Vintage Simmons Drums (UK) Users Group

Hello all!

As a testament to the FINE engineering, and to the men & women who put
these units together, and designed them:

I spent all day & all night working on this SDS7 unit, soldered a few
connections back on the power transformers...and guess what?

THE UNIT POWERED BACK ON, AND ACTED LIKE IT IS WORKING!!!!!  IT WANTS
TO LIVE!

Says something for the ruggedness & simplicity in these units!  Now
all I need is a new data panel with the BIG INCREMENT/PROGRAMMING KNOB
in working order...LARS, CAN YOU HELP A BROTHER OUT?!?!?!?!?!?!?

This unit's knob is sheared off at the base of knob, so i can't turn
it AT ALL!!!!  And what's even funnier, there's no number, or marking
on it whatsoever, so I would have to take it completely off, and try
to find a match at my local electronics shop (since I don't know the
number of selections on the knob/potentiometer, a.k.a. the number of
selections it is supposed to click around)...its a three connection
switch/knob, but i don't know how many positions it contains...but the
data panel seems to be functioning perfectly other than that, and the
display looks fine!!!

I will still take photos of this units' components, and have borrowed
from a KIND FRIEND some EPROMS (sound chips) to test it with...the
patient just might come thru all this!!!!  LOL

Thanks ALL!!!!

Rodney

Rodney wrote:
> Hello all!
> 
> As a testament to the FINE engineering, and to the men & women who put
> these units together, and designed them:
> 
> I spent all day & all night working on this SDS7 unit, soldered a few
> connections back on the power transformers...and guess what?
> 
> THE UNIT POWERED BACK ON, AND ACTED LIKE IT IS WORKING!!!!!  IT WANTS
> TO LIVE!
> 
> Says something for the ruggedness & simplicity in these units!  Now
> all I need is a new data panel with the BIG INCREMENT/PROGRAMMING KNOB
> in working order...LARS, CAN YOU HELP A BROTHER OUT?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Is this the knob at the bottom left, below the LEDs?

It's an optical encoder, similar to that used in mice.  If you remove 
the four screws holding the programming panel on, and *carefully* lift 
the panel off, you should see a circular disc about 30mm across with 
alternating black and clear stripes.  There will be two LEDs sticking up 
from the board, at right angle to each other, that shine through the 
disc.  Underneath, there are two photodiodes.

When I got my SDS7 the knob was broken off, leaving just the optical 
disc bit in place.  I had someone at the college I went to turn up a new 
shaft out of a bit of thin brass rod.  If I hadn't had that available, I 
would have bodged it up with a long thin bolt and some nuts and washers.

Gordon.