Way_ne - 20 May 2014 09:52 AM

Does Mutec state the power draw of the 2GB board?

No, but power draw is really not the problem.
Please note, that the 2GB-Mutec-Expansion (as mentioned before in this thread) has already been tested from several german users.

Summary: It work’s without any difficulty at hardware level, but you have to deal with limitations from the keyboard itself / rather from the Yamaha Motif XF (and also MOXF) Operating System relating maximal numbers of keybanks/samples/waveforms

Way_ne - 20 May 2014 09:52 AM

Does Mutec state the power draw of the 2GB board?

Power draw is unlikely to be a significant factor. The 1GB modules use eight 1Gbit flash chips, while Mutec’s 2GB modules apparently use sixteen of them. The chip manufacturer’s spec for typical standby current per 1Gbit chip is only 75 microamps. For eight chips that would be 0.6 milliamps (mA) - for 16 it comes to 1.2 mA. That’s a difference of only 0.6 mA. Supply voltage is about 3 volts, so we’re talking about an increase of under 2 milliwatts (0.002 watts) of standby power.

Write/erase currents are much higher than for standby, but since the chips are addressed on a per-block basis for those functions, having additional chips doesn’t cause the current draw to be higher at any particular time.

It appears that the larger capacity modules shouldn’t tax the power supply, nor cause a noticeable temperature rise.

Flash chip data sheet, for those who want to look at the specs, is here.

The 2GB flash definitely is an advantage, even keeping the waveform limit. In that case I can make longer synth loops or throw some unlooped piano samples or make pads with very slowly changing sound. But business is business. I have suspicion, that Yamaha doesn’t like third party vendors making anything for their instruments. Especially when they are cheaper. Myself I have 1 GB Mutec board for more than a year and it’s build quality is very good and it uses same chips as Yamaha’s original flashboard. I would believe the 2GB is also made with the same quality.

cosmic - 20 May 2014 10:05 AM

Way_ne - 20 May 2014 09:52 AM

Does Mutec state the power draw of the 2GB board?

No.

Thanks, that answers the question, the rest of the post and the one after merely speculates.

Whether it may or may not matter depends on information we don’t appear to have, and not just on this single aspect, given just how complex the whole interaction of the boards are with the host hardware and operating system.

That point was already clearly made earlier, but it obviously bounces clean off some posters, at least some of who are clearly so giddily smitten by the idea of how much better they imagine the bigger capacity board would make their musical lives, that the usage scenarios being touted are largely what-ifs. Hypothetical benefits are handy levers in discussions, but less useful in practice (such as if the third-party hardware crashes the OS in the middle of a performance, or finding out you paid the extra for capacity that you don’t end up needing, or if just after arguably over-capitalising on your hardware by putting 2 x 2GB boards in an XF late in the model’s life, the next flagship workstation arrives at the same price with a similar amount of flash memory included as standard).

Professionalism isn’t a piece of paper, it’s a mindset/attitude that anyone is welcome and able to aspire to if they’re willing to listen to those that have the runs on the board that show they possess it, and throwing that proffered insight back in the faces of the ones that are willing to freely share their decades of toil and life lessons is dumbly shooting one’s self in the foot, both in squandering the opportunity to benefit, and discouraging such benefactors from continuing to share knowledge that essentially offers tips to potential competition in the field.

Much like we get the governments we deserve, we also get the Internet we deserve by driving off most anyone with anything to actually offer.

How many of the people fizzing with excitement about a 2GB single board have even thought about how much 1GB holds at the 16/44.1 sample rate, and double that for mono? 

Whether or not that’s actually enough for their needs isn’t the point, but rather that at least some of them likely haven’t even considered it.

Way_ne - 22 May 2014 12:55 PM

cosmic - 20 May 2014 10:05 AM

Way_ne - 20 May 2014 09:52 AM

Does Mutec state the power draw of the 2GB board?

No.

Thanks, that answers the question, the rest of the post and the one after merely speculates.[...]

It’s “speculation” bolstered by a healthy dose of understanding of the electronics, which some of us have and apparently some of us don’t.

I posted a link to the data sheet for the flash chips for those who know how to interpret what’s there, rather than speculate.

If anyone is really interested in what the 2GB modules draw versus the 1GB or 512MB ones, why not ask Mutec? Otherwise, the issue is just a red herring.

5pinDIN - 22 May 2014 01:37 PM

If anyone is really interested in what the 2GB modules draw versus the 1GB or 512MB ones, why not ask Mutec? Otherwise, the issue is just a red herring.

Christian Peters, CEO of Mutec, asked me to correct some of the technical speculations here: The new 2GB Flash boards don’t use twice as much IC chips compared to the 1GB boards. Instead, they use a total of eight IC chips with a larger capacity than the ones on the other boards. Due to a new form factor, the new FMC-07 are fitted with IC chips only on one side.

He also states that power draw of the whole 2GB Flash board is only marginally higher if not the same compared to the other boards. Additionally, there is no noticeable temperature rise, according to Mutec and the German Beta Testers.

All the best, :)

Jo

Way_ne - 22 May 2014 12:55 PM

...How many of the people fizzing with excitement about a 2GB single board have even thought about how much 1GB holds at the 16/44.1 sample rate, and double that for mono?....

I have.

I’m not clear on what has made you so certain others have not also thought through the possible ramifications of this product.  Is your thought process really that uniquely stellar?

The useful application of the product is quite obviously predicated on satisfactory empirical testing within the existing hardware and software environment.

DschoKeys - 22 May 2014 04:16 PM

5pinDIN - 22 May 2014 01:37 PM

If anyone is really interested in what the 2GB modules draw versus the 1GB or 512MB ones, why not ask Mutec? Otherwise, the issue is just a red herring.

Christian Peters, business manager of Mutec, asked me to correct some of the technical speculations here: The new 2GB Flash boards don’t use twice as much IC chips compared to the 1GB boards. Instead, they use a total of eight IC chips with a larger capacity than the ones on the other boards. Due to a new form factor, the new FMC-07 are fitted with IC chips only on one side.

Thanks for clarifying that. I knew that the 2 GBit chips were available, as I mentioned previously: http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/471695/
That information is also in the data sheet I linked to before. The 2Gbit chips are internally a stacked pair of 1 Gbit dies, so 8 are the equivalent of 16 1Gbit chips.

 

DschoKeys -

He also states that power draw of the whole 2GB Flash board is only marginally higher if not the same compared to the other boards. Additionally, there is no noticeable temperature rise, according to Mutec and the German Beta Testers.

As I said, a few milliwatts more might be expected, due only to standby power for the additional memory. The power for non-standby operations (read, write, erase) is only needed for the block of memory being addressed, and that doesn’t change no matter the total capacity of the module.