Hello from Thailand

[tunwadee]

Hi everyone,

I've been a member for a few months, but I never got around to introducing myself.... my apologies for being a bit late in doing so!

I'm a British expat living and working in Bangkok, originally from North West England, and I've been living in Thailand for around 6 years now. When I'm not working I'm consumed with music - listening, writing, playing & producing. My particular passions are vinyl, turntables, analogue synthesizers and signal processors.

I must confess, I'm a complete noob. I've never used a soldering iron in my life, but I need to rectify that situation very soon out of necessity (due to my location).

Some of my equipment is in need of attention, and although I have one or two contacts in Bangkok who could do the work I'd be waiting forever and it'd cost a lot. To send equipment to the US or Europe to be serviced would be a logistical nightmare and cost a small fortune so that's definitely a non-starter.

I'm looking at getting myself to a position where I can confidently service and modify my own gear and build some useful kits too. However, I'm not so naiive as to dive straight in at the deep end! I need some fundamental knowledge first and a few easy, cheap projects (guitar FX pedals maybe?) under my belt to help me get to grips with a soldering iron and some basic experience.

Any advice as to appropriate first steps, such as suitable reading material for a noob, and the basic equipment I'll need would be extremely well received!

Many thanks for reading my intro. I hope to learn a lot here, and who knows, in time maybe I'll have enough knowledge to be able to contribute something too!


Cheers,

Pete

[GloBug]

Read up on safety first, there should be a "sticky" at the top of most forums.

Get yourself a multimeter, electrical solder(or regular solder and flux), screwdrivers, utility knife, solder sucking bulb and a small quality pair of side cutters like "Xuron"

As long as your safe, you can dive in or at least go balls deep.

Ask away with specific questions when your ready to go.
If you had a specific direction you want to go in, folks can recommend some good reading.(SS, tubes, chipamps etc.)

I'm sure you will be able to do all your own service work.

Have fun.

[tunwadee]

Hi GloBug, thanks for the advice.

The first thing I need to do is service my Juno 60. She's not sounding her best at all. The volume pot is unusable; scratchy as hell. All the contacts need a damn good clean. The battery needs replacing too, there's a kit available on Ebay from Hong Kong for this, but I'm just not confident enough to give it a shot yet - I'm scared to death of causing any damage!

Also, I've read elsewhere that recapping will help bring her back to her former glory:

"most important are the power supply and the main (CPU) boards, but for the best result all the electrolytics need to be replaced... I would not start recapping the whole synth without a desoldering-station because it will take ages without one. Every quality Cap Series would work just fine:

Rubycon ZL or ZLG
Nichicon HE
Nichicon Muse ES
Panasonic FM or FC

Power Supply Caps
Nichicon FG (Fine Gold)

I would also exchange the 100nf Ceramic DeCoupling-Caps with 100nf Multilayer Ceramics or X7R types".

tbh, I don't know where to start!

[planet10]

Welcome to the forum Pete.

Changing a battery should be dead simple, and a 1st clean of a pot (using spray cleaner) is not much harder (just make sure unit is unplugged )

A pencil eraser is a good tool for cleaning any exposed contacts (ie plug in boards)

dave

[tunwadee]

Thx Dave, the original battery is a CR-1/3N, 3.6V soldered onto the board. I found the photo here: Synthpeter: Juno-60 up and running - mine wasn't in bad condition like this the last time I looked a few months ago!



Many users have done a CR2032 battery holder mod: "hardest part is just getting the old battery out cleanly. Gotta be quick with that solder sucker".

From wiki: "I have found it difficult to find CR-1/3N Lithium batteries with spot welded solder tabs and have several alternative suggestions. Although it is possible to find CR-1/3N batteries without the tabs, one could snip the ends of any 1/2 watt resistor and solder the ends onto the battery buttons, but it is a bit tricky. If too much heat is used the battery can be damaged. A better alternative is to use a computer CMOS style 3V Lithium button battery and purchase a circuit board mounted button battery holder where the original battery terminals were located."

[GloBug]

Get your battery and PSU caps sorted out, then go for the bigger project.
That's a great suggestion using a CMOS battery holder, you could even harvest one out of an old computer.
Then you can upgrade the rest of the caps if you want/need to.

[apoopoo999]

sawadee kup welcome to diyaudio, maybe you should just replace the battery in the juno for now. Order a kit amp or something simple and practice soldering and reading schematics first.

[tunwadee]

Thx apoopoo... do you speak Thai? I don't unfortunately... too much other stuff to occupy my free time!
Before I attempt to change the battery I'm going to get my feet wet on a couple of old PCI cards. However, I'm sure I'll have questions re. equipment before I even get to that stage!

[Cal Weldon]

Hello and welcome to diyAudio.

[tunwadee]

Thx Cal


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