[sdiy] Emu Vintage Keys Pro encoder issue

[mark verbos]

Charlie,

I bought a Proteus 1 on ebay for $20. In addition to a dead power supply, it had an encoder with the shaft broken clean off. I was able to glue a shaft from another plastic pot to the stump and get the thing encoding again, but it was painfully obvious that it wouldn't last. So I took the whole thing apart. There was a model number on the sid eof the encoder and I was able to get an exact replacement part from Mouser. It was something like $2.50, so I have never looked back. Now the thing works like new. Anyone want to buy a Proteus 1 for $100? ;)

Mark





> At a rehearsal yesterday to my horror I discovered that the rotary encoder
> (the big knob) on my VKP Emu module had gotten knocked loose. Not sure how
> this happened, as I don't recall bumping or banging it, but there you go.
> 
> Upon opening the thing up, I found that the encoder itself was incredibly
> cheap and whoever did the hardware design, (hopefully not someone on this
> list!) or engineering or whatever at Emu, did a horrific
> job--incredibly fragile and stupid how the knob/encoder is held onto the
> unit.  The encoder had split into two parts--a front part and a back
> part....and things looked grim indeed!
> 
> Turns out....
> 
> The encoder guts are soldered to a daughterboard that sits behind the
> front panel. Nothing unusual there I guess.
> 
> The encoder is 2 pieces, that are held together by 4 flimsy little metal
> tangs.  If these get bent or messed up, the encoder falls apart and the
> knob lands on the stage.
> 
> I managed to fix it by putting the encoder back together and using needle
> nose pliers to reattach the tangs...but this won't work too many more
> times (eventually the tangs--which are some kind of cheap metal--will
> break.)
> 
> The big knob sits pretty far out from the actual encoder (about 1/4" or
> more) and the unit itself, so if you accidentally bump it, it puts all
> that leverage on the crappy metal tangs (see above) and breaks them.
> 
> It looks like if the knob sat flush to the encoder, it would be more
> robust, since there wouldn't be "dead air" behind it.  But the knob
> doesn't fit onto the encoder correctly--it requires a 1/4" shaft and the
> encoder has a detent type. Emu's solution?  Put electrical tape on the
> shaft (really!) and hope no one notices.
> 
> And it looks like you'd need a special knob to fit...something with a
> large hole to accommodate the encoder's guts, plus a detent type
> receptacle to fit onto the end of the encoder's shaft.  Obvioulsy Emu
> didn't get this together, as the knob and the encoder were never meant for
> one another.
> 
> Anyone know of a way to mod this to get it to stand up to normal road wear
> and tear? Was there two versions of the knobs, and I got the "bad"
> version?  Any ever have to deal with this before?  Anyway this is as much
> to rant about the #@$%#$% hardware....Emu used to make pretty good
> stuff...never again will I buy anything Emu that I use on the road.
>