DIY Maintenance/ Fix

I posted this elsewhere, but thought it was worth its own topic. Hope it helps someone else out.

Today I decided to get me MPC4000 working 100%.

Symptoms:

1. Not connecting over USB to aksys
2. Won't hold the date in the global settings
3. Cannot change sample rate (restarts at 44.1 everytime)
4. No sound every one and a while, had to bang on the bottom to get it going

Cure:

1. Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol
2. Can of air, (duster)
3. Deoxit Gold

I cleaned the PCB boards with Alcohol. Did not wipe them, just rinsed them with the alcohol. I sprayed all the connectors with Deoxit, inside and out, and I blew the machine out with air to get rid of dust and debris.

The machine is 100% functional now, no problems. Not to mention it loads faster, connects to aksys, no issues.



Peace.

Alos used a can of Deoxit green to fix the F keys and other buttons.

Nice work, glad you got it back to working again
Wouldn't recommend deoxit though, I've done alot of maintenance on old music gear.. without ever needing to use the stuff. It best reserved to use for modern pots or button mechs that can't be taken apart and cleaned out.. last ditch effort if you can't get a replacement part.
Here's a quote from a renouned synth tech that doesn't recommend it either:

The stuff works great at first and everyone thinks all is well.
Then it corrodes metal, attracts dust and causes more problems than it had before.
I'm still looking for one maker of pots or switches that add this stuff to their products at the time of manufacturer.
One would think if it was so good, many would be using it.
But I can't find one.

Moog's early service manuals sometimes advocated it.
Later manuals discouraged against it.
They too learned what the long-term problems are.

Your mileage is up to you, but I don't use and haven't for decades and I'm very glad I don't.
It's snake oil designed to take your money and fix things for a short time.
(fwiw, I've been working on synths for 36 years... I think that's long enough to know.)

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=10964

szr wrote:Nice work, glad you got it back to working again
Wouldn't recommend deoxit though, I've done alot of maintenance on old music gear.. without ever needing to use the stuff. It best reserved to use for modern pots or button mechs that can't be taken apart and cleaned out.. last ditch effort if you can't get a replacement part.
Here's a quote from a renouned synth tech that doesn't recommend it either:

The stuff works great at first and everyone thinks all is well.
Then it corrodes metal, attracts dust and causes more problems than it had before.
I'm still looking for one maker of pots or switches that add this stuff to their products at the time of manufacturer.
One would think if it was so good, many would be using it.
But I can't find one.

Moog's early service manuals sometimes advocated it.
Later manuals discouraged against it.
They too learned what the long-term problems are.

Your mileage is up to you, but I don't use and haven't for decades and I'm very glad I don't.
It's snake oil designed to take your money and fix things for a short time.
(fwiw, I've been working on synths for 36 years... I think that's long enough to know.)

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=10964

Thanks for the info.

Good grief - I've always been taught that Caig De-Oxit is God's Gift to connectors!

Rather alarmed to hear otherwise :/

I know a big vintage music gear seller that uses the stuff like crazy too ... in his case it's not worth the cost/time to open up pots/sliders etc.. and clean them.. that would be the right way... but can't blame him ..

It's not like customers will pay any more for him to do it RIGHT .. People usually prefer to buy overpriced, haggered gear from ebay, that has never even had a tech give it a once over.

Charlieocali, can you specifically remember which parts of the circuit boards you cleaned to get date and sample rate working again. I would have thought cleaning would do zilch in this case

in the case of non-responsive tact switches [common issue with the mpc1000 and even the 2000xl after some time] DeOxit is still a gift from god... the tact switch stops working completely, so instead of having to use a soldering iron to take out the broken one and replace it with a new one, you simply spray it with some DeOxit... it then magically works again... if it ends up dying again after a year [or however long it takes to "corrode" or whatever] then that is still an extra year [or longer] of use that you got out of the tact switch before having to actually replace it. i don't see how that can be a bad thing...

I'd also agree on using deoxit on those tact switches... that's a different scenario though.
On the vintage gear, where new pots/buttons/sliders are unobtainium, and they can be easily cleaned to bring back to 100% ... then I would recommend that over deoxit any day.. Sometimes you can get replacements from technology transplant.. but they don't feel as good as the originals..

I cleaned the AD/Da board and the main CPU board under it.



I also cleaned my ASR X out last night. It's back working 100%.