Discussion about the Korg PolySix synthesizer

I would assume first that the key contacts will clean up okay with some
alcohol on a cotton swab. The keyboard scanner/assigner circuit is not on
the board with the battery, and does not usually get damaged. You need to
remove the keyboard and remove the contact circuit board from the bottom.
The contacts are carbon buttons on rubber strips so you need to carefully
remove these strips. The carbon buttons make contact with gold-plated pads
on the circuit board and the gold will need to be cleaned with alcohol as
well. Once you get everything cleaned and back together, most if not all
keys should work. Some may need to be cleaned twice. It's a lot easier to
test other things if you know the key you are pressing is one that actually
works.

 

If some contacts still do not work after a couple of cleanings, it is
possible that the carbon buttons have deteriorated so they are no longer
conductive. I think the fumes from the battery can do this in extreme cases.
If this is the case, my favorite fix is to use the new stick-on carbon
buttons from Bob at Sounddoctorin.net. Not cheap, but work every time. Well,
almost every time. I had one Polysix where somebody had managed to scrub the
gold off the contact board and nothing would make it work again.

 

I haven't used a computer based oscilloscope but I don't see any reason why
it wouldn't work, especially if it can tell you the frequency of the wave it
is displaying.

 

Don Backshall

 

  _____  

From: PolySix@yahoogroups.com [mailto:PolySix@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
antithetical2
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 12:24 PM
To: PolySix@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [PolySix] Newbie with the usual questions (dead keys)

 

  

Hi everyone,

I did a little searching on this topic but came up with a ton of useful but
unrelated info. So I'll ask here.

I bought a broken Polysix (aren't they all broken at some point?).

After playing with it for a while was able to coax some sounds out. I
discovered that there are four keys on the keyboard that work. I was
pleasantly surprised to discover that aside from the dead keys the
synth/effects engines are fully functional. Inspecting the battery shows
that the leakage doesn't appear to be too extensive, but there is a little
damage.

So I'm about to undertake the battery repair but I was wondering, could the
battery leak cause all those keys to stop working, or might that be a
problem with key contacts?

Also, assuming I'm able to get the synth working again, will a
computer-based oscilloscope work for tuning the voices?

Thank you!





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