[sdiy] bit one

[Rude 66]

well, it's not somtething i'd start doing to all my synths immediately, but
if it's reasonably sure that's the problem..i'd do it. it's drying now from
a good cleaning..;-)

additional question: what do you replace? only the plastic bit with the pins
that the connector slides onto? or the cable itself? the ones on the bit are
all soldered to the board on one side.

would this same dirty contact story also apply to socketed chips?


ruud

----- Original Message -----
From: "greg montalbano" <greg.montalbano at ucop.edu>
To: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] bit one


> Agreed -- as has been mentioned here before, the next step up in vintage
> synth maintenance is replacing sockets & connectors with machine-tooled,
> gold-types.
> But that IS the next step up;  some folks don't want to go that far
> (and then there are some folks won't accept anything less than re-chipping
> the entire board -- was just working on an Oberheim Two-Voice, and I'll
> testify that 30 year old CMOS just ain't that reliable).
>
> Depends on what you're up for, how much you want to spend, and how much
you
> care for your beast.
>
> ~GMM
>
> At 11:50 AM 2/6/04 -0800, Scott wrote:
> >Hi gang,
> >
> >I work in the customer service department for a test equipment
> >manufacturer, and
> >the term "Gold Pin Mod" is ubiquitous to everything that was produced up
> >until a
> >few years ago, when my department started forcing its hand.
> >
> >It has to do with tin connectors, particularly on but sometimes not
> >limited to,
> >the power supplies.  Invariably, as time progressed, the equipment would
> >become
> >unreliable, jumpy, -generally screwed up in other words - and the
customer
> >would
> >send it in.  Automatically, we'd replace the pins in the power supply
> >connectors
> >with gold plated pins, and soon we just started doing it automatically to
> >anything that was in warranty.  Worked like a charm in exactly 100% of
the
> >cases.
> >  Putting in tin connectors only bought a bit of time, and we are of the
> > philosphy
> >that you don't clean anything - you replace (these are high dollar boxes
> >to begin
> >with).  I finally moved up to 'core' development teams, and I *never*
> >would sign
> >off on anything that didn't have gold plated connectors on the power
supplies,
> >BOM price be damned.
> >
> >Of course, these are service monitors that get a lot of field work in all
> >kinds
> >of environments, but all the same - if I had a tasty vintage synth like
> >that, I'd
> >raid Fort Knox and see if there wasn't some way to put in gold plated
> >connectors.
> >  Just a thought......
> >
> >Cheers,
>