E-mu Emulator Sampler User Forum for the EIII EII EI and EIII XP

Maybe it's time to say hi?
I've been lurking the board for two months now.

I bought an Emulator II, 6028 model, in the beginning of December 2011 where the FDDs were not working. When I picked it up, the guy I got it from (original owner) said the top C key had gotten loose when trying to clean the board.  The key was still intact, but the spring was missing.
The machine wouldn't boot. One of the FDDs tried reading (stepper motor sounding), but got stuck after three tries.

To start with. I had a tech check through the PSU so it's stable.

Since the machine wouldn't boot from FDD, I ordered a HxC SD-->FDD floppy controller from Lotharek which arrived mid January.
While waiting for the card, I decided to clean the keys. It was not very nice looking after having spent 25 years in the home of a smoker. While cleaning the keys I decided to take a peek under the digital board for the spring. Logically, if the guy I bought the machine from had not seen any spring, maybe it was stuck inside? Look and behold, there is was, stuck between the chassis and the digitasl board, short-circuiting the first row of memory ICs. I dislodged the spring and put it back where it belong (I now have a complete, working, cleaned keyboard again, woohoo).

Anyway, the floppy controller arrived and it acted strangely enough just like that FDD I have, that tried reading. The machine read the first three sectors but instead of continuing on sector 10 and onwards, like it does in eSynthesis youtube demo, it went back to re-read the first three sectors three times and then stopped. So, the same phenomenon my FDD was having, happens on this new controller... Hmmm. I figured it was one or more of the program memory ICs that were busted after the adventure with the spring thing (where the OS ets loaded into). After some rearranging of memory ICs, the machine starts, loads the OS from HxC and works all round.

I can't run HxC and a FDD at the same time (don't have the correct cable yet), so so far I haven't been able to see if I can get any of the 270 floppies I got with the machine to work. Also, when listening on the individual outputs, voice 4 and 6 has distortions, which can't be noted in the mix output.
Sampling works well and right now i'm busy converting my Korg Triton "Ugly moma" drumkit to an EII program to learn how the machine works. Also, I've picked up a few replacement memory ICs, but will try to put an order for a complete memory batch (64 of them).

Still Todo:
* Get at least one FDD up and running (maybe I will have to make a FrankenDrive) so I can transfer the 5,25s to HxC.
* Get the rest of the memory sorted.
* Install the HxC inside the machine in a nice way.
* Fix distorted outputs
* Give the cover a good washup
* Clean all switches.

i just wanted to thank all you regulars on this board for sharing all your knowledge and wisdom here.
The information on these boards have helped me immensly in the past two months, turning this machine from a wardrobe filling block into a working unit again.

Oh, and I'm from Sweden btw. I've noticed there are a few fellow Swedes on the board.

//modmaker

Hi, congratulations with your Emulator-II and the cleaning / repairing process :-)

Man... that machine really needed to be cleaned !
But it's nice to see that all this nicotine can still be removed after 25 years of residing in a "smoking studio".
Getting rid of the smell will probably be a bigger challenge...

I hope you can make this unit look and work like new again.

By the way: it's possible to keep both floppy drives and the HxC connected to the Emulator-II.
I'm using an external SD HxC (black cased one from Lotharek) and kept the two floppy drives inside the Emulator-II. I simply added a power and 34pin data cable which are leaving the machine at the backside (each with a connector), and installed a switch which selects whether floppy drive 1 or the HxC should be used. This makes it possible to use the Emulator-II in its original shape with two floppy drives when the HxC is connected to one of my other samplers...

///E-Synthesist

Thank you. I'm really enjoying myself, washing keys. Ha ha.

I'm not that worried about getting the smell out of the machine itself. The 250+ soft floppies is a bigger challenge

Thanks for the tip about adding a switch, will consider it (once I have at least one FDD upp and running).

The beast just got out of the shower and she started up nicely after having the cover rinsed thoroghly. Before and after pics below.

Also, a new batch of RAM is on it's way from Germany. All HM4864P2.

Do you have some photos of this that you could post? Or video showing how it is wired?
I'd love to set my HxC up like this!

I have written a document with pictures and drawings about installing and using the HxC on Emulators.
You can download it here:
http://www.emxp.net/HXC.htm

It's a pretty long document, because there are so many possible configurations, and at the end each possible action that you can do with the HxC on an Emulator is fully described too, e.g. loading banks, saving banks, copying system software, ...

(I hope there are not too many mistakes in it - I haven't tested all configurations myself...)

I forgot to say: in that document on page 12 there's a picture of the backside of my Emulator II.
You can see from left to right the 34 pin connector, the power connector and a small ON/OFF/ON switch sitting in between two screws. That's the switch I'm using to select between HxC and Floppy Drive 1. Floppy drive 2 is permanently connected.
The switch is on the DS-0 line select wire of the ribbon cable. The schematic can be found in the document (configuration 10 on page 23)

BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO
B  R  A  V  O
that cannot be appreciated enough.
Amazing. Without your work, all those machines would fade, one by one.
THANKS A LOT!!!

Kudos to you esynthesist.

Enourmous amount of work behind a document like this.
All respect!

Thank you.

By the way. I went to the local computer repair shop the other day. I figured it would be easier to find someone within the computer business to repair the FDDs than in the Synth repair business, (I had already called a couple of local firms that bragged about being in the computer business since the early 1980s).

My opening phrase: "Do you guys repair computer thingamabobs here?"
It was met by a suspicious "Yes, it says computer repairs on the door..." and a look that judged me as the local idiot.
My next questions: "Do you repair floppy drives?" was greeted with a "Why? It's easier to just buy a new one!"
-"I've tried, but it's hard to get hold of a 5,25'"
."A fiveandawhat...?"
Long story short: Turns out the local repair shop don't repair computer accessories

Any suggestions in the Scandinavian area of someone, anyone prepared to overhaul a 5,25' (or maybe two)?

Edit: spelling (not grammar)

An update:

Done
* Get the rest of the memory sorted. Done.
   Memory arrived from Germany earlier today and almost all memory issues are sorted.
* Give the cover a good washup: Done
* Clean all Buttons: Done
  All buttons cleaned with isopropanol and all oxide removed. Buttons now respond like new.
*Circuit boards cleaned with isopropanol.

Remains
* Get at least one FDD up and running (maybe I will have to make a FrankenDrive) so I can transfer the 5,25s to HxC.
* Install the HxC inside the machine in a nice way: Tried this. Not really done.
* Fix distorted outputs:   Not attended to, yet

Added to do
* Restore sliders
* Restore pots
* Order new original E-mu buttons för HxC internal mounting. I'm thinking two black buttons for left right and an SP12 - blue button for select?

I found FDD-cables with old and new type connectors and a decent length. However, HxC started messing up after a while and refused to boot (it juust sounded brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and the display was flickering, not really helpful in the middle of finding bad momory ICs). Back to short cable, but with stable boot. I will get new floppy cable and just put the connectors I need from these old cables, which are probably some 15 years, at least. Anyway, found 4 of them cables at the local flea market at €1 a piece, NOS that turned out to be PoS.

And at last, a question:
Memory address 70788 points to ICs 29-36.
Result i get is 11 but expected was 01.
Doesn't that point to IC 35?

Edit: Aaahhh... Finally "Memory good". Life is sweet and now I'm off to bed.

//mod

I had a pretty heavy project myself on the EII,
but beleave me all the pain you are going through is worth it.

hang in there....


Z.

Thanks Z.

Not much has happened since last time.
I got a couple of 5.25' freebie FDDs on an electronics giveaway group on Facebook, but none of them were the right size though.

//mod

I just picked up a TEAC FD-55GFR-570-U, put it as Device 0, jumpered RY and it worked on the first try (at least reading, havn't tried writing yet).

Now I have to assemble the machine, start exploring the almost 300 disks it came with and transfer them to HxC/SD.

Just wanted to share the joy.  ;D

congratulations!!
have fun with the disks!

Havn't updated for a while. Sorry about that.

Out of 108 tested disks, 96 were still readable.  :)
Then the new drive started acting up as well and I grew tired for a while trying to fix the drive problems. I was happy having a working/sounding sampler to play with and it boots without problem from HxC. I still have a couple of library disks though, that I would have liked to convert before abandoning 5,25" completely.

Now, it seems all three FDDs that I have, spin up and reads only the first sector sticking on "Software Rev. 3.1" So, the spindle motors and read heads all seem fine but the stepper motors never kicks in on either of the three drives when connected to the Emulator.

When I mount the FDDs in a PC, the stepper motors however, works fine on all drives (alltough I havn't tried reading/writing from a PC) so it seems all three drives act exactly the same way regardless of whether I'm using them in the EII or in a PC. This leads me to suspect that the floppydrives are actually OK but the problem is within the EII.

Voltage should be fine, the machine is steadily giving +4.55 and +12.something volts.
Also I've tried feeding the FDDs with the PSU from the PC, same result.

The most suspected culprits are:

• The PIO chips - Next thing I'm going to try is clean/reseat/exchange.
• The 12V supply somehow even though it measures fine. HxC doesn't use it, but the drives use it both for the spindle- as well as the stepper motors.

Is there anything else I should check?
Also, is there anyone on the Swedish westcoast on this board with an EII willing to test my drives in their machine?


BR

modmaker