Can I repair this Alesis Micron synthesiser?

[@SianaGearz]

Hey you did everything correctly and pretty much perfectly so far. Now i wonder how you'll struggle with actually replacing the chips though! What's your plan with getting the old chips off, with your equipment? Capacitors which look good and haven't seemingly emitted any substance should never be assumed to still be good. I just routinely lift all of them and put them into an LCR-T4 which is a really cheap gadget out of China and for capacitors, it gives you the ESR and leakage, which are actually more interesting than the capacity, and see whether they read about what i'd expect based on experience, and sometimes they're great, other times they've definitely gone wonky. That being said, odds are, they're not under any sort of stress here and should be OK. The Altera chip is an FPGA, although the datasheet calls it a PLD, which is... not wrong, but perhaps a bit misleading, since it's an overarching category, comprised of CPLD (which is a flash programmable logic device) and FPGA (which is an SRAM based programmable logic device). Either is a regular matrix of logic gates, and each memory cell decides the signal routing between these gates. It has nothing to do with industrial PLD controllers, those don't generally even have PLD chips in them, naming collisions are just a thing that happens. You use a CPLD or a very small FPGA to convert timing critical signals and so join incompatible circuits or data buses; or a larger FPGA as a replacement for any sort of digital IC or functional group that may fit in and doesn't exist and that you can't just buy. This is not a very large FPGA but also not the smallest so i don't know exactly what they're doing with it. Maybe they're not using a lot of its capacity but got a deal on them.

[@mr_floydst]

Whow, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your detailed comments! Well, you're right, getting the chip off the board will be very difficult with my equipment. My plan is to apply a technique using a paper clip and LOTS of solder to get the surrounding area to temperature and then push pick it up with tweezers. (I saw some YT videos on this and this seems to be the way to go for me - I'll try this on some practice boards first, of course!) I checked the capacitors using my multimeter and I could see them charging up and releasing current, plus they look ok. But I ordered replacements just to be sure. My main concern is there are some variants of the ICs I ordered around, so I hope I bought the right ones. We'll see. :-)

[@SianaGearz]

@@mr_floydst The ICs seem correct to me, at least according to service manual, i can't see if the actual chips on the board match. The specific variety probably isn't even all that critical, but HC versions are cheapest around, and if they're the ones designed in, then they're just right. As to various manufacturers and slight differences in how the stores chop up and arrange the IC designations in the description, no need to be concerned about that. I don't know i haven't seen the "paperclip trick" video but that sounds about 20 times more difficult than it looks! Like every time i see someone show a "cool new technique" it turns out to be about 4 times more difficult than it looks, and if it's that for me, i imagine how much more difficult it has to be for people less comfortable with that sort of thing? Some of these, i know the people showing it off have actually gotten good at it, and i succeed as well maybe with just a little more effort, and other of these vids, i'm certain they had a number of takes which didn't work that didn't make it into the video. If anything one wouldn't want to use a paperclip, which instantly chews up side cutters and also isn't very thermally conductive, but rather a piece of solid-core copper wire. Tweezer technique and tweezer type are most vital - generic 7sa tweezers are good enough though, you just want them very sharp and pretty flexible. Oh also you can't do these things without magnification (well idk, i can't, i just assume others can't either, because just so much little detail evades you, even when you think you can see what you're doing), and either you already have a headband loupe, which is ideal, or in a pinch, oversized reading glasses around +2 to +3dptr from a discount store that are large enough to fit over your prescription glasses will do. You can maybe get Wood's Metal on eBay, this is how i do these sorts of chips. Can't see it offered right now, but there is Rose's Metal. There's also a desoldering alloy by Chipquick and other companies, low melting point. You avoid overheating and delaminating the PCB, and it stays molten for much longer than regular solder, and you can combine it fundamentally with the solid core wire loop technique as well. After the chip removal, it needs to be completely sucked up with a wick, otherwise the residue can weaken the solder joint, and in turn the wick needs a dollop of flux to behave. For some reason i have never had luck with the wick i got at Conrad, but 1.5mm width wick i got a whole load of from China just sort-by-price turned out perfectly fine? I don't know why Conrad Elektronik can't get their act together. What's this iron you've got? Wonder if it has true temperature control or just a power adjustment dial? Just because someone drew numbers on the dial doesn't mean they are actually meaningful, the way it is with some of the less fancy items.

[@SianaGearz]

Oh you don't need to rescue the cheap old chips. You can cut them off. Snip snip with flush cutters through the legs. Then just scoop up the rest of the legs with a ball of solder.

[@gossamyr]

your comments section is just amazing, a lot of a very smart people with useable knowledge, I'm blown away by the community you've grown. I love your step by step deductive reasoning and documenting the process, super important.

[@mr_floydst]

Thank you very much for watching once more ;) I'm super happy the internet can still be an awesome place full of knowledgeable people! And I'm super thankful for all the helpful comments on this video. I'd buy everyone a coffee. Maybe one day, when this global pandemic is finally over. :-)

[@azurduy117]

The discombobulated tones actually sound pretty interesting. Might be worth sampling them :)

[@mr_floydst]

Ha! I never viewed it like that. Great idea! :-)

[@frankstetka7206]

Yes I would probably never even bother fixing it 🥳😆

[@arcanics1971]

Despite your claim to have "no idea" I am convinced you are a secret electronic genius. Great vid.

[@mr_floydst]

Thank you! Well no, I'm not, but so far I got some helpful feedback on this video, so mission accomplished. :-)

[@Roboprogs]

The Google Foo is strong in this one 😁 Yeah, I can appreciate that feeling of knowing just enough to be dangerous. “Let’s heat this up. Oops, I let the magic smoke out.”

[@mr_floydst]

@@Roboprogs Haha, well said. I know exactly that I don't know enough to really find the error here. But I'm kind of forced to try it myself because of the reasons mentioned in this video. :-)

[@badmood88]

I would still replace the capacitors as it is 10x easier to do than replacing those IC. You can't always tell by looking at them if they have gone bad. Capacitors are often used to clean up noise.

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for watching! They're on my shopping list.

[@XavierRadix]

Oh yes! More DIY repair videos! Hope you can get this one working. Alesis made some darn interesting synths!

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks! Yes, they did. (This one seems to be in the Mininova league, though)

[@suomega]

Great vid 👍 Giving old synths a second life is awesome 👏 My old MiniAK (same core as the Micron) had a broken data knob and I ended up replacing the whole right PCB. A challenge for a total noob like me, but rewarding and it makes you appreciate the synth more once you know what goes on under the hood a bit 😎👍

[@mr_floydst]

Thank you very much! I hope I'm right with my assumptions, and replacing that IC won't be easy, as I never applied the technique necessary for that. Will have to get a practice board before tackling that.

[@suomega]

@@mr_floydst good luck and if nothing else, at least it might be fun 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@HFqTV]

Hello Floyd, when the parameters start to jump, it's almost always the potentiometer than the chip, it's not... it was the same with my jp 8080, I swapped a lot of potentiometers and now everything works again without jumping, :) there's dirt inside the potentiometers that produce this effect

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for watching and pointing that out! I bought replacement pots, but I think in this case it's unlikely because ALL the pots plus the sliders are causing chaos.

[@HFqTV]

@@mr_floydst ok maybe, we will see it good luck👍A test would be if you dehst the pots, whether it then has an influence on the values, if not, it's the chip

[@Roboprogs]

One of the other comments pointed out the capacitors. Sometimes they act as a high pass filter on a shunt, the idea being to dampen any noise in the input voltage feed. If noise feeds into the common voltage which the potentiometers are supposed to adjust on their respective outputs, that could make their outputs bounce around. Disclaimer: I’m a software guy, not a hardware guy.

[@dankirkhus]

@@mr_floydst I have an Alesis Ion that I recently serviced because *every single encoder* (there are 30) was sending bad data, jittery, or not working at all. After giving each pot a quick spray of contact cleaner (I used CRC QD) and spinning the shaft in both directions about 20x, it's good as new. $7 for the can of cleaner, it's a safe place to start. You'll see the access point on the body of each pot.. that little tab that's open to the world. This would be where I'd start before busting out the soldering iron... nothing to lose.

[@mr_floydst]

​@@dankirkhus Thank you for watching and pointing that out! I tried that first, as it is the easiest thing to do. Used an air can and contact cleaner. The problem is ALL the controls are misbehaving all the time, even if I remove them completely (i.e. I unplugged the mod wheel and the sliders and they kept "sending" data) Should have filmed that. Best regards! :-)

[@rlgrlg-oh6cc]

This is NOT the worst case scenario. In that case, one of the large chips would be damaged, and would have code inside it.

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for watching! Yes, I totally agree with you. But for me (guy who has no clue of these things whatsoever), out of the different possibilities on that specific board, it's the worst ;-) - though I think I should be able to sort it out.

[@FLOTRONmusic]

Got one shipped from Japan, just got it today and noticed the volume level on the left channel is about 60% lower than the right one. I opened it up and looks like there is a transistor for each output channel and some caps, probably I might have to replace those.

[@mr_floydst]

That's always the first thing to try. Good luck with the repair!

[@Roboprogs]

Thanks for the repair process walk through. Someday I will take another crack at fixing my old DX100. It needed more than just the lithium battery replacement, but I don’t know where to start. So far, I have only succeeded in accidentally melting some of a ribbon cable while trying to resolder some dry/loose joints, so I need to be more careful.

[@mr_floydst]

Good luck with that! Yes, without the right tools, you can cause more damage than good really quickly. But then again (as I said in the video) professional synth technicians are _rare_ and most of the time they don't want to be bothered with "common" synths (which is fair considering the worth of their time vs. the worth of cheap digital synths).

[@the_musiccellar]

Incredibly informative and well made video. Loved the musical piece as well. I play a Micron and I’ve seen parameters glitch like this before! Luckily it hasn’t happened in a while, but those darn volume pots…

[@mr_floydst]

Thank you! There's a part 2 of this where I actually do the repair. ;-)

[@blackrazorus]

I just found this and love it- thank you for posting it! The performance at the end was particularly welcome- did you sequence it with your MPC or record the Micron as audio?

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for watching! I sequenced that on the MPC, and played the melody part on the keyboard, if I remember correctly.

[@blackrazorus]

Cool! No matter what, it was terrific! Bravo!@@mr_floydst

[@dustyaudio]

Very cool. I hope you can do more projects like this. Maybe how to refresh or replace Korg nanokey2’s wobbly keys? I got a used one and would like to see if it possible to fix them up

[@mr_floydst]

Thank you! Well, I'm afraid the keys on the NanoKey are always wobbly, even on new ones fresh from the factory. I have one, it gets a lot of use but it's also not a great playing experience. It's great for carrying around with other small synths, though.

[@eladorian1317]

better get some kepton tape and a decent hot air station it can make or break a repair, if you went through all the trouble of diagnosis you better make it work in the end no? i use the yihua 858D which is a Chinese knock off of some other high end device, it's pretty cheap and does the trick quite nicely I'd do some training on a donor board or some old psu unit ir other PCB just so you've got the heat fun temp and fan dialed in properly, also some good flux for the reflow is really recommended, good luck my man the micron a small but very capable VA synth

[@mr_floydst]

Thank you very much for your assesment! I've been thinking about getting one of those indeed. Perhaps this is a good time to finally get one. :-)

[@Roboprogs]

So is this for hearing, or cooling around the circuit board work area? It sounds like some kind of heat sink, but my ignorance is showing.

[@SamNiverba]

pretty interesting video Floyd!

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks, Sam!

[@am8115]

brillant work

[@mr_floydst]

Thank you.

[@curtisvalle5141]

Very nice. Ir is apparent you know a tad more than you let on. Looks like a little rearrangement of controllers, a neck, and a pair of guitar strap buttons would produce a poor man's Keytar. Thoughts? Anybody got a better idea?

[@mr_floydst]

Hi, I don't think that would be too ergonomic :-) You'd put a lot of stress on those plastic panels, too, and there are a lot of cables that would point towards ground, not ideal. Better get a used Keytar somewhere - the Yamaha SHS-10 looks awful, but is cheap on the second hand market and has MIDI. :-)

[@burkenator258]

I just bought a used micron and it unfortunately has numerous sounds that either do not work or attempt to work but will make either a screeching noise or just a thump sound while initially pressing any key. Most of the sounds work but a lot do not and some of the sounds that don’t work will intermittently work after scrolling through other sounds. The factory reset didn’t help, no surprise there. Other than purchasing a replacement main board, I don’t know what would be the cause. I’m hoping to find some help on this.

[@mr_floydst]

Have you checked the usual suspects first, e.g. leaked capacitors? Did you unplug the control board like I did in this video?

[@burkenator258]

@@mr_floydst I hadn’t unplugged the boards yet but I did look visually at the capacitors and all were good with none leaking or burst open. Any thoughts on what to check otherwise? Thanks much

[@kwhandy]

do you think they still selling the green LCD?

[@mr_floydst]

Propably maybe? See instrumentalparts.com/lcd-lens-micron/

[@Jaredman68]

My micron works as a midi but does not use sounds from the library. What is broken? I sprayed contact cleaner and no fix as I thought it could be eroded.

[@mr_floydst]

Hm, my first guess: Did you turn off local mode by accident?

[@menacerisamir198]

hi, i received a MODAL skulpt SE ,it went wrong 2 days after using it , and it will cost me more to send it back from mexico to the USA , the problem is the audio output , this synth is from UK , but there is a sticker made in china , my record company send it to me in advance for realeasing a new record , meantime i use REASON 10 , i got ALESIS products and they are very good , i got a worst problem with the MODAL , no sound at all , this is frustrating ......

[@mr_floydst]

Oh man, I'm sorry to hear this, that's bad. There's no local dealer who'd take it back or exchange it? Is there no audio at all or is it crackling ...?

[@menacerisamir198]

@@mr_floydst i got to send back to to sweetwater shop and dhl cost me what i not got , so at least i got some tacos to eat , by the way i send you my music kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4nJnYKLibageLc

[@johnb2044]

Floyd want to come fix my E4K and have a few hours setting up my midi layout .....EX5 -EX5 R QX3 RX5 A3000x2 A5000 Motif XS r awaiting along with a few others.....lol

[@mr_floydst]

Haha :-) Well as I explained in the video, I don't know anything at all (but some basics) so perhaps that's not the best idea ;) But the MIDI thing sounds fun. :-)

[@johnb2044]

@@mr_floydst only 15 keyboards and 40 rack units ....lol

[@mr_floydst]

@@johnb2044 Wow, ok, so how do you do that? Daisy chaining is out of question, obviously ;) A lot of USB midi interfaces? MIDI routers? I guess latency and resistance and ground loops and o.t.a. noise make this one hell of a puzzle to solve. :-) (Also considering you'll most likely want to audio outs to be connected to somewhere as well)

[@johnb2044]

@@mr_floydst 2X Roland A-880's 2 X motu MTP's and 2 X emgic's AMT'8 4 X RX1602's and a older eurorack Mx 3242x

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

I'd of of either remove the keyboard and made a box and used it as a desktop synth or just remove the controller effect knobs and use guitar effects pedals.

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for watching! If all else fails, that's what I'll do. But in the meantime, I made progress (with a _lot_ of help by one of my viewers): The sliders and knobs are functional again, leaving only the wonky pitch wheel. The pitch wheel most likely has bad solder joints, so it should be an easy fix, but as a n00b, I managed to ruin my soldering iron in the process. (omg). ;-) So waiting for a new one currently.

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

@@mr_floydst Dont forget to film your progress as I'm waiting for the video update. Glad you got it working, Remove or replace the mod wheel.

[@mr_floydst]

Update: It's working again 100%. I'll post a video soon.

[@AlCapwndYou]

Looking forward to hearing the prognosis of this repair attempt!

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks. Me, too. ;-)

[@robcaldwell3172]

I see no wrist strap or ESD. protection. This makes any repair you perform subject to latent damage. These are problems that may hide initially but can produce unpredictable circuits. Certain component types are more prone to this damage than other. There are many end protective products available and accompanying training. In my lab's I have ESD floor, workbenches, storage areas and more. This is a requirement of my ISO certification.

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for your advice! Going to do that in the future.

[@chrisw1462]

If nothing else, just gut it and use the keyboard for your own custom synth. 😛

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for watching! Yes, that's a valid exit strategy - but this board looks uncomplicated enough to tackle. I learned a thing or two in the last days and of course I'll film that. :-)

[@Death_By_Media]

The Micron and Miniak ( Akai Version ) are very powerful little synths and I suspect after getting it fixed up you may just keep it as the profit vs your time will be low . The external Control Was its biggest setback as ALL parameters are NRPN and not Midi CC and to my limited understanding of NRPN they are an odd implementation of that even , but to save you any head scratching there is that little bit of info . Here is a modern editor github.com/retroware/micronau for Mac users with several forks I've not tried yet . There are many windows versions out there easier to find free and paid . One note . Most of the factory presets don't seam to utilize the OSC Drift feature . Which IMHO make sound as good as any Digital subtractive/FM you can buy today . The sweet spot is 15-25% depending on how DCO-VCO you're trying to get . Using it as a modern 8 voice drum synth and drum machine ...even kills many modern equivalent I've seen especially in the " VA" and FM space . The guy at the LFO store really shows off the engine too so heres a shout out to him/they as well . kzbin.info/www/bejne/lamsg6ywm52jodk kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKrWiKasgZqKbLM kzbin.info/aero/PLfqrTVYB4ygYcJ5-FVCZY7K_gfyFMwq0C

[@mr_floydst]

Thanks for watching! Well, maybe :-). I'm just a hobbyist musician - with limited space for hardware - and I enjoy tinkering with synths and trying this and that, so the time invested in this project is both worth nothing and everything ;) I already own a Novation PEAK and so far my impression is the PEAK and the Micron share some ideas, to put it like this, there are a lot of similarities there in architecture. I'll keep the Micron around for some time and so far, I really like the sound. I also like the design and the UI concept, using the keyboard for shortcuts is an idea that works really well.

[@Death_By_Media]

@@mr_floydst Yeah the Peak is one half ( literally )of my dream synth ( Summit ) , but the very good/ borderline great ( for VA) engine in the Micron is half its strength the other being 8 parts multi timbral with both drum and note sequencers . Example : Bass , snare , kick , hat , lead , a duophonic lead , and still have a part/ voice left to run a guitar or vocals through the effects . Peak can’t do that , but it’s not meant to be a workhorse it’s just a great sounding ,powerful synth ( with the best reverb on a synth ever IMHO ) that’s meant to do a good part (or two ) great . Anyway I’ll stop trying to be an enabler lolz . Cheers . Btw and speaking of enabling lol ....I know you’re big on DIY projects did you ever look in to Elk Audio for PI ? They have a pretty decent GitHub with lots of already compiled plugins ready to play with .

[@mr_floydst]

@@Death_By_Media Thanks! I'll take a look at that, I'm always interested in new PI projects. :-) And for the time being, the Micron is here, I'll try to finish the repair and I'll then explore the synth engine and make some videos. Thanks for sharing the links, I'll definitely take a look. We in the synth community are always a bit passionate about the gear we use (of course we are because that stuff is not cheap and stays with us for a very long time)