Been working on some of my gear. Most of the stuff in my collection is from the late 80's through mid 90's and some of it has started to show some issues and I bought a couple pieces that already had issues.
Started with my Roland S-50 sampler. Bought it in '91 and it was my main board for a long time. I like the action and it's got velocity and aftertouch. It was Roland's flagship sampler until the W-30 workstation came out.
These boards have a relay in them on the output circuit board. The relay contacts get dirty after periods of sitting unused...and this board sat in a case on a shelf for a couple years. Dirty relays result in crackly sound, or no sound. The relays seem to be made of unobtainium, if you do find one it's probably cheaper to buy an output board off a sampler someone is parting out.
And here's the relay removed from the circuit board
I didn't try to clean it yet, instead I hard wired the contact points, taking the relay out of the equation.
So far, so good. Except some of the switches were getting to where they didn't work. I've found teeny switches on synth parts sites for $5 each, or 100 on eBay straight from China for $5. Hmmm. I needed 26 switches, so the 100 pack it is.
All those little square fuckers had to be de-soldered. Four contacts each. Then the pads cleaned up, and re-soldered. Can't go too hot with the iron either or you'll pull the pads off the circuit board, so it was a three or four beer job.
I was going to replace a couple of the red LED's with blue but I'm starting to think the blue LED is getting to be overdone.
Reply With Quote