Crumar Musical Instruments User Group.

Hi group,

me again...recently i gave my Bit One the works and took it apart to clean it all.....while i was doing this i shoot some pictures of the guts of the Bit One...so all boards, keyboard disassembly etcetera.
maybe it could be of some help if you want to restore or clean your Bit One.

regards, Dennis

Thanks very much... I was just looking at the Bit and wondering if I could fit each board in my scanner ;)

well i replaced all electrolyctics and tantalums in my Bit and desoldered all j-wires of the keys to clean them and all the springs....it plays and sounds terific now....no more double or none triggering at all.....also replaced the noise and detune slider......i actually was given another control surface from a friend.....the noise transistor of the Bit is a special one which i'll implement in my EFM Wildcat modulair since i've gotta spare now...

regards, Dennis

--- In crumar@yahoogroups.com, "neurokrash" <spamkiller@...> wrote:

>
> Thanks very much... I was just looking at the Bit and wondering if I could fit each board in my scanner ;)
>

Hmmm... What did the electrolytic and tantalum replacements accomplish?  I was thinking of replacing masses of parts just because I don't know what else to do in order to get mine working.  I did read that some of the capacitors can contribute to noise - although my Bits have always had some hiss.  I would be interested to know if you have improvements.

My noise sliders do not work as far as I know, but I don't know if this is the slider or another part at fault.  Finally, what are j-wires?

Thanks!

Well the sound is much punchier and sharper......but as far as i understand your Bit isn't working at all?
Try to replace all tantalums they are a pain in the ass if they are old. They can easily cause a short circuit. From a lot of old gear that i repaired the tantalums where mostly the faultly components since they are on the power rails.
 
Concerning your noise section....i don't think your slider is broken but maybe the noise transistor is....the one that's in the Bit is quite rare and difficult to find...i found a company in France that sells them for € 5,- a piece....but you can also use another tranny for it like a BC109.
 
If you take a good look at the pics of the keyboard you can see the J shaped wires (pieces of thick metal) run over the spring that makes contact when you play. They are soldered to the pcb and held in place with little black brackets (three pro octave).
 
Good luck!!


For contact and bookings: bookings@...  or dender@...
                                
                                     www.acidcult.nl 
                            

--- On Fri, 6/5/09, neurokrash <spamkiller@...> wrote:

From: neurokrash <spamkiller@hawaii.rr.com>
Subject: [crumar] Re: Pictures of a Bit One in the photo section
To: crumar@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, June 5, 2009, 12:56 AM








Hmmm... What did the electrolytic and tantalum replacements accomplish? I was thinking of replacing masses of parts just because I don't know what else to do in order to get mine working. I did read that some of the capacitors can contribute to noise - although my Bits have always had some hiss. I would be interested to know if you have improvements.

My noise sliders do not work as far as I know, but I don't know if this is the slider or another part at fault. Finally, what are j-wires?

Thanks!

> Well the sound is much punchier and sharper......

Well that sounds like something to consider if I get the other problems worked out.

> but as far as i understand your Bit isn't working at all?
> Try to replace all tantalums they are a pain in the ass if they are 

As a last resort, if I can't find any other solution, I'll probably just start replacing things, starting with these.

> Concerning your noise section....i don't think your slider is 
> broken but maybe the noise transistor is....the one that's in the 
> Bit is quite rare and difficult to find...i found a company in 
> France that sells them for € 5,- a piece....but you can also use 

I did some maintenance on the noise slider on the semi-working Bit, and it seems that the noise generator is working.  The slider was just dirty and/or failing.  I would be interested to know where to find the original part (in France) in case the noise transistor in my other Bit is in fact dead.  That slider is broken, but I think I can find a replacement if I can get the thing to make sound.

I did find what appear to be exact replacement for the audio jacks on the Bit, so I'm going to replace all of them at some point.

Thanks!