Emax

I am just going from what Rob from emulator archive had told me in an  
email a couple of years ago. I was looking at getting replacement LCD  
displays.
Rob said the original emax had an EL (electro-luminescent) LCD  
display which was blue (correctly- I sourced that part).
The emax 2 that had a green display he said was an LED backlit  
display. He said the two weren't directly interchangeable. I think  
the only way to know for sure would be to measure. While the voltage  
is high, the amps wouldnt be. But I don't have an emax2 to check it  
for you (as yes, BTW- I have worked as an electronics repair  
technician). If you are worried, insulate your probes by putting heat  
shrink on the meter probes, heat it, then only cut off a small bit so  
just the tips are exposed metal.... just a "tech tip"

RE the scsi- that should work. I would think if you did the transpose  
to change the scsi ID, then you should be able to do the hard drive  
stuff with your zip. If not- find an old black and white mac. The  
original ones (I found about 5 at my local goodwill a while back)  
have the same drive the emax had. I might be able to help you find  
one for reasonable if you  are unable to locate.

Thanks,
Ted


On Sep 17, 2006, at 4:33 AM, esynthesist wrote:

> Thanks Ted. Are you sure the Emax-II doesn't use an invertor ?
> I'm not a technician, but on its main board there's a black cube on
> almost the exact same place as the one in the Emax Plus (labeled
> AH125 in the Emax-II). Or is this thing not used for the display ?
>
> I found this website telling that the LCD display replacement should
> be the same for Emulator II, Emax and Emax-II
> (http://members.aon.at/virtual-music/zonen_e/e_products_emu.htm).
>
> Of course I could measure voltage on those pins and compare, but I
> don't like measuring high voltages on two pins so close to each
> other :-)
>
> About the SCSI: the sampler doesn't have an internal HD, so I guess I
> can simply connect the main 50-pin connector from the main board
> directly to the new DB25 connector. I know I won't be able to boot
> from the external ZIP, but that's not a problem.
> I'm just wondering whether that "OS" chip on IC13 is OK...
>
> By the way: since I don't have any SCSI device connected to the
> sampler at the moment, I noticed that the Plus OS is not very
> practical: you can boot the Plus OS from floppy, and it also loads
> the bank from that floppy, but when you want to load another floppy,
> you can't. The sampler says 'HD Catalog error' because it first wants
> to find the banks available on HD, and than give also the '00'
> possibility to load from floppy. As it doesn't find a HD, it gives an
> error instead of the Floppy alternative.
> Seems the engineers didn't really think about that one :-)
> Well... I'm using the Emax-SE OS at the moment...
>
> ///E-Synthesist
>
> --- In emax@yahoogroups.com, "ted Summers" <djtbs1@...> wrote:
> >
> > From my understanding, the Emax 2 LCD is backlit by 5 volts and
> > doesn't use the inverter (which is ac and not 5 volts). The two
> pins
> > on one end of the display are coming from the inverter. You could
> > take a standard LCD display that is the correct size, and break
> the
> > conection on the LCD board from the two pins, then wire +5 from
> the
> > power supply to those points. The same would be true of the EMAX2
> > display). The inverter power would destroy the emax2 backlighting.
> I
> > dunno what other harm would be caused....
> >
> > As to the SCSI- if you have scsi you should be able to add a port
> to
> > the back. SCSI is scsi. The thing is this, there are really two
> ways
> > of doing it.... If there is a plug on the board you can come off
> of
> > it (I did this on mine).
> >
> > I dunno how much you know about scsi- so here is how you would
> make
> > this work, if you don't know scsi
> >
> > If there is no port on the board, get a SCSI cable with an
> external
> > end (DB25), and two 50pin connectors (like on the board and drive
> > connectors) and replace the cable that is in the emax.
> >
> > On the hard drive is a set of 3 resistor networks by the ribbon
> cable
> > connection. They might be blue, yellow, red, or black, but are
> > removable. They have 8 pins in a single row. These resistors
> > terminate the SCSI chain. By removing them, you can add an
> additional
> > device to the end of that chain (ie- cabling). When you remove
> these
> > and extend the chain you MUST have a terminator on the external
> plug
> > if nothing is hooked up to boot the machine, but if you are getting
> a
> > ZIP drive, it will have termination in it, so as long as it was
> > always hooked, you wouldn't need the plug on the external
> connection.
> >
> > And that, as they say, is that.....
> >
> > Hope it is clear as mud. And thanks for all the work you have done
> > for us on the Emax programs (though I haven't used them...yet)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ted
> >
> > On Sep 16, 2006, at 10:26 AM, esynthesist wrote:
> >
> > > I need some help !
> > >
> > > I bought the Emax Plus Rack I was talking about earlier. It's
> a "Plus
> > > SE with SCSI", serial number 002 (!).
> > > The sampler works but it has a display problem and quite a strange
> > > SCSI chipset:
> > >
> > > 1. The DISPLAY Problem
> > > ----------------------
> > >
> > > First of all this machine has a problem with the LCD display.
> > > After pushing some buttons, the contrast on the second line goes
> to
> > > zero and the contrast on the first line goes to the maximum.
> > > There's also an annoying high frequency noise coming from the main
> > > board (invertor ?) and also from the display (this only when the
> > > problem occurs)
> > >
> > > Now I also have a spare Emax-II rack with a perfectly working
> > > frontpanel PCB board & display.
> > > I compared the two boards and they look almost the same:
> > > - board in Emax Plus = 'Emax Rackpanel version 2 1986' PC328 REV B
> > > ASSY REV A (AF133)
> > > - board in Emax II = 'Emax Rackpanel version 2 1986' PC328 REV D
> > > (no assy) (AF133)
> > > The two capacitors on the board however have different numbers -
> > > these are actually the only two components on the board which are
> not
> > > buttons, sliders, display, lights or chip :-)
> > >
> > > My question:
> > > Do you think it's safe to switch these boards ? Maybe it won't
> work,
> > > that's no problem, but I just want to be sure the Emax Plus won't
> get
> > > damaged by this experiment.
> > > Anyone who can give me some advice ???
> > >
> > > 2. The STRANGE Thing
> > > --------------------
> > >
> > > I also want to add an external SCSI port to the sampler. It's not
> > > fitted on the board, and there's no hole in the backpanel either.
> > > Now I checked the specs from the sampler:
> > > - it's a PC333 Rev B main board
> > > - the SCSI 5380 chip is installed on IC6
> > > - the IP379A HD/Plus TIM PAL chip is installed on IC49
> > > ...
> > > - but on IC13 there's a 24-pin IP349C chip instead of the IP355
> > > mentioned on www.emulatorarchive.com.
> > > However, it is installed on an 28-pin socket. There's also an
> IP349
> > > Rev 3 'piggyback' board installed at the left of the main PC333.
> > >
> > > This is a situation not described in the SCSI Upgrade
> instructions on
> > > www.emulatorarchive.com.
> > > According to the upgrade instructions either the 3 chips have to
> be
> > > installed or all 3 chips should already have been factory-
> installed.
> > > If they're not installed, the IC13 should have no 28 pin socket
> yet.
> > > But mine has...
> > > I really don't know what machine I bought, it seems like a
> prototype
> > > of the Emax Plus...
> > >
> > > Anyway: can anyone confirm that the specs are sufficient, so that
> I
> > > just have to add a DB25 SCSI port and a flat cable ?
> > > Or should I simply try & check ?
> > >
> > > Thanks !!
> > >
> > > ///E-Synthesist
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
> 



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