Would You Like To Get Omni?

This right here is the Suzuki OmniChord OM-84.

Wait, hang on, this is the-

Ok, this is the-

THIS is the Suzuki OmniChord OM-84.

And it's also apparently a bit of a time capsule, as it managed to arrive at my doorstep with its original power supply, case, cleaning cloth, instructional overlay, instruction manual, and little plastic sheet that protects the top of the instrument in shipping. Kind of wild. Based on the dates on some of the chips inside, this thing comes to us from the year of our lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty Seven.

Anyway, speaking of getting inside, I need to get inside this one as it is, as you might imagine, not entirely functional. So onto the bench it goes.

And with a few screws removed we get our first look at the guts inside.

Most of the circuitry here is a set of thirteen envelope generators for the strum pad, while the CPU in the middle does button scanning and drives the divide-down tone generator in the upper-middle. The green PCB in the back contains mostly the rhythm circuitry as well as various volume/mix controls.

We need to get both of these PCBs out, though, so the ribbon cable to the strum pad is the first thing to go. It just pulls straight out of the connector.

With the screws removed from this PCB, it can be slid towards the speaker to disconnect it from the other PCB, and then the chord button connectors can be popped out.

And that leaves just the grounding wire for the output amplifier, and let me tell you, it does not do a lot for keeping the noise floor down. I left it in place for this repair.

Anyway, after pulling the knobs off the front and the screws off the back, the second PCB can be lifted up so that the speaker and battery terminals can be disconnected.

And then the pair of PCBs can be lifted out.

Now we can repair the issue: some broken solder joints on the board-to-board connectors.

Which is not super easy to see on this side, but is pretty apparent on the other.

This is quite possibly the most common failure on these units, and it is the peril of using a rigid connector to join two boards in a not-entirely-rigid plastic enclosure. Thankfully it's very easy to fix by just reflowing the solder joints, which I did.

Anyway, while things are apart I'll also be cleaning off some battery corrosion, which is the second most common killer.

As usual, it's vinegar to the rescue.

It's not perfect, but it sure is better.

There's a nice wad of dried-on battery snot in the battery compartment.

I probably could have cleaned it off a bit more thoroughly but this will do.

The battery compartment was also actually wet, which is a bit weird. I suspect that the seller had grabbed some C-cells from their freezer and just jammed them in to test this thing out, frost and all.

It did come with 8 C-cells, but 4 of them were suspiciously light (probably low-capacity AA cells hiding in a C cell casing) and all of them were alkaline, so they have no business staying in my home, and definitely no business staying inside a device where they will explode and leak caustic schmoo all over everything.

Anyway, reassembly is just the same steps in reverse (or technically forwards, since I took all these photos in reverse order), and with it all back together I'm happy to say that it works perfectly. Or at least as perfectly as it did when it was new. You gotta set your expectations fairly low with these things.

The Spark of Life

So I've been a bit busy with things for the past, well, year I guess. I haven't really stretched my legs on the motorcycles in that time since I've been puttering around with home improvements and other more pressing tasks. Now that those things are largely behind me, though, I decided it was time to dust off the ol' iron aluminum steeds.

They'd be a bit less dusty if these black (yes, they started out jet black) motorcycle covers haven't been degrading in the sun and shedding bits of microplastics all over them.

That aside, it's uncommon for vehicles to be able to sit for almost a year and still retain enough juice in the batteries to crank over, so rather than jump starting them as I usually do, I figured I'd make use of my battery tender to more gently top up the charge.

Which is now a much more convenient task thanks to the electrical outlets I installed a while back when I did my irrigation overhaul.

But accessing the battery to clip on the charging leads is far from being the pinnacle of convenience, so I think it's high time I installed some quick-connect pigtails.

Step one, get to the battery.

And, oh, I guess there was already technically a pigtail on this one, though I have no idea what type of connector this is.

Well anyway, as per usual the negative lead comes off first, lest we weld our wrench to the frame.

Then the positive side can be safely unscrewed. Adding the new pigtail is just a matter of running those steps in reverse, making sure to reconnect the positive side first, of course.

The pigtail gets zip tied to a convenient spot on the frame, where it's easy to plug in the charger.

And easy to tuck up out of the way when not in use.

And now I just have to do that three more times.

Well it's a good thing I did this early in the morning, because it is smouldering hot this week. Speaking of the weather, though, it's a good idea to keep the weather off the charger. I think it's supposed to be at least water resistant, but I have no doubt that the UV exposure outside would crumble the membrane buttons in short order.

So the charger gets tucked away in an outdoor power strip box thing.

It's got some nice supple grommets to keep the rain out too when it's all closed up.

And when it's not in use, there's enough room inside to bundle up the charging cable and its extension.

And still leave room to spare for all the spiders that will take up residence in here as soon as I turn my back.

For The Guitarist With No Friends

Today on the bench we have the Boss DR-5.

It's essentially a very fancy metronome. So fancy, in fact, that it not only replaces the time keeping of a drummer, but also the drummer themselves, the bassist, the keyboardist, and so on and so forth. It's basically a backing band in a box, and specifically targeted at guitarists, as the grid of keys on the left hand side is laid out like guitar frets rather than the more traditional piano keyboard arrangement.

Sadly this backing band doesn't run on cheetos and lukewarm starbucks, so we need to either feed it batteries or plug it into the wall. As per usual with these sorts of devices, it takes 9v center-negative.

And this was the power supply the seller included... not really sure why.

Well anyway, I have no shortage of compatible wall warts so whatever. In the meantime I'll power this up with my bench supply.

And there it is, the reported problem. "BackUp Err!!" it says, having depleted its internal CR2032 lithium battery. Obviously we're gonna have to dive inside to fix this, so out come the screws.

Things are really clean inside, which is a refreshing change from the amount of soda-damaged gear I've been dealing with lately. The coin cell is up there on the main PCB, while the panel PCB remains fixed to the top shell for now.

I find it amusing how varied the lifetime of these cells is. I've had some gear from the mid 80s where I check the voltage and it's still hovering around 3v. This one, though, not so much.

The good news, at least, is that there's no sign of alkaline schmoo in the regular battery compartment. In fact there's no real sign that batteries were ever even installed.

Again, a welcome sight. Not everything escaped battery damage, though. The motherboard got a light dusting of lithium schmoo, which is barely visible.

Well, perhaps calling it "damage" is a bit extreme. The crusty trace of electrolyte wiped away with a bit of vinegar, per the usual cleaning methodology.

And, per usual, the old battery goes straight in the bin. In its place goes a 2032 coin cell holder, stuck down with a bit of velcro, and with its leads soldered into place.

In some number of years, someone will probably thank me for this. That someone might be me, who knows?

Anyway, the new battery is alive and well, so let's move on.

To revive this unit and get past the "BackUp Err!!" screen, we need to perform a quick factory reset, which is done by holding down the two "Fret" buttons while powering the unit on.

Then you confirm (twice) that you do, indeed, want to factory reset, and then everything is back to normal.

Well, normal save for all the filth. So out comes the panel PCB.

And here's a few final glam shots of the hand cheese before it's banished to the land of wind and ghosts.

It's time to Mr Sparkle this case.

And the switch membranes, while I'm at it.

Wash away the sins of your past life, you are baptized anew.

And with everything dried off and back together, it's looking, and working, almost as good as new. As close as it's gonna get, at least.

So what am I going to do with this box? Well that's a great question and I'm glad you asked.