E-mu Emulator Sampler User Forum for the EIII EII EI and EIII XP - Emulator II in need of repairs & needs to be made as new

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+  E-mu Emulator Sampler User Forum for the EIII EII EI and EIII XP
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| |-+  EII Technical Issues / Tips
| | |-+  Emulator II in need of repairs & needs to be made as new
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Author Topic: Emulator II in need of repairs & needs to be made as new  (Read 53777 times)
HideawayStudio
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« Reply #45 on: February 01, 2009, 05:08:30 AM »

Let's hope you get this beast alive again !

If the machine is not doing anything after switching the power on, it is most probably due to a power supply failure. "Doing nothing" should really mean doing nothing. So this even means no mechanical sounds are coming from the drives or no buzz sound is coming from the PSU ? The molex connectors are known to be unreliable, so if the actual mainboard and outputboard are not doing anything this could be caused by bad molex connections, in that case uninstall/clean/install them again.

The "blue capacitor" which looks bad is (as far as I know) not a capacitor but a special resistor.
Anyway, mine is looking bad too ! But a tech guy told me this is normal for such an old machine, this type of component tends to look "burned" after many years of operation.

Like Elm already said, I think you actually have a rev 0 board. Maybe the left board is rev 1, but probably the right one is a rev 0 of 1984 (see inscription on the main board below the memory board).

Replacing the C6 key most of the time is impossible (no spare parts), but it seems you're lucky: the Dutch spare part specialist Senso currently has this key in stock (see http://www.senso.dds.nl/)

Anyway, good luck !

///E-Synthesist

Hello - yes... the blue device is almost certainly an NTC thermistor acting as an inrush limiter or just possibly a MOV acting as a transient suppressor.  These devices are prone to failure with age as they are heavily stressed and NTCs run very hot.  If the PSU is completely dead this is possibly the only thing that's wrong with it as the limiter and MOV are some of the first components in line with the mains input.  In the case of a failed MOV I'd expect to see the main fuse open circuit too. 

If it were me I would be tempted to replace the device and then do the following tech tip.  Carefully wire a 60 Watt incandescent mains bulb (not a low energy bulb!!) in series with the live wire to the PSU.  Then disconnect the output connector to the EII and wire a 5Watt car side marker bulb to the 5Volt PSU output to act as a dummy load.   The mains bulb will act as a safe current limit protecting the PSU and possibly you from the effects of a spectacular failure - I say this as SMPSUs are horribly notorious for going bang whilst being worked on.   They are also very dangerous - so make damn sure you don't touch it whilst it's on!   If the bulb lights to almost full brightness and stays there then the PSU is very likely to still be faulty.  If the bulb likes brightly and then dims - and with any luck your small bulb is dimly lit then the chances are you've fixed it.   I repaired a SMPSU from an old E-mu Proteus the other day using this method - it was 20 pence worth of failed cap in the controller in the end.   If this doesn't work I'd be tempted to give up and find a modern replacement PSU - this is likely to be much smaller than the original as they are much more efficient these days.

Cheers,

Dan.
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EII+, EIIIXP, EMAX II Turbo.  Electronic Design Engineer and Collector/Restorer of Vintage Music Gear
reem
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« Reply #46 on: February 13, 2009, 08:04:16 PM »

i am looking for a emulator 2 for sale - i will pay up to $500 for a mint condition contact  kuffysegal@hotmail.com or call 917 584 6312  -- if you have the full cd rom drive and mac im looking for a complete set im located in nyc
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reem
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« Reply #47 on: February 13, 2009, 08:06:41 PM »

please someone here put up your emulator for sale im willing to buy ----------------- $500 or better
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rokuez
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« Reply #48 on: February 13, 2009, 08:41:47 PM »

it is not mine but just saw this for sale

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/msg/1026411647.html
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Elmbeatz
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« Reply #49 on: February 16, 2009, 03:44:48 AM »

i am looking for a emulator 2 for sale - i will pay up to $500 for a mint condition contact  kuffysegal@hotmail.com or call 917 584 6312  -- if you have the full cd rom drive and mac im looking for a complete set im located in nyc

500 $ for a mint condition EII ?!?!
You must be joking!

Greetz,
Elm.
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Zomnius
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« Reply #50 on: February 11, 2010, 01:30:56 PM »

Hello,

congrats on buying this beauty.  it only has some scratches, but i like it Wink

the first thing i noticed whil watching your picture:

http://eiiiforum.com/picsfromusers/eii/IMG_0299.JPG

was the missing red- fuse.

but first clean it and repair the psu.
and clean other components like the guys mentioned here in their posts.

cheers zom.
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mstork
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« Reply #51 on: July 08, 2012, 11:46:48 AM »

This info is so helpful. I'm going through all the IC sockets and cleaning them.  This unit is not that dirty but I've finished the Z80s and would like to see some improvement as I work through this daunting task:)

My EII now asks for a diskette (it was stuck on boot). I don't have any 5.25" that are from an Emulator II.
I do have a bunch of 5.25" disks. Can I format these in the EII?

It seems that my drives work but I'm not getting past the insert diskette message and no buttons work to engage any of the functions.

Also I have a Zip drive hooked to the Computer interface. Has anyone used this successfully?
Should I order/build the USB converter for the Computer Interface instead of messing with these drives?

any help is appreciated!

Mike
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Elmbeatz
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« Reply #52 on: July 09, 2012, 09:15:40 AM »

The EII won't do anything without having inserted a proper disk, as it loads the complete OS from it (also for formatting blank disks).
This fact includes that pressing any button(s) also has no effect at all.

A Zip drive is completely useless, as the computer interface is NOT an SCSI interface but a RS 422 (or a useless RS 232 in early machines) interface. This interface was intended to be used with ancient macintosh computers to edit and archive EII sounds/banks (or the so-called "E-Muser" - try a forum search on that..).

What you might consider is to get a HxC Floppy drive emulator with which you can replace a 5.25 drive and load / store thousands of banks on a SD Card that sits in the HxC. This is hat I'm going to do (hopefully soon).

You may try out a conventional EII floppy first to make sure the unit works as it should.




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E-mu Emulator Sampler User Forum for the EIII EII EI and EIII XP - Emulator II in need of repairs & needs to be made as new

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