Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

Hi all,

My SD-1/32 is behaving a bit strangely. 

Background: I purchased it used a while ago; and alas I don't get to use it very much. I also upgraded its ROM to 4.1 recently (purchased the ROMs from route66 some time ago but only recently got around to installing them).

Now for the weird part: The analog tests (Preset + Compare) indicate a battery level of 138; and the keyboard does not complain about a low battery. Nevertheless, I have to freshly load the sequencer every time. While I can't be entirely certain, this behaviour may have been introduced after the ROM upgrade. However, the keyboard plays and sounds perfectly fine, and likewise the sequencer works as it should once it's loaded - just the memory seems to disappear when powered off, as if the battery was low - which it does not however appear to be.

Now, this could all be explained (I guess) if the battery level indication is off - in which case the battery level might well be indicated as 'fine' and not triggering a low battery warning, while still not sufficiently backing up the memory - and in that case, replacing the battery should fix the issue.  And I do have a replacement battery that I could put in place of the old one; but I remain ... confused. In particular since my VFX/SD, whose battery indicates a level of 135 (lower than the level indicated on the SD-1/32), remembers things absolutely fine.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Best wishes,

// Christian Brunschen

I had this happen this year with my trusty SD1, everytime I booted it up the seq was gone.

It turned out one of the bat leads just popped out of the board for some reason and it's the factory bat still. I just re-soldered it.

Rish

Life is like MIDI, your either IN, OUT or THRU.

On Sep 11, 2011, at 4:13 AM, Christian Brunschen <cb@...> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> My SD-1/32 is behaving a bit strangely. 
> 
> Background: I purchased it used a while ago; and alas I don't get to use it very much. I also upgraded its ROM to 4.1 recently (purchased the ROMs from route66 some time ago but only recently got around to installing them).
> 
> Now for the weird part: The analog tests (Preset + Compare) indicate a battery level of 138; and the keyboard does not complain about a low battery. Nevertheless, I have to freshly load the sequencer every time. While I can't be entirely certain, this behaviour may have been introduced after the ROM upgrade. However, the keyboard plays and sounds perfectly fine, and likewise the sequencer works as it should once it's loaded - just the memory seems to disappear when powered off, as if the battery was low - which it does not however appear to be.
> 
> Now, this could all be explained (I guess) if the battery level indication is off - in which case the battery level might well be indicated as 'fine' and not triggering a low battery warning, while still not sufficiently backing up the memory - and in that case, replacing the battery should fix the issue. And I do have a replacement battery that I could put in place of the old one; but I remain ... confused. In particular since my VFX/SD, whose battery indicates a level of 135 (lower than the level indicated on the SD-1/32), remembers things absolutely fine.
> 
> Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> // Christian Brunschen
> 
>