Troubleshooting the EGs
2011-11-19 by b3groover
Hi friends, I received three replacement chips today for my CS-50, including two VCAs and a VCA EG. Tonight I finished replacing the rest of the electrolytics in the synth and decided to tackle replacing the chips. I figured I'd start replacing the easier SIP VCAs, so I first replaced the VCA that controls the pitch aftertouch. Yay! The pitch aftertouch works and sounds great! Next, I replaced the dead IC6 VCA on voice card M2. Yay, voice card M2 works and the filter EG works, too! This is in contrast to voice card M3, which I thought was the fully working card but then realized the filter EG isn't working. And lo, I have a duophonic synth (albeit with one voice lacking filter EG)! Finally, I tackled the EG chip on voice card M1. I unsoldered the old chip carefully, installed a 16pin DIP socket, and installed the new chip, strapping the resistor on the bottom of the PCB instead of across the top of the chip like it was installed stock. I figured it would be easier to swap chips that way. But oh no! It still doesn't work! The voltages from all the pins are the same as the chip I took out... really healthy rails, the trigger signal coming in on pin 7. But no output on pin 3. So... does this mean that it's not the EG chip at fault, but rather it's companion VCA? I wish I had socketed the "new" VCAs but I don't have any SIP sockets (and Mouser didn't have any 8pin SIP sockets either, strangely enough). Is this a common fault with these machines? If so, I'm hoping perhaps the VCA EG chip on voice card M4 is not actually dead either, like I thought, nor is the filter EG chip on voice card M3, but rather their respective companion VCAs. Thoughts? ----Jim