emulatorII-list

Hi Guys,

I'm a proud new owner of the mighty EII, after finally fulfilling my 
youth dream of owning this machine (being a Ferris Bueller and 
Depeche Mode fan for all those years) ;) I just got it on Ebay for 
$700 and am a little bummed out. According to the seller it was in 
perfectworking condition when it shipped, but I found 2 problems 
with it (so far). It sounds to me that one or more voices are out. 
When playing it, voices out out. I'm not sure if I tested it 
correctly, but it seems that voice #8 cuts out most of the time. But 
sometimes it will happen on the third or fourth also randomly. 
I tested it by playing the same note eight times in a row... Is that 
the correct way to test it? I also found out in this forum that the 
S3528 chip could be responsible for this. 

Are these chips still available somewhere? Could the so 
often mentioned "chip resetting/cleaning-procedure" resolve this 
problem? I opened it up for the first time yesterday and was truly 
shocked how many IC's are on the boards. I'm a little afraid to mess 
with them as everything seems so fragile and a little brittle due to 
age. How do I remove the IC's anyway without causing any damage? I 
realize that I need to be grounded, but what do I use to lift them 
out of the sockets?

Another problem is the keyboard. Some keys require to be attacked 
twice or three times with harder velocity in order to play. What 
could be wrong with it. Do you think a cleaning of the contact board 
could solve this? If so, how do I go about this? Could another chip 
problem be causing this problem?

Thanks in advance for any help.

George

congrats on your purchase.  I've had the same problem buying an Emulator II and II+ on ebay.  They represent that they work perfectly and--shazam--they don't. First thing is to try to get ebay and/or paypal involved by filing a dispute.  Maybe you can leverage this into the seller giving you a little bit extra refund to offset any repairs you may have to do.
 
I took my E II+ to my synth tech.  Before that it would turn on but I kept getting disc or boot error messages on the screen.  All he had to do was secure into place some chips or boards that had gotten knocked loose during shipping and--voila!--it works just fine now. Apparently these beasts are notorious for this. So maybe try this or have a pro tech try this before replacing chips. 
 
I'm sure there's people on this forum who can give more expert technical suggestions than I.  I'm just an advocate of keep it simple so I thought I'd give you my solution to my EII's problems.  Good luck!








Jonathan G. Chance, Esq.  
JC Law Offices 

1840 Gateway Dr.
Suite 200
San Mateo, CA 94404
650-378-1383 (office) 
650-429-2048 (fax) 
jonathan@... 
www.jc-law.net

--- On Mon, 10/27/08, George <trickstar303@...> wrote:

From: George <trickstar303@...>
Subject: [emulatorII-list] New EII owner needs help.
To: emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, October 27, 2008, 7:54 AM






Hi Guys,

I'm a proud new owner of the mighty EII, after finally fulfilling my 
youth dream of owning this machine (being a Ferris Bueller and 
Depeche Mode fan for all those years) ;) I just got it on Ebay for 
$700 and am a little bummed out. According to the seller it was in 
perfectworking condition when it shipped, but I found 2 problems 
with it (so far). It sounds to me that one or more voices are out. 
When playing it, voices out out. I'm not sure if I tested it 
correctly, but it seems that voice #8 cuts out most of the time. But 
sometimes it will happen on the third or fourth also randomly. 
I tested it by playing the same note eight times in a row... Is that 
the correct way to test it? I also found out in this forum that the 
S3528 chip could be responsible for this. 

Are these chips still available somewhere? Could the so 
often mentioned "chip resetting/cleaning- procedure" resolve this 
problem? I opened it up for the first time yesterday and was truly 
shocked how many IC's are on the boards. I'm a little afraid to mess 
with them as everything seems so fragile and a little brittle due to 
age. How do I remove the IC's anyway without causing any damage? I 
realize that I need to be grounded, but what do I use to lift them 
out of the sockets?

Another problem is the keyboard. Some keys require to be attacked 
twice or three times with harder velocity in order to play. What 
could be wrong with it. Do you think a cleaning of the contact board 
could solve this? If so, how do I go about this? Could another chip 
problem be causing this problem?

Thanks in advance for any help.

George

 













[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Yeah, many people have these problems, and the solution (to me at
least) was indeed the reseating IC's procedure. The EII worked
perfectly ever since. Before, it was simply messing around all the time...

Here's a little about the procedure and what you need:

http://eiiiforum.com/index.php?topic=3.0  

(that is a EIII thread, but it deals with the same problem.)

Hi, I can't help you with the IC's or voices I'm afraid but the
keyboard is an easy fix. 

Mine was the same when I bought it. You need to detach the keyboard
from the chassis and unscrew the back plate/strip, remove all the
rubber strips carefully and clean these and the contact board with an
alcohol based cleaner and q-tips (I used meths). You may need to do
this a couple of times depending on how dirty they are. Re-assemble
everything (ensure the rubber strips are correctly seated before
putting all back together) and they should work fine after that. Let
me know if any further problem.

Good luck with your machine.   

John 

--- In emulatorII-list@...m, "George" <trickstar303@...> wrote:
>
> 
> Another problem is the keyboard. Some keys require to be attacked 
> twice or three times with harder velocity in order to play. What 
> could be wrong with it. Do you think a cleaning of the contact board 
> could solve this? If so, how do I go about this? Could another chip 
> problem be causing this problem?
> 
> Thanks in advance for any help.
> 
> George
>

John,

Thanks for your reply. 

Is it difficult to disassemble the keyboard to get to the contact 
board and reassemble it? And how long does it take approximately? Do 
I need any special tools? Any tips appreciated.

George


--- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "jmp701" <jmp70@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, I can't help you with the IC's or voices I'm afraid but the
> keyboard is an easy fix. 
> 
> Mine was the same when I bought it. You need to detach the keyboard
> from the chassis and unscrew the back plate/strip, remove all the
> rubber strips carefully and clean these and the contact board with 
an
> alcohol based cleaner and q-tips (I used meths). You may need to do
> this a couple of times depending on how dirty they are. Re-assemble
> everything (ensure the rubber strips are correctly seated before
> putting all back together) and they should work fine after that. Let
> me know if any further problem.
> 
> Good luck with your machine.   
> 
> John 
> 
> --- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "George" <trickstar303@> 
wrote:
> >
> > 
> > Another problem is the keyboard. Some keys require to be attacked 
> > twice or three times with harder velocity in order to play. What 
> > could be wrong with it. Do you think a cleaning of the contact 
board 
> > could solve this? If so, how do I go about this? Could another 
chip 
> > problem be causing this problem?
> > 
> > Thanks in advance for any help.
> > 
> > George
> >
>

Hi George, no it's not difficult and would take you about an hour I
guess. 

Once you've opened up the EMU II, you just need to disconnet the
ribbon cable to the keyboard and unscrew the screws from underneath to
detach it from the bottom chassis. Turn the keyboard assembly over and
you can see the numerous little screws to remove to detach the narrow
back panel/board. The rubber strips are attached to this and will pull
out with a little force. Clean the black top parts of the rubber
strips and the contact board too. Took me a couple of cleans before
all keys worked well. You just need the alcohol based cleaner, some
q-tips (ear bud cleaners) and/or cotton pads. 

The process is very similar to that detailed here for cleaning a Korg
Polysix keyboard: 

http://www.oldcrows.net/~oldcrow/synth/korg/polysix/keyclean.html
 
Good luck with it.

John. 

P.S> Beware of the PSU, I'm told it can retain high voltages even when
turned off if just recently in use.  


--- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "George" <trickstar303@...> wrote:
>
> John,
> 
> Thanks for your reply. 
> 
> Is it difficult to disassemble the keyboard to get to the contact 
> board and reassemble it? And how long does it take approximately? Do 
> I need any special tools? Any tips appreciated.
> 
> George
> 
> 
> --- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "jmp701" <jmp70@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi, I can't help you with the IC's or voices I'm afraid but the
> > keyboard is an easy fix. 
> > 
> > Mine was the same when I bought it. You need to detach the keyboard
> > from the chassis and unscrew the back plate/strip, remove all the
> > rubber strips carefully and clean these and the contact board with 
> an
> > alcohol based cleaner and q-tips (I used meths). You may need to do
> > this a couple of times depending on how dirty they are. Re-assemble
> > everything (ensure the rubber strips are correctly seated before
> > putting all back together) and they should work fine after that. Let
> > me know if any further problem.
> > 
> > Good luck with your machine.   
> > 
> > John 
> > 
> > --- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "George" <trickstar303@> 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > 
> > > Another problem is the keyboard. Some keys require to be attacked 
> > > twice or three times with harder velocity in order to play. What 
> > > could be wrong with it. Do you think a cleaning of the contact 
> board 
> > > could solve this? If so, how do I go about this? Could another 
> chip 
> > > problem be causing this problem?
> > > 
> > > Thanks in advance for any help.
> > > 
> > > George
> > >
> >
>