Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

Hi Chris!
Being a happy owner to a VFX (SD in my case) could give you some hard time works, but it\ufffds worth it.
I'm not keeping somekind of superknowlegde about this synth but I've read some articels about various problems including the part where it tends to die during OnStage prefomance, a very nasty thing and embarasing I would guess.
However, I belive that your problem lies in bad (read old) solderings. Usyally things happens when the powersupply gets warmed upp and the case is "heated up". Your experience with the 'verry' warm supply on the back of the VST is normal prefomance. You could mount a fan onto the rear, I've seen souch devices for both VFX, EPS and other series by Ensoniq. Demount your keyboard and turn the pcb's up side down and use a magnifying glass and check all soldering points by all connectors, especially those who are connecting the keyboard pcb's. Never have had the problem my self but the former owner had it for repair on a good repair chack who told him what the ectually did with his keyboard, resoldered bad solderings. Somewhere I read that it was better to put wires instead of the original conectors between the pcb's due to the bad electrical connection made by oxcidation etc. .

 Similar things I have been reading in several articels on the net. Well, this might not be to any help but at least I've been telling you what I know. Just the fact that the rear part gets hot could make the capacitors in the powersupply to dry out and therefore give the keyboard non filtraded DC power wich could get the whole synth out of order. Try to replace them with new ones. Allso check the diodes. If it doesent help... well you just got a problem less in the future...IF you get it to work. Keep up the good work! (Hope my English is readable.)

/Charles
 Chris Rolland wrote:Hi All . . . I've just joined the group. I used to own a VFX (I 
bought one of the first), and kept it for 3 happy years before part-
ex ing it for a Korg 01/Wpro . . . big mistake . . . I wanted my VFX 
back after a week, but the shop had already sold it!. I bought a 
second-hand VFX a couple of years ago in non-working order, and have 
done various repairs (actually it was dead simple . . . fuses, new 
ROMs, clean the cartridge connector, new battery etc. etc).

I now have a problem I can't work out . . . I don't think it's 
related to the infamous "Calibration" fault, but I wil bow to 
anyone's better judgement. If I leave the VFX off for a long time
(days), when I turn it back on I get either a "Keyboard Receive 
Error", or a Calibration error (If I ignore this none of the notes 
work). If I leave it on in this state for about 5 minutes a couple of 
soft "clicks" can be heard, and if I reboot all is well (apart from a 
few "ghost" notes until it's really warm). If I leave it on for a 
while I sometimes can hear the odd soft click, so I wondered about 
the dodgy connector . . .

Now before I wield soldering Iron to implement the Calibration fix, 
is this going to solve the problem, or should I just bin the Keyboard 
module and get another one? I've got all the schematics EXCEPT the 
Keyboard Module, and the Service Manuals, but there is no mention of 
this error.

Any ideas anyone?



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