Rhodes Chroma Polaris

In terms of cruel hoaxes...

I'm dealing with my own polaris here.  I was going to do the routine
of repairing the left side switch failures.  got it working
perfect!..well..after the most extensive repair of that i've ever
seen. Both ribbons were just totally ruined.  ANyway it developed
problems after the repair. Now it occasionally when a note is struck
OR I find a slider is moved to edit a vco aspect or whatever...it
would..well....quack.

Yes I have the aflak polaris here.  Kind of interesting quack.  It
seriously sounds like a quack. But that's not all.  one synth channel
(not associated with the analog hardware channel but the assigned
channel.. in the mind of the computer..) always acts way different. 
One a floydesque sound it may be totally mute until release and then
you hear the fitler resonance coming down.  But you hear no sound at
all until then.  Or on another sound it will make sound during that
segment of the envelope but it will have a large osc2 env on it where
the others do not.  

But it gets worse!  This...nobody will believe.  I should charge
admission to see this.  A previously perfectly working right switch
panel..has gone...totally dead.  ALl ribbons measure perfect right
down to where it's glued in and there are no signs of breakage
anywhere there or on the ribbons.  Yet not a one of them connects when
a switch is closed!  What...on earth... I cannot believe this.  I
simply ...cannot believe this. -Bob

> From: Robert Weigel
> 
> I'm dealing with my own polaris here.  I was going to do the 
> routine of repairing the left side switch failures.  got it 
> working perfect!..well..after the most extensive repair of 
> that i've ever seen. Both ribbons were just totally ruined.  
> ANyway it developed problems after the repair. Now it 
> occasionally when a note is struck OR I find a slider is 
> moved to edit a vco aspect or whatever...it would..well....quack.

The quack is probably the "error honk". Dunno why it's firing--it usually
indicates an invalid switch press, or memory full--but you can turn its
volume down with LOWER FUNCTION, ADJUSTMENTS, 5.

-- 

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...

--- In chromapolaris@yahoogroups.com, "Paul D. DeRocco" <pderocco@...>
wrote:
>
> > From: Robert Weigel
> > 
> > I'm dealing with my own polaris here.  I was going to do the 
> > routine of repairing the left side switch failures.  got it 
> > working perfect!..well..after the most extensive repair of 
> > that i've ever seen. Both ribbons were just totally ruined.  
> > ANyway it developed problems after the repair. Now it 
> > occasionally when a note is struck OR I find a slider is 
> > moved to edit a vco aspect or whatever...it would..well....quack.
> 
> The quack is probably the "error honk". Dunno why it's firing--it
usually
> indicates an invalid switch press, or memory full--but you can turn its
> volume down with LOWER FUNCTION, ADJUSTMENTS, 5.
> 
> -- 
> 
> Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
> Paul                mailto:pderocco@...
>
I vaguely remember that now.  I was amazed that it only comes out of
the op amp, not the vca.  So it must feed back in somehow through that
return line or something.  THe schemos are a little hard to piece
together as to where various wires go so I was focusing on the other
problems.  Whatever the problem with the osc 1 not showing up on one
of the assigned notes then... that's probably causing the honk.

Meanwhile...anybody know of a right panel source at all? I see no hope
for that one. -Bob

I have had failed membrane buttons (not ribbon cable) on 1 of my
polaris keyboards.  I've described the fix on this group-- drilling
panel and replacing w/pushbutton switchs.  It is a time consuming
process, a drill press and hot-tweezer wire stripper are highly
recommended.

Sometimes the honk happens from sequencer events-- I would check the
manual and make sure it is truned off.

-Ben

Thanks..yeah...I know buttons fail :-).  But...I'm talking about ALL
of them.  Literally..every one has failed within a matter of hours
after working great ...completely great...for 20 years!  hehe.  Yeah I
know other people have a button or two fail here and there. 
But..let's do the odds calculation shall we?  I mean..the odds that
they all would fail the same day.... even two failing the same day
after none for that many years... you have to figure a 10 year fail
span over which the two buttons would fail probably at this age (ie 5
years one way or the other) so that's 3650 ish days for buttons to
fail and since there are 3650 different 'same day' occurance
possibilities and two 'floating' objects then it's simply 1 in 3650 of
this happening.  To have each successive switch fail on the same day
then it's just another 1 in 3650 of a common occurance with the pair,
the trio, and so on.  How many buttons? A - K, 1-12 and what 15 other
buttons?  soooo...odds of all the contacts actually failing on the
same day.... you realize...this is one of the most unlikely odds
scenarios EVER recorded to occur..in human history. Correct? :-) 
3650^37th I think!!!

Yet..what am I to think?  ALl of the ribbons look perfect. Like I
say..continuity all the way down to the flat on every line!   I
seriously..believe this thing should be in a 'freak occurance museum'
someplace. hehe.  I mean just the membrane panel.  Give me another one
and I'll take the chroma polaris for my contribution :-)

But I'd say much more likely..somehow there is a weak point under the
panel somewhere and all the data lines severed somehow.  Even though
I..never pulled or anything on anything that should have done that..ahem..

Well, thust he title.  Anyway glad at least I got the thing to where
it can be played again.  I fixed up the key movement which has needed
it since I got it.  Some of the notes needed to be hit pretty good to
trigger them.  Washering the up on a few of them took care of that. 
Black keys seem more prone to have problems on these movements which
are a modification of the polysix type movement for velocity sensing
with concentric ring conductive rubber contact cups.

Anyway yeah I wouldn't be surprised if something got latched in
software when I was messing around with the broken panel on the left.
 I'll have to read all the manual on the sequencer.  I've never used
that.  Thanks.
-Bob
--- In chromapolaris@yahoogroups.com, "Benjamin Kuris" <Bkuris@...> wrote:

>
> I have had failed membrane buttons (not ribbon cable) on 1 of my
> polaris keyboards.  I've described the fix on this group-- drilling
> panel and replacing w/pushbutton switchs.  It is a time consuming
> process, a drill press and hot-tweezer wire stripper are highly
> recommended.
> 
> Sometimes the honk happens from sequencer events-- I would check the
> manual and make sure it is truned off.
> 
> -Ben
>

> From: Robert Weigel
> 
> Thanks..yeah...I know buttons fail :-).  But...I'm talking 
> about ALL of them.  Literally..every one has failed within a 
> matter of hours after working great ...completely great...for 
> 20 years!  hehe.  Yeah I know other people have a button or 
> two fail here and there. 
> <snip>
> Yet..what am I to think?  ALl of the ribbons look perfect. Like I
> say..continuity all the way down to the flat on every line!   I
> seriously..believe this thing should be in a 'freak occurance 
> museum' someplace. hehe.  I mean just the membrane panel.  
> Give me another one and I'll take the chroma polaris for my 
> contribution :-)
> 
> But I'd say much more likely..somehow there is a weak point 
> under the panel somewhere and all the data lines severed 
> somehow.  Even though I..never pulled or anything on anything 
> that should have done that..ahem..

Do you have a scope? This should be pretty easy to diagnose with one.
However, the SWSTB lines are open-collector, so it's helpful to touch them
with a resistor to +5V just to make sure the driver is working correctly.

-- 

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...

I am dealing with a polaris repair right now. The ribbons might be OK and 
show continuity on the exposed parts, but the entire ribbon connector can 
have a hairlin break across all of the traces near the opening in the panel 
just before it enters the panel. this is where the traces aren't exposed 
anymore and are insulated with that green coating. you hjave to look really 
closely to see the fracture. In my opinion, all of these instruments are 
going to experience that problem sooner or later, it's inherent in the 
design. if you don't open the case it might take longer. Everytime you 
disturb that fragile ribbon, it's a problem because it has become so 
brittle.  I have already ripped out the left side membrane panel and 
reversed engineered the circuit. i am waiting for switches that I will mount 
on the panel. I am attempting to repair the right side panel by using silver 
epoxy and attaching wires to new header cables.  It's very frustrating. I 
might just rip out that panel and make a switch ban for it too. But it's 40 
switches, so I'm going to try to fix it with the silver epoxy first.

>From: "Robert Weigel" <sounddoctorin@...>
>Reply-To: chromapolaris@yahoogroups.com
>To: chromapolaris@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [chromapolaris] No doubt..the most insane repair of all time...
>Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2007 00:25:58 -0000
>
>In terms of cruel hoaxes...
>
>I'm dealing with my own polaris here.  I was going to do the routine
>of repairing the left side switch failures.  got it working
>perfect!..well..after the most extensive repair of that i've ever
>seen. Both ribbons were just totally ruined.  ANyway it developed
>problems after the repair. Now it occasionally when a note is struck
>OR I find a slider is moved to edit a vco aspect or whatever...it
>would..well....quack.
>
>Yes I have the aflak polaris here.  Kind of interesting quack.  It
>seriously sounds like a quack. But that's not all.  one synth channel
>(not associated with the analog hardware channel but the assigned
>channel.. in the mind of the computer..) always acts way different.
>One a floydesque sound it may be totally mute until release and then
>you hear the fitler resonance coming down.  But you hear no sound at
>all until then.  Or on another sound it will make sound during that
>segment of the envelope but it will have a large osc2 env on it where
>the others do not.
>
>But it gets worse!  This...nobody will believe.  I should charge
>admission to see this.  A previously perfectly working right switch
>panel..has gone...totally dead.  ALl ribbons measure perfect right
>down to where it's glued in and there are no signs of breakage
>anywhere there or on the ribbons.  Yet not a one of them connects when
>a switch is closed!  What...on earth... I cannot believe this.  I
>simply ...cannot believe this. -Bob
>

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