Trying to FIX: 1985 CASIO Musical Calculator that Sounds like R2-D2 !!!

Hi, in this video I attempt to repair a 1985 musical calculator made by Casio which has a strange fault which makes it sound like R2-D2.
Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things. I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things, so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series. Many thanks, Vince.

[@StezStixFix]

Vince, you're spoiling us! 2 videos in 2 days! Love it.

[@Christopher_T_Paul]

When you removed the crystal and tested, the time was running way too fast, after the replacement crystal installed it then regulated the speed. So although working without the crystal, it wouldn't have kept good time.

[@ktaragorn]

Exactly! He kept saying its counting up correctly and in my mind I kept yelling NO!

[@gt1man931]

I love that you mix it up and we never know what might be next. Keep them coming, mate.

[@Regaljester75]

“Morning has broken, but Vince will fix it”

[@chrisholmes4353]

Yes and he certainly will

[@TheRetroFuture]

That thumbnail should be hung up in the Louvre.

[@JonPadfield]

The Tate, please Elliot! Such works of art should be kept close to home ;)

[@Tim_3100]

Love your videos too elliot 🙂

[@jom1164]

These Casio calculators last forever. I still have a Casio scientific calculator my parents got me for school in 1987. The small battery door has bulged out a bit but it still works on the original battery 33 years later.

[@freddyburger5574]

Amazing, Vince! You are an inspiration to those of us who like to (attempt to) fix fiddly little devices!!

[@robertrobinson8700]

Vincent, great video 👍 and great rendition of "Morning has Broken". Cat Stevens is happy in heaven now knowing his songs are even being played on a casio calculator lol great job 👍

[@I967]

Your video came up in my suggestions and for once YT algorithms got it right. Absolutely great content, it's wonderful to see it fixed!

[@BarnOwl61]

Morning has broken! What an interesting gadget. Job well done Vince! I would have tossed it after all the keys dropped out. The patience you must have, unbelievable.

[@d33jmeister]

On this series of Englands Got Talent, the amazing Vince with his out-of-this world musical calculator skill

[@dangarvey434]

Morning has broken, brilliant you have patience of a saint great vid

[@CLC-1000]

Loving the amount of uploads lately Vince. Great product.

[@pegtooth2006]

Hi Vince I enjoy these yesteryear repairs. If you set the year to 1964 or 1992, You will get the correct date and day of the week. Hello from Western Canada

[@home-space]

Love these 80s casios calculators. Still have one that has built in games.

[@TerryMcKean]

Nice score... I bought one of those at Macy's back when they were new on the market. It was very expensive. It's tones sounded beautiful and clear. Thanks for sharing, Vince.

[@TerryMcKean]

Good job restoring that one, Vince... Big Thumbs Up, definitely.... subbed, too. I remember back the day I bought mine I also bought a Casio VL-5 four-note polyphonic keyboard and that was awesome too... I still have the VL-5 and it works great to this day. :-)

[@indobleh]

Less than a minute in, Vince says "I'm wondering if it's just a battery fault" - checks video length, yeah never going to be just a battery !

[@pegtooth2006]

I check the time stamps too for videos. Lol

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

You need to reset (press "P") after inserting batteries to make it start correctly.

[@Rose.Of.Hizaki]

Oh man.... my face immediately lit up when i saw this in my recommended box after watching a few of your videos. I actually used to have one of these things with the brown vinyl or plastic flip case. I didnt have the one you have here in particular though. Mine was the MG-880. And i definitely still have it somewhere and it still worked as far as i can remember when i found it one day during cleaning and put it away again. It belonged to my grandpa and he used to get it out and let me mess with it as a kid just to keep myself from being bored as hell. I need to go find it!!!

[@andymee5358]

Really nice fix vince and the song was morning has broken keep up the good work mate loving all the content

[@Gooey27]

Vince saves the day once again.

[@8Bitrabbitech]

Oh man, I bought the same one on a flea market, when I was like 10 year old.I still miss it...Thanks Vince.

[@davidortiz8785]

Another great video. Awesome content!

[@tonyfishlock7240]

Nice one that made me chuckle 👍 thanks and very well played

[@willproctor7301]

Can't believe that fix vince. Didn't hold out much hope at all. But as I've said in the past, you are king of the crystals. Well done :)

[@stum2730]

Morning has broken. A good fixer-upper! Well done!

[@BlazingMediic]

It's vince the musician 😂 Great video vince and keep up the brilliant work 😊

[@ferolcat2009]

This is a trip down memory lane for me. I had one of these. My father was working in Saudi Arabia and he brought me one home, I was only 11 at the time in 1980. I have no idea what happened to it, but it was a bit of nostalgia to see one again and back to working order. :)

[@hecker8112]

Your always good at FIXING love this

[@-Scraggyanne-]

Song is morning has broken. Awesome video Vince. Great fix 🙂

[@nu52927]

Love your content. Makes my day

[@Hounddoggy33]

Without first looking at the comments I could easily tell it was CS's MHB. You did a good job playing it.

[@Mymatevince]

Haha, cheers Hound Dog :-)

[@marky26uk]

Awesome video Vince, love these retro calculator/watches with musical alarms, anyway, i program microchip microprocessors of which you can use an external crystal or use the processors own internal oscillator, now these also have an option where by if the external crystal fails, the processor can switch to it's own internal oscillator, so maybe this is what happened when you removed the crystal, the processor started using it's own internal oscillator, not knowing the cpu in that unit i couldn't tell you, but loved the video as i love all your videos and hope this bit of information helps you a little, take care Vince :)

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

Models without clock have no quartz but used the internal oscillator to save some cents.

[@NickNorton]

I appreciate your use of classical music during your videos. Rather than some banging trance/dance toon from the KZbin library. While I do like beats and grooves and Hi-NRG stuff, there is a time and a place for that. Classic music is so beautiful. It's a shame appreciation for it is diminishing today. I'm impressed you use it. You're obviously a cultured man.

[@dodgydruid]

My mum had a Casio musical calculator, it could play a few instruments and had a little metronome but could also do a birds call and you could set your rendition to an alarm so it alarmed with your masterpiece. Was quite big and triangle shaped. The calculators to get are of course the original kit Sinclair's, super robust.

[@andersmmvfc.8376]

Good morning has broken! Thank you a awsome video!

[@oturgator]

Most people do not push the “P” reset button or AC/Adjust button or simply don’t know that they have to short the AC terminals when they switch batteries in a Casio product. That is 75% of the “for parts or repair” faults that I have from the Casios that I purchase off of eBay, and the remaining 24% is the sliding switch contact issues.

[@Mymatevince]

I never knew that either, thanks for sharing. It may be useful in the future :-)

[@electronicengineer]

Out of curiosity, what is the remaining 1% fault condition(s)? I am interested in finding out as I own multiple Casio calculator wristwatches and scientific calculators and feel it would benefit me to be prepared! Thanks in advance oturbator!

[@oturgator]

@@electronicengineer The remaining 1% can be 0.5% component issues (broken, bent, lost) and 0.5% can be trace issues. For example, if you ever come across a Casio PB-1000 with a garbled screen, it is highly probable that the seller didn't initiated a proper Reset after replacing the batteries. So it is safe to buy it, keeping in mind that the Casio folding traces are notorious for failing. For example, Casio Fx-451M, PB-220, Fx-790 et. al. are all tricky buys. It is rarely a component failure, like tantalum capacitors or electrolytics which can cause an issue. The LCDs are better than most Sharp or Radio Shack computer or calculators at the time.

[@electronicengineer]

@@oturgator Thank you for this valuable information! I appreciate that you took out the time to reply to me and to identify the issues so well!

[@mrjsv4935]

Sounds interesting. I have Casio fx115d calculator from 1991, have had it from new and I still have even the instruction manuals for it. All it says about replacing the battery (GR927) that the owner should bring it to the Casio dealer for battery replacement :D I have replaced the battery myself at least once or twice without problems but now it's been been without any battery inside almost 20 years. Still works with the solar cell though. Very entertaining video. The comment about driving teachers mad made me laugh :D They were already mad about those beeping LCD electronic handheld games we had in the 80's :D

[@michaelturner4457]

Some people spend a lot of time and effort circuit bending tech items to make sounds like this, and this little Casio did it all by itself.

[@Mymatevince]

Haha, yes very true :-)

[@richards7909]

The song is: This calculators not broken He fixed it this morning Vince has now spoken We liked every word Praise for his soldering Praise for his tinkering Praise for his success Cos we all love this nerd. :)

[@Mymatevince]

Haha, perfection :-)

[@CasioChaosTheory]

What a great video, I really enjoyed watching and hearing the process of dismantling, diagnosing and resurrecting a little Casio calculator. I was in high school when this generation of Casio calculators were popular and remember them well - so much nostalgia! All these years later I now have three vintage Casio musical calculators - 2 x ML831 and 1 x MG880. I bought my first ML831 as "faulty/ parts or repair" (though it was cosmetically in excellent condition), and was also hoping it would be a simple battery issue. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The second ML831 works fine though it's noticeably more used (I plan to put the working internals of the more battered ML831 into the cosmetically better case of the other ML831). The MG880 I found in a drawer in my old bedroom at my mother's house back in the UK when I visited earlier this year, and I can't for the life of me remember where I got it from. It turns on and appears to work, but the display segments have fluctuating/ non display issues, though it's almost certainly poor connection with the display ribbon, as putting pressure on the display connectors makes the invisible segments appear. The ribbon cable looks to be one of those heat/ press/ glue cables that are notorious for failing contacts on more recent 1990's/ 2000's LCD and electronic devices (including some synthesizer key beds). Casios seem to be less affected by this and in general their LCD displays and connectors were/ are very reliable and well made. I might try the trick of reheating the ribbon cable to connector contact as that can sometimes restore the connections. Back to the faulty ML831. If I put batteries in it, the display shows a 1 and a -1 at each end of the display, and sometimes it makes a droning tone, and sometimes it doesn't. Of note, it does this regardless of where the power/ melody/ calculator switch is positioned - the selector switch changes nothing and none of the buttons are responsive or do anything. I took it apart looking for a simple fix, and the internals look to be in excellent condition with nothing notable amiss. In fact other than a small blue capacitor, two small through hole resistors and some SMD resistors, there's nothing else to on the board other than the LSI/ CPU. Interesting to note, with the power/ selector switch removed, when I put power/ batteries in it, it still displays the above 1 and -1 and sometimes the droning/ stuck tone. I've no idea whether one of the resistors or the capacitor could be causing this fault, or if the LSI itself is fried internally. A shame, as I'd still like to get it working again. Of note, all three of these Casio calculator models I have do NOT have a crystal, and as they don't have the clock/ stopwatch/ date function of yours, no doubt that's why. As others have already pointed out, the oscillator in yours is for generating the timing frequency to keep the clock accurate. It will run without it, but won't keep correct time. Anyway, great video, keep up the good work and you've got a new subscription from me!

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

I analyzed the hardware (chip pinout, keboard matrix layout) if many Casio musical calculators. Basically there exist only 2 different CPU types (special microcontroller with internal maskrom); the rest is changed software. The quartz is only needed for accurate clock (often with additional trimmer capacitor to tweak speed) and tone generator pitch. Models without clock don't need it.

[@kotm3]

Morning has broken. Had to sing that every other day at junior school lol. Nice little fix and fault.

[@6T7T9]

nice video vince and thanx for not editing out moments 20:35-21:10 .i know it frustrating moments for you and you can cut it out if you want BUT moments like that makes your video extra extra fun (some good laugh) to watch and most viewers will agree too

[@michaelturner4457]

Song is, Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens.

[@RetroReviewYT]

Michael Turner speaking of Cat Stevens...... I have Tea for the Tillerman myself

[@Tim_3100]

First r2d2 calculator i have seen 😂 but 2 videos in quick succession love it 🙂

[@KOZZZMOSLB]

The tune at the end had me twerkin' out of pure joy! Well done, sir!

[@noelj62]

I would never had guessed it was the crystal. Good job.

[@MyRetroWatches]

Blahhdy brilliant mate. Loved it . Morning has broken! Unlike the calculator.

[@atikhusein7982]

Wow,cool Vince

[@technixbul]

32768 - correct guess, and yes, the old crystal was damaged ;) The crystal also is used to stabilise the correct frequency in this case.

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks Technix :-)

[@colin1729]

Great Video. I mentioned your dexterity on your last video. Now you playing tunes on a calculator. I am going to be careful what I say next time. LOL

[@Mymatevince]

Haha :-)

[@MrJav69]

Well done great little device there

[@danielsaturnino5715]

Well done!

[@Croaker369]

Nice one! 👍👍👍

[@pherman8852]

Nice Cat Stevens bud. Good fix.... how the heck did you guess that it’s would be that crystal? You da man👍

[@jimmyramkisoen191278]

Very Nice fix :)

[@chrismifsud7154]

I love your videos.

[@flibble666]

The out put you are seeing on the scope when its not connected is from the power supply the cheap scope probes are likely not insulated and by crossing over the power connection or being close to them as its acting as an antenna is picking up noise from the PSU that is why its around 50Hz I would suggest making or buying a cable but the money maybe better spent on a different scope. Well done on the fix awesome video as always.

[@MOHAMED-qh3px]

great job thank you Sir

[@johanlaurasia]

Nice fix, I kinda figured if the clock was working w/o the crystal then the crystal was for the musical tone generation. Also figured a standard 32768 crystal is what was in there and low and behold... it was. Morning has broken, but not the singing calculator watch music thingy :)

[@paulb4uk]

This was brilliant i have a casio small lcd clock and that has a musical alarm this has gone a bit weird kind of like this ,might have to try swapping out the crystal

[@chrisb15151]

A great fix, some of these mini card casio calculators are worth good money. I have a couple that work but you can only see the display at certain angles & not face on, which is a little weird.

[@robinsonsoto8471]

You are a savvy + Engineer. God Bless.

[@ovalwingnut]

"Check & Mate".... I'm never going to 2nd guess anybody again. I thought for sure removing that crystal was not required.. Good job my friend! 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@TheSkaldenmettrunk]

I felt the frustration when he saw that he has put the "c" button the wrong way. But lt's fixed. Thank you for the concert.

[@nebular-nerd]

Morning had not yet broken when I watched this 😊

[@HungryWanderer86]

lovely :) it even has the color scheme of R2 and R4 units.

[@GadgetUK164]

Great fix Vince =D Wierd that it worked without that crystal, but presumably the crystal was for the audio side of things? Even more amazing it just happened to seem to need a 32.768Khz watch crystal =O

[@NOWThatsRichy]

An excellent fix, could the crystal be for generating the tone frequencies for the music?

[@GarthBeagle]

IDK the R2D2 sounds seemed better :) great fix!

[@bainies3272]

Is the song "Something is Broken" by Cal Stevens?

[@Valveus]

Something is broken Vince tries to fix it Will he succee-eed? I just don't know

[@peekpt]

Mr Magoo of repairs. Let's switch a random component, oh a crystal, that's it. Fixed 🤔😂

[@AcornElectron]

Excellent, perfect reason to crack another IPA before bed. Stay safe and well fella and keep up the good work!

[@TomMannCenturia]

Well that was very satisfying.

[@markshellard5894]

Morning has broken used to sing that in school during assembly 🙂

[@muhammadrizkiramadhan8557]

Nice vid as usual. What brand solder station are u using vince? Need to know.

[@ianofliverpool7701]

It probably thinks its 1920 so uses that day, A beautiful piece of retro technology, Morning has Broken

[@RD-650]

Morning has broken another great vid

[@tonyg6103]

Love old noisy shit like that. I’d be putting on some nitrile gloves tho. Well done mate!

[@MrMaxeemum]

Patience of a saint.

[@saturnuria1217]

Hi Vince, set the year to 1992. 2020 has the same calendar so your days of the week should work no problem.

[@Mymatevince]

Oh yes, it has now moved to Tuesday!! Very clever, thanks for sharing :-)

[@saturnuria1217]

My Mate VINCE No worries fella. With all the hours of free entertainment you’ve given me I’m glad I could finally give you something in return! :)

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

The calendar has no Y2K problems. Type the year as 4 digits (2023 instead of 23) and it computes days correctly.

[@HowDoIlockGeometryDash]

i love you my mate vince!

[@coll6]

Ha called it. Was the crystal odd that it functions without. It could be for a different function. IC chips can create their own clocks using capacitors and resistors so that could be what the chip is using for the calculator side since it doesn't need to be particularly fast or very accurate. But for something like digital sound frequencies matter and a clock using a quartz crystals is far more accurate and stable under normal ambient conditions. For most home electrical devices you can assume they will be a normal watch crystal. As you stated they are mass manufactured and extremely cheap. So the one you pulled out should be similar. Even if it wasn't for most basic cases like this a different one should still work the sound and maybe function would just feel slightly off. The clock frequency would really matter more for things like radios or tuning counting things that need a known value. Something like this it is just used to help the calculator programming move to the next step in its program as well as produce sound. For your oscilloscope your probes are picking up ambient radiation and noise that is all around us from the sun to radio stations and even frequencies from your mains. So at low voltages you will see lots of waves and noise. You can disregard that. For a clock you would see a nice big steady wave. You were measuring it right but since that crystal was busted it wasn't creating that needed wave that you would have seen if it was functioning correctly.

[@Mymatevince]

Great advice, thanks coll6 :-)

[@coll6]

@@Mymatevince No problem hope it helps in the future great videos.

[@bobbytmp1322]

Thx!! Learned that crystals can go bad and 45 yr old sticky tape isn't.

[@maniatore2006]

That is a sound generator for Star Trek Sounds... Used in TNG :D Thank you for that Video.

[@jeremystead5252]

Shame about the C being the wrong way around. Hidden in disguise is the 8 upside down too! Great work non the less!

[@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc]

Awesome stuff, though you skipped over the part where you had to work out exactly where the springs and that weird little disc go.

[@OntologicalQuandry]

Well well well. I would NEVER have guessed the crystal was broken. I regard those things as virtually unbreakable. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Has_Broken ...which means the tune you played was called "Bunessan".

[@NotIT]

Nice work. Tip: Put buttons like that in while it's face down on some masking tape.

[@TechGorilla1987]

Every dog in my neighborhood is gathered around the screen with me. Wonder why? :D

[@ballsrgrossnugly]

I know I know! It's because you are made of ground beef held together with peanut butter! Solved it.

[@JuicyJakeRepairs]

i for one, would love to see musical calculators make a return!

[@Bears9McMahon]

Fun vid

[@Graytail]

A damaged crystal will have its clock speed greatly increased I think? That'd throw the clock out, but more importantly if it was controlling the processor clock base as well, then the proc wasnt recieving the input at the rate it was expecting. It'd be like trying to read a scrolling message thats doing 5 pages a second instead of 1/4

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

Some Casio calculators need reset (press "P" button) after battery insertion, else the crystal runs too fast and crashes in funny ways. Also a broken (cracked) crystal or clock speed trimmer can cause this.

[@user-te1le7ck6b]

Vince do a revisit on laptop as I want to see you repair more desktops / laptops , don’t give up call sorin 😆

[@vaualbus]

Quartz cannot be classified only by frequency. A quartz is a complex system in which the relation between the voltage and current (aka the impedance) is a function of the intrinsic properties of the quartz. One can look at a quartz as a parallel of a capacitor(C0) and a inductor, capacitor and resistance. The overall frequency response of this object is what "decide" the frequency of the quartz. Quartz are used in oscillator in always in some sort of feedback system, where by theory to have an oscillator one have meet the Barkhausen condition (aka the phase of the overall system, at w = w0 = 2*pi*f0 (where f0 is the quartz frequency), = 0 and the loop gains equals to 1). So to do in a digital circuit on place an oscillator in a feedback loop of an inverter. Now to obtain the above condition one need to consider the value of the quartz internal parameters. Any way despite all good fix and I guess it could be that that quartz was used for audio indeed!.

[@dodgydruid]

My ancient Normatest AVO meter has a clock crystal, great big thing inside there that is used in the formulation of analysing signals which have to be set against an unbreakable constant to gain the variation which becomes the reported signal to your meter arm. Its useful in that the device does not rely on the battery or mains voltage as a constant which can vary considerably, other uses being setting current frequency to a precise waveform or used as a binary pulse switch e.g. watches.

[@derdualeraum356]

I don't believe you. Every crystal can be replaced by every crystal you randomly find at home. Proof: Vince

[@WereReallyRelayCamping]

so if what you say is true, and the freq is dependent on current and voltage, why is a crystal the same freq on 3.3v as it is on 5v or 12v ??? and why do manufacturers not print a voltage range on them ? ? ?

[@vaualbus]

@@WereReallyRelayCamping it's not dependent on voltage and current. I want describe the stuff easier. It's dependent on the transfer function of the equivalent circuit of the crystal that is the ratio between the vokatge and current. The frequency is dependent on intrinsic characteristics of the filter

[@vaualbus]

Also to measure filter you put it i to a network analyszer that swept the frequency at for every frequency it calculate the impedence of the crystal. Than you would obtain a plot where you see that the function you see have a minimum and that is the quartz filter.

[@Omega11998822]

4:25 YEEEEEAAAHH WE'RE GOING IN BOIS

[@SardisTheYardDog]

Sweet guitar solos

[@elektron2kim666]

My, much newer, washing machine play a long classical piece exactly that way (screaming, penetrating notes) when it's finished.

[@jusb1066]

I think it's only using the Crystsl occasionally for accuracy but runs on the internal oscillator for battery savings

[@mOnocularJohn]

Thank God I wasn't wearing headphones while watching this. LOL

[@joesanchez979]

Nice👍

[@Msound500]

🤩 Amazing, maybe the Quartz wasn’t totally faulty, you reset the chip by removing it. And I know this song ( already heard somewhere ) but can’t tell title

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

You need to reset (press "P" button) after battery insertion.