Casio CZ/ VZ/ FZ - Pro Series

Just thought I would share an interesting discovery with everyone. It appears to be common that the CZ 101/ 1000 battery backup for the internal user patches fails over time and the CZ is unable to retain these unless batteries are kept in the unit or it's kept plugged in permanently.

However, a month ago I had no choice but to turn off my CZ, which had been kept connected to a mains charger constantly for the past few months. Reason being was that I was going away on holiday for 3.5 weeks and didn't want to risk leaving unattended electrical items left switched on whilst I was 4300 miles away. I had meticulously written down all the patch parameters so that I could re-program them (and also put them into my CZ-1) upon my return.

Now get this. After being unplugged for nearly 4 weeks, I connected my 101 back up to the mains charger, switched it on, and to my great surprise all my programmed internal patches were still there! Every one of them, and all playing back perfectly. Normally when the unit lost power it would lose all the internal patches, and none would sound until the reset button was pressed at the bottom of the unit to restore the factory internal presets.

All I can assume is that there is a component on the board that 'charges' up over time, even after all these years, and the 101 (and probably 1000 too) will still be able to hold user programmed internal patches. I've left my unit connected back on to the charger to be on the safe side, but it's good news that I can now unplug it and it will retain its memory for a while.

Anyone else had similar luck with their 101/ 1000 memory after leaving the keyboard connected to mains for a few weeks/ months?

yes mine does not loose its patches unless its disconnected for a week or
more..sometimes i think its  when i disconnect the power pack from the cz ,
so maybe the power pack holds the current ?
chaz

I am wondering if it might be possible to install one of the new "mega capacitors with the battery to help it a bit. i have problems with my 101s, and occasionally with the CZ-1, but mostly with the cartridges. I seem to only get 1 or 2 years of retention in the cartridges. What's a lazy, negligent person who leaves these synths in the closet for months on end, (until he wants their sounds) to do?
In the 90s, i could send a cartridge back east somewhere at "casio repair", and the guy was happy to load a bunch of sounds in the cartridge free! I think those days are gone.
rig 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello,

My 101 also seems to behave this way. When I bought it there was nothing left in the internal patches but the presets but I wrote a few patches that were kept even after disconnecting everything without any batteries. 

I read in the manual the D batteries are used to hold the patches and the power light will blink when it's time to replace them. It says the unit will retain the patches for about 10 minutes when replacing the batteries. 

While it sounds like a nice dysfunctional or undocumented feature, I wouldn't rely on it to store my patches.

I was going to look for an external cartridge as my LCD display stays on after turning it off, as long as it has batteries or the power supply is connected. I am now forced to leave the power supply connected.

Are these cartridge reliable? Can you please explain the problem you experienced with these cartridge?

Thanks!

--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, charlie 'chop' copp <charles.copp@...> wrote:

>
> yes mine does not loose its patches unless its disconnected for a week or
> more..sometimes i think its  when i disconnect the power pack from the cz ,
> so maybe the power pack holds the current ?
> chaz
>