDI device":

If you plug a USB MIDI cable into the Pi [NOT THE HAT], you can use it with a MIDI keyboard and play it, although the audio will be sent through the MiSTer unless you change the config to "pwm" (headphone jack).

The next release will also allow sending MIDI over Ethernet/WiFi.

If you want a HAT that does it all - MiSTer, DIN MIDI, and RCA analog audio out, you probably want the Arananet Pi-MIDI v1.3.

re: "General MIDI" as in the standard:

You just want to switch it from MT-32 mode to SoundFont mode (hit the Synth button). With the default SoundFont, you have GM and GS support.

d0pefish wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:37 am If you plug a USB MIDI cable into the Pi [NOT THE HAT], you can use it with a MIDI keyboard and play it, although the audio will be sent through the MiSTer unless you change the config to "pwm" (headphone jack).

d0pefish wrote: re: "General MIDI" as in the standard:

You just want to switch it from MT-32 mode to SoundFont mode (hit the Synth button). With the default SoundFont, you have GM and GS support.

Thank you so much for the info! No, I don't specifically have a need for the 5-pin DIN or RCA out at this point in time. All my other stuff is USB midi at present. So essentially then I do indeed get the best of both worlds, I might just need to have 2 SD cards for the 2 different configs and boot off of one or the other depending on if I want to user it with MiSTer or not. Cool !

Right, one other query, not related to the PiHat (well, sort of not).

I bought an inline power switch from MiSTerFPGA.co.uk in November 2019. I don't recall if this is before it was widely understood about the potential voltage drop issues or not. It might have been round about when it was coming to light. Last night when I tried to use the MT-32 PiHat powered through the mister I was getting enough voltage drop through this switch that the MT32 would just constantly reboot. I also had to disable the low voltage warning to even get that far.

So I removed the switch and the problem went away. I also noticed at this point that the barrel plug between the switch and the splitter was surprisingly warm. The PSU is a brand new Meanwell 4A. I have no idea what version of I/O board I have without taking things apart but it will be from either May 2018 or 2019, but that doesn't change anything about the power switch.

So my question is, if I were to order a new power switch will it suffer the exact same issue? Or are the ones now on sale different to the ones that were on sale back in November 2019?

It sounds like your switch is faulty, just email me with your original order number and I will get you a replacement sent out.

Even with the Meanwell 4A power supply, if you are powering the mt32-pi over the USB3 cable it will display a low voltage warning. See here for more information:

https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/wik ... e-warnings

Will do - understood about the warnings. I've already changed the config option as it wouldn't work at all without it. I'll drop an email later. I'm in two minds here, Nov 2019 is a long time ago, you just sending another out really seems like a free ride that you shouldn't need to provide!

Hello,

I've just received my mt-32 Pi Hat from Nat, and it works very nicely.

The only small issue is that I have a RPI 3 B+, which is longer than the A+ model so, it doesn't look as good as it could be with the Hat on top. Does anybody knows if someone designed a custom case I could 3D print, something that would enclose the 3B+Hat more nicely ?

If not, I might try designing one myself but, in order to do that, it would be much easier if there was a downloadable 3D model of the assembled Hat, something I could load in Fusion 360 or 3DS Max and combine with the already available 3D models of a RPI 3 B+ and design a case around them ? Is such file available ?