Fwd: RE: Fwd: [sdiy] Starting synth repair business. What IC's to stock up on & gener

[klosmon]

Michael wrote:

>  You'll find that many instruments will need repairs to the PCBs 
> themselves. This is especially true of modern instruments which tend to 
> all have cheap epoxy PCBs. On modern synths it seems the largest source 
> of failures is the PCBs that hold the panel controls. From vibration and 
> improper handling these PCBs crack and traces are cut. Repairing these 
> problems takes alot of patience and some specialized tools.

Yes, you can expect to encounter a wide range of board types.

My current nominee for the all-time worst board to deal with is the 
EML-101;  it has those cheap solder-trace connections (as on the Odyssey 
boards), but with component lead layout making even less sense -- 
everything seems to be jammed together any which way, with random-looking 
blobs of solder running through everything.  Desoldering & removing one 
component can disrupt a half-dozen adjoining components, with no good 
reference to where everything was supposed to go.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Patience is the thing you'll need 
most, along with ability to read (sometimes misleading) schematics and a 
good reasoning facility.

But if you've been working with synths all these years, you probably 
already know this....

~GMM