Ughh, how bad is this? (faulty front panel)

[who]

I left my EIII on for a few days, returned to my studio and noticed the LCD was displaying two rows of solid rectangles.  Per info on this board, I opened the EIII to check the ribbon cable connecting the front panel to one of the pcbs mounted in the chassis and this is what I found:



Ughh, that doesn't look good, but I'm no tech.  The ribbon cable also shows signs of heat.  Does someone with more experience have suggestions?

Thanks,
who

[Elmbeatz]

can't help you out, but thank god your studio hasn't burned down...

[midipuppies]

The ribbon cables become brittle over time and from being bent and twisted. That is a 50 pin cable and one or more strands has shorted either to each other or to the PCB. I had the same thing with Alan Wilder's EIII.
First thing to do is get rid of that awful factory press connector and replace it with a header style unit with pins. That trace that's fried should be an easy fix. Just don't use too much heat when soldering and scrape off the blue coating first at each end of the solder jumper job.


Hope that helps some.

Jay

[who]

That trace that's fried should be an easy fix.

Jay, you just made my evening.  Thank you!

[dr.c]

Most of the time, this is due to people who dismount the EIII and don't put back correctly the flat cable.

As a reminder, the flat cable goes from the front panne, passes THRU one of the holes of the rack mount with the cards and then goes to the card. Thioos means the cabkle is not pinched between the front panel circuit and the border of the rack mount when you put the top corec back in place.