[sdiy] Roland 80017a socket modification photo (MKS-30)

[Nicholas Gregorich]

There was an ad on my local Craigslist about a misbehaving MKS-30 and  
since I had replaced a 80017a in a Juno-106 before I offered some  
help.  Around the same time I saw an eBay listing for a 106 with  
socketed 80017a VCF/VCA chips.  The photo was small and hard to see  
but I thought it was a great idea.

I bought some 12 pin (actually 14 but I snipped 2 pins off) Mill-max  
machined SIP sockets from Mouser for $0.85 apiece.  A long afternoon  
found 5 bad 80017a's between 2 MKS-30s and sockets on the good unit's  
PCB as well as all of the chips.  There is plenty of clearance in the  
MKS-30 and the Mill-max parts have a satisfying "click" when the  
parts mate properly.

The first chip I fitted with a socket was almost a failure.  I cut  
the socket into 2 pieces, 1 for the lone pin and 1 for the rest.   
This was a big mistake, the single pin almost bent off during  
handling and insertion.  Needless to say the others were done in a  
different fashion.  I snipped off the 2nd pin of the sockets on the  
PCB side and used a whole strip for fitting the chip.  These felt  
much sturdier.  The polarizing feature of the original 80017a's was  
sacrificed for ease of swapping chips and possibly switching to a  
cloned chip in the future.

Here's a photo of the good unit with the sockets fitted to the PCB  
and each chip.  I wish I would have taken more photos along the way.

http://homepage.mac.com/nicksdsu/mks-30_socketed.jpg

:)

Nick.