Good points, but...
I believe chips to be rather sturdy unless they get exposed to extremely
high voltage peaks (which may occur on some models, according to Gerd
Drogemuller who was in charge of the CS80 at Yamaha Germany). As long as the
voltage levels are kept stable and as long as the power supply doesnt get
out of control, things should be fine. EPROMs might be more prone to
failure, Id say (being a non-tech).
Stephen.
"Im striving for the mysterious. The obvious doesnt interest me.." (Jon
Hassell)
Visit the official [ramp] website at www.doombient.com
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----- Original Message -----
From: David Rogoff <david@...>
To: <yamahacs80@...>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 8:23 PM
Subject: [yamahacs80] CS-80 life expectancy - was Re: Greetings and a
question!
--- In yamahacs80@..., BlchrR@a... wrote:
Hi,
First post to the list...
Welcome!
Just a question really, just wondering if any experienced techs on
this list has any idea what the long(er) term solution to keeping a
Cs80 going, will be in the future....?
Good topic!
As i see it, all Cs80s are currently on borrowed time, with regards
to spare parts, Yamaha are out of the IG series Ics for the Cs80, so
the question is, whats the long term solution?
Luckily, most of the parts in the CS-80 are still made today (all the
CMOS ICs, op-amps, etc). Also, luckily, the custom Yamaha chips
appear to be pretty reliable. All failures I've seen have been CMOS
parts or op-amps.
Is a fab run for say the VCO and VCF chips a possibility?
These are i guess, the critical ones, of course, the Vca chips are
also important.
Someone talked about this a while ago - any more info?
But if there isnt a fab run done then, its either down to pulling
parts from Cs50's and Cs60's for Cs80's
The problem with pulling chips is that they're just as old as the ones
you're replacing!
Bearing in mind how many Ics are in the Cs80 building discreet Voice
Cards and TRG boards and such is going to be quite a job....
Well, Crow is the master of this and has done some already
(). For the GX/SY modules, it's
possible to make it fit, but that's not going to happen inside a CS-80!
I think, with maintenence, we can keep these running for many more
years. For me, way more than half the appeal of the CS-80 is the
keyboard/poly-aftertouch, ribbon, and controls. Worst case, I could
see gutting the beast and turning it into and amazing MIDI controller
for CS80V and other hardware/VA synths.
It would also be fairly easy to tap the control voltages and gates
going to the voice card and drive a modular (I know - linear VCOs...).
Yes, for an additional $20k, or so, you can have a modular CS-80
that's bigger and heavier than a GX-1!
David
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