Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Korg Poly800/EX800 Users

 

Luckily the Poly was in a 1/2 exposed basement studio. I don't think the smoke hit it too hard. It was tossed about 8' out a near ground level window, so it was more of a hard slide than a fall I'm guessing. (I didn't see, I was busy on the street trying to calm my hysterical mother) Then...it was kicked/stomped on by fireman I guess to get it out of the way(BTW: all we Americans are ham-fisted, that goes w/o saying :) ) It did get a little wet. Anything I had on the floor /leaning on a wall i.e.: a DX11, a drum machine, a couple amps, a few effects pedals, etc. were in a foot+ of water and trashed. I did my best to clean up the few items that survived the fire the next day.

Thanks for all the assistance. Nothing left now then to decide on which mod path to take once I have it fully operational. After everyone's assistance I guess I'm not bothering with the tape load function much longer, I'll make one more effort with the suggestions given, then move on. Besides, I'm still battling getting the keys fixed, and contacts cleaned etc. It will live again by golly!

I'll photo document my progress for posterity and keep anyone who's interested posted.

Thanks for all the assistance!

--- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, Michael Hawkins <korgpolyex800@...> wrote:
>
> There's a mod that you can do that puts an EX800 ROM "on top" of the original Poly ROM. And you use a switch to flip from one or the other ROM's. This allows you to keep all of your Poly-800 joystick goodness etc while also getting the sysex ability when you need it. You power off, flip the ROM select switch, power on, do your sysex. Then power off, flip the ROM select switch, power on, do your keyboard, joystick thing. Not a bad idea at all, for its time.
>
> The biggest problem with fires is the awful damage that happens if electronic stuff is exposed to thick acrid smoke. Did your Poly get affected by the smoke or was it the fall from a great height that messed it up? If it's smoke damage then I would say it's a miracle the dang thing still works at all. And fixing smoke gunge covered PCB's and parts is a professional job unless you like dipping your hands in solvents and other carcinogenic stuff. Soap and water and a long drying time might be worth the trouble.
>
> The tape switch problem you have is NOT the reason you can't get a tape dump to load properly. As long as you can get the thing into Tape mode (which you can) and it stays that way for the duration of your dump, then the switch is good enough. Get some de-oxit and most likely you'll find your tape switch will be fine after some de-oxit treatment.
>
> The Poly-800 schematics (found in the download section of this group) are good enough for the EX-800. Especially with respect to the tape circuit section, they're identical.
>
> Yes, the HAWK would fix your tape problem because the HAWK has no tape functions at all. They are all replaced with sysex and MIDI CC implementation. I do agree that you ought to try to stabilize your patient before you try to transplant a HAWK into it.
>
> Your Poly is functioning which tells me it's not "knackered". Banged up a bit sure, who wouldn't be after a multistory throw by a ham fisted American firemen!
>
> So I would say, give your patient some more TLC. Don't sweat the tape problem too much. And if you can make her reliable then maybe a HAWK brain transplant might be worthwhile.
>
> Mike
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: daveyray913 <sinisterthewicked@...>
> To: korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 3:30 PM
> Subject: [korgpolyex] Re: New Member: (constant Load ERR.)
>
>
>
>  
> Ya, she's in rough shape, but I'm not quite ready to give up. After I cleaned it up this week and started fixing the broken keys... it doenst look TOO bad. The couple patches I manually programed are loud and clear and sound good...
>
> What I really want is to MOD it, make it useful in my band as a gimmicky piece of nostalgia, but I'm nervous installing Hawk into a 'knackered' 'board as you put it. (I love your vernacular btw).
>
> But I guess HAWK800 would fix the problem too...with it's much improved Midi Sysex? I could forget about the tape interface/lack of Mk1 sysex altogether.
>
> Silly question: Where do I aquire an EX-800 ROM? & Wouldnt I lose Joystick control?
>
> Decisions, decisions....
>
> --- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, Gordon JC Pearce <gordon@> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 04:08:25PM -0000, daveyray913 wrote:
> > >
> > > I'm also installing a dedicated memory battery on board, SO I can at least manually load patches and not worry about losing them when the C batteries fail.
> >
> > Didn't you say the keyboard was knackered? Why not just bung an EX800 ROM in and load them over MIDI?
> >
> > --
> > Gordonjcp MM0YEQ
> >
>