Taking the EIII in for repair to get a quote, listed issues, your guys thoughts?

[rokuez]

I’m going to take my EIII into a repair shop out here in Los Angeles to get a quote.  I’ve taken my kx88 there and they did an awesome job http://www.arsrepair.com/ .
I think the main problem with my EIII is that the chips pop out of their IC sockets, and I have to open up the machine and reseat the chips by pressing on them.  After I press on all the chips and reseat them in their black plastic seats (IC sockets) the eiii will work perfectly fine.
 
Then after a while the first problem I notice is that the EIII starts to make random selections.  For example if I just sampled a sound and I’m setting the start point I will move the start point forward with the data slider, but the value does not stop when I stop moving the slider.  The start point just keeps changing unti it has gone all the way to the end of the sample.  If I move the slider down, the start point keeps changing until it returns to the beginning of the sample.  The random selections happen when selecting presets.  When the random selections start happening I can only load sample banks and play them because the random value selections making doing anything else a pain.

Here is what I’m getting a quote for
1.    Unsoldering all the IC sockets and soldering in new pro gold plated ic sockets.
2.   Recapping the PSU
3.   Recalibrating the PSU
4.   Putting in a new backlight
5.   Cleaning buttons and oiling the data slider
6.   Installing a new fan from papste.de
7.   Installing a cf card instead of the hd

I may do 6, and 7 myself to keep cost down.



Some have recommended recalibrating the power supply first because this may be the root of all the problems... any thoughts?  To me it seems very plausible that the PSU could be causing these issues.  However the chips to get loose from their sockets, but they don't literally pop out of them.  I just notice that I can press them back down into their "seats".  any ideas

Others have recomended getting a new EIII entirely.  definitly something to consider because i see myself wanting more then one eiii.  however  I've thought about this and i would rather not go this route at the moment because my eiii will work perfectly fine right after i reseat the chips.  so i think its fixable.

I’d really appreciate your guys advice and or thoughts b4 I drop this off for a quote.

[Elmbeatz]

Think I said it again:

To just press on the chips will solve the problems just for a short period of time.
IF YOU really - literally - plug each and every chip out, clean it and its socket with alcohol and plug them in again, I'm pretty sure that it'll work for a long time.
My EII was giving me the same stress...    since I did the cleaning procedure, it hasn't made any kind of bug, really.

Peace out, Elm.

[rokuez]

Think I said it again:

To just press on the chips will solve the problems just for a short period of time.
IF YOU really - literally - plug each and every chip out, clean it and its socket with alcohol and plug them in again, I'm pretty sure that it'll work for a long time.
My EII was giving me the same stress...    since I did the cleaning procedure, it hasn't made any kind of bug, really.

Peace out, Elm.

I think this is a good idea, and I believe it would work.  However I see it in my opinion as a band aid solution.  I want to get my EIII rock solid, i've probably spent close to 24 hrs of time just popping in/reseating chips.

Also I attempted to do this but I couldn't pull some of the bigger chips out of their sockets.  It got to the point where I thought i would damage the IC socket or snap part of the chip off with the caliper if i pulled harder.

Another issue for me is just the huge amount of time it would take for me to pop out and clean every chip on all four boards.  I could spend this same amount of time working and use that $ to get new sockets...

i think there are a lot less ic sockets on the EII, but thanks for reminder me about this solution! I'm definitely going to mention it to the techs.

[Elmbeatz]

yeah do it.
You do right by letting it be if you feel unsure about maybe damaging something.
BTW: I think the EII has more ICs.

[dvdborn]

Things you easily could do yourself are the backlight and the CF card.
I did 3, 4, 5 and 7 myself with my limited technical knowledge.

Of course, you have to be a little familiar with a soldering iron.

Once you've done all the points you mention you're surely going to have an excellent EIII.

I hope one day to have an EIII for spare parts. There are a lot of custom IC's in the EIII that you won't find anywhere else. I think it will be a necessity to have a second EIII for spare parts in the long term.

Can you tell us what the specifications are of the replacement fans that you'll be using? BTW, the correct URL is http://www.papst.de/.

Let us know how the repairs turn out.

Cheers,
David



 

[rokuez]

thanks for the heads up on that info.  not very proficient with the soldering iron , sad to say.

i dropped the eiii off yesterday still waiting for a quote.

i totally agree with having a second III for parts for the long term.  I want to use this machine for the rest of my life

i didn't look into the fan replacement model number.  I found out about http://www.papst.de/ from a fellow atari user in europe on the atari-forums.com.  He had a atari mega ste which has an internal fan and he wanted to replace it with something a less noisey.  He chose http://www.papst.de/ and I emailed him asking if it was truly a very silent fan.  He told me it made literally no noise except for the air that was moving. 

Once I find out the fan's model number info i'll post it.

If you guys know of another fan company or something superior to www.papst.de definitly let me know.  i want to have a very silent fan in there.

[Synthtech]

I don't think that replacing all of the sockets is a good idea at all. Removing the chips and cleaning the legs with Deoxit will do fine, the cost of replacing the sockets would be astronomical. I haven't seen chips actually pop out of their sockets, but with machines like Emulators and Oberheim's that socket everything there are always reliability issues, and part of owning them is the job of exersizing the chips in their sockets every few years. Deoxit will extend the time though. I remember sitting in a dark venue one afternoon back in the 80's with both of New Order's emulators re-plugging every chip, and then having to fix their Voyetra before show time. I am working on an Oberheim OBXa at the moment and I have to do the same thing, it is tedious but necessary. Just be careful not to fold any legs under, and don't flex the board too much.

Power supply maintenance is essential, so go for it.

[Elmbeatz]

This is my opinion, too.
The feeling when you're through is great!
Kind of like you ran a marathon...

[rokuez]

The technician called me back and concerning #1 from the repair list for the ic sockets one option is to

1 clean it like you guys recommend

2 solder in new sockets for all the boards.  However there would be no guarantee that it would work after this because of the chance of making a mistake and damaging the board etc.

3 solder in new sockets for some of the chips.  I know which chips consistently give me problems... so maybe just get those chips new sockets?

4 remove the ic sockets and solder the chips directly to the board.  I asked if there would be a heat issue and he said no that there wouldn't and that in fact the board would dissipate the heat more efficiently then the socket.  I guess the only downside to this is if a chip goes bad?

I am leaning more towards #4.  I am going to try and stop by the shop tomorrow to talk in person.  any thoughts?

[Elmbeatz]

would never do it.

you named the argument: what if a chip dies, or anything goes wrong?
clean everything buddy !

greetz elm.

[rokuez]

hmmm how often do chips die?  Soldering the chips directly does sound foolhardy because you would just save $ and not buy sockets...?  However I've heard of individuals soldering chips directly to the boards with arp 2600 for good results.


Even if I get the EIII cleaned like you guys are saying what if the chips still pop out of their sockets?  Or is it your guys thought that once cleaned the chips will stop popping out.

(the chips don't physically pop out of the sockets they get unseated/lose their connection with the IC socket and i press down on them i feel them go down a bit and then the eiii works)

I'm not against getting the EIII cleaned at all, but I don't want to have to open the machine up continuously to reseat chips.

Hopefully today I can get off work to make it down to ars to talk to their technician

[Elmbeatz]

(the chips don't physically pop out of the sockets they get unseated/lose their connection with the IC socket and i press down on them i feel them go down a bit and then the eiii works)

Hi!
As I said, I had the SAME problems. Had to open it up at least once a week and push on the ICs to make all work correctly. Since I cleaned it, I never had to open it again, it just runs perfectly, no signs of bugs at all.

I just can't imagine unsoldering and again soldering THAT many ICs / Sockets ......

[rokuez]

went to ars talked with the techs and u guys are totally right about just cleaning the sockets and not replacing them or soldering chips to the board.  Too big of a job and u run the risk of totally fucking up the eiii.


The technician at ars recommended possibly using holding glue if the chips continued to pop out of their sockets.  He said heat wouldn't be an issue, but i'm interested in ure guys thoughts?

i'm waiting on a quote from them for cleaning the ic sockets and doing the rest of the work except the cf card installation.

In the service manual for one of the calibration procedures for tuning the pots on the boards they reference a sound disk, which has  tones, white noise , pink noise etc .  Does anyone have this sound disk?  Is it possible to calibrate those pots w/o the sound disk?

[Elmbeatz]

Hi!

Don't have it neither, but would be very interested in having it, too.
If someone 's got it, he could make a bank image with EMXP and post it here.

Anyone?
Greetz,
Elm.