polyphase gut shots....

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey guys, i think it was scruffie asked if i could up some shots of this beast.
i'm trying to get it to work again for a friend. have replaced ALL the electros. one was a 22u that had had the covering removed. seemed to me the side referenced to ground was obvious, and it was the only unmarked cap on the board. i used the schematic from toppopicione's but i believe that may have a couple errors.
or it could be my eyes...that schem is hard to see.
unfortunately, i don't have a digital camera other than the shitty one in my phone, so these pics aren't ideal...so i tried to break it up into a bunch of closeups, hoping it may be able to help.
as i go thru this thing, i'll try and label the components and upload the pictures with the stuff labeled.
hopefully this can help get this cool toy documented properly, and working clones happening.
i still don't have it working as i type this..i can manually sweep the sensitivity of the filter, but that's it.

the two 220u caps i didn't have above 16v. so i used a pair of 100u's in parallel for one, and a pair of 220's in parallel for the first filter cap instead.
i may have to revisit that and make it the same as the 2 100u's in parallel instead of the presumed 440'ish i used there.

anyways. a lot , i mean a LOT of pictures. i bent the pots up so you can see what lies beneath, too. it'll be up to someone smarter than and more ambitious than me to be able to sort it out... but as this thing is dead, i hope to get help as i go to...be nice to ressurrect this beast!

again, forgive the shots..

[armdnrdy]

Hey Jimi,

Can you take a picture without that radish on the trace side of the board? I can't see the traces underneath it! 

[pinkjimiphoton]

radish?

[armdnrdy]

Yeah,

That little trimpot looks like a radish! or a piece of sushi!

Wait a minute...... Is that a trimpot?

[pinkjimiphoton]

trimpot. 10k


man...where to start. it won't be tonite.
i can hear the envelope/phase if i twist the  envelope sensitivity knob faintly.
it passes audio, but there's a bit of distortion to it. if i beat on the guitar, of course, it kinda seems to barely work.
i just boxed it up for now, will take voltage measurements when i get a chance.
there's so many freakin' opamps, and nothing's lableled, so it's gonna be interesting to try and post voltages. 

does anyone by chance have a pic of just the wiring from the env/sweep switch? a couple of those wires were broken off, i think i tacked 'em back on in the right spots but it's hard to tell on this thing...it has like, extra pads and holes and stuff for things that aren't there, adding to my newborn confusion.

onwards and upwards...

[armdnrdy]

Jimi,

Check out the PolyPhase project that Paul Nelson put together. I have it on my PC but I don't remember if I picked it up here of the other site. It might have some info that will help you.

[pinkjimiphoton]

i have the version redrawn by morrocotoppo, but it's definitely got some errors.
this one has 2 220u caps on it, the .33 cap shown on the redraw is a 33u... also, there's a 2.2u on the original, not shown in the schematic.
this may take a little bit to sort out.
thanks bro.

[Lurco]

Jimi,

Check out the PolyPhase project that Paul Nelson put together. I have it on my PC but I don't remember if I picked it up here of the other site. It might have some info that will help you.

Searched for polyphase by user nelson: https://sites.google.com/site/electroconducive/polyphase

[Scruffie]

i have the version redrawn by morrocotoppo, but it's definitely got some errors.
this one has 2 220u caps on it, the .33 cap shown on the redraw is a 33u... also, there's a 2.2u on the original, not shown in the schematic.
this may take a little bit to sort out.
thanks bro.

Cheers for the photo bro! As you've discovered, the schematics don't match the unit, i'll get to tracing soon.

[pinkjimiphoton]

cool, scruffie, will take more if need be, and i'm gonna try and label the specific parts if i can figure it out.

what i'm saying is, the schematic from paul's project, and the one i have in my hands is not the same. some values are way off in the original,
probably because the original schematic (surprise surprise) had errors and is such a bitch to read.

from a .33 cap in the redrawn schematic to 33u is a HUGE difference, and one of the caps labeled 22u on the schematic should be 2.2u...again, a huge difference.
i'm assuming those are some of the things that have messed people's attempts up at building these before.

i'll do what i can to help while i got this thing here, and hopefully can get it running for my friend.

[pinkjimiphoton]

any idea what the big silver "cap" looking thing is in the middle left of the board? looks like an electrolytic, but they took the insulation off so you can't tell the polarity or value, so i'm imagining that value is probably crucial. i assumed (silly me) it was another 22u cap, but i may be wrong. (likely)

[armdnrdy]

Try taking a measurement with your DMM in capacitance mode. Depending on what it's doing in the circuit you might be able to get a stable reading. It's worth a try!

[pinkjimiphoton]

will do. sometime over the next couple days.

[Scruffie]

What schematics are you working from?

This is what i've been going from as being the most correct -



Apart from the circuit section that produces the B> connection which I think doesn't actually exist from what I traced and an educated guess.

The only cap values I questioned were if there was 2 x 15uFs or 10uFs near the rate pot but it may be the schematic has a few other errors.

The rest of the cap values seemed reasonable but perhaps some are listed wrong, it was mainly resistor values I wanted to check out, I think Paul used a few values in the mixing stage from an incorrect schematic. Will have to see!

I know paul added some caps for extra filtering and used a mixture of values from different schematics.

I have no idea what the vintage thermistor in this looked like but maybe that big can thing is it?

[pinkjimiphoton]

i've got this, and paul nelson's schem. neither matches what's in here. i'm gonna have to try and draw a trace out of this thing, and label everything.
like i said, what paul has labeled as .33u is actually 33u, if that silver thing isn't 22u, it's the thermistor...if it's not a thermistor, it's a second 22u cap.
there's a 2.2u cap as well that isn't on any of the schematics, or if it is, probably misread as 22.
i've never seen a thermistor that looks like an electrolytic cap tho. there's some inconsistencies.

gimme a few days and let me see what i can come up with. i think all the schems are wrong, and since i have one here, least i can do is try and trace it all out.

[Scruffie]

i've got this, and paul nelson's schem. neither matches what's in here. i'm gonna have to try and draw a trace out of this thing, and label everything.
like i said, what paul has labeled as .33u is actually 33u, if that silver thing isn't 22u, it's the thermistor...if it's not a thermistor, it's a second 22u cap.
there's a 2.2u cap as well that isn't on any of the schematics, or if it is, probably misread as 22.
i've never seen a thermistor that looks like an electrolytic cap tho. there's some inconsistencies.

gimme a few days and let me see what i can come up with. i think all the schems are wrong, and since i have one here, least i can do is try and trace it all out.

Are you sure about that .33uF cap thing, there is one shown on the schematic there and unless it's Non-Polar, it wont be 33uF.

There is a 33uF shown on the power supply section though which Paul has altered so it is no longer required that would be found in your unit.

And there' a 2.2uF Electrolytic on the schematic from the A section connected to the Direct Out. By my count there's 13 electros on that board and 13 in the schem.

[pinkjimiphoton]

looking at it, there's absolutely a 33u electro.
also the 2.2u.

there's 15 electros on the board that i replaced total.
220u @25
220u @35
25u @16
unmarked silver cap, same physical dimensions as  the 25u @16
33u @16
.047u @35
2.2u @50
1u @50 x 5
10u @16v x 3

so the schematics have gotta be wrong. this thing WAS working up until recently, and i don't believe it has had any modification (recent being a "couple years")

my multimeter only goes up to 20u, so the unmarked "stripped" cap looking thing is a moot point. i can't measure it, tho i did check it, and it appears to be a cap. it charges up with a resistance test and slowly drops.

but any way ya look at it, that's 15 electros.

i'm gonna try and find some clear plastic or something i can use to trace the pcb with when i get a chance, so we'll know what's what from there.

but absolutely, the schematics do NOT match, themselves, or the unit.

[pinkjimiphoton]

the silver thing in the middle of this pic is the thing i'm wondering about.

[pinkjimiphoton]

in this pic, there's a pair of 10u's in the upper right corner obscured by the pot.

going from left to right, i'll try to describe where/what they are...

let me go pull the circuit board out, i've got it pseudo buttoned up til i get a chance to mess with it.\









there's pics of all the electros, and where they are, and orientation.

the big question mark is the silver unmarked thing. all these are after i replaced the electros, and all were replaced with the values i removed.
i DID make a mistake i found...one of the 1u's i repopultard with should have been 10u.

i'll have to find it. but definitely a discrepancy. and looking by the lm324, neither schematic seems to quite match what's there.

hope this helps scruffie!

[Scruffie]

Hmm, I can account for all those caps on the schematic, I musta missed two on my count.

The 25uFs (assuming your big can thing is one which I think it is after tracing now and the cap count) were obviously as they had some around and no 22uFs, the 10uFs answer my question about if they should be 10 or 15.

The 0.047... you sure that's not 0.47? 0.047 seems awfully small for an electro and 0.47 is what's on the schem.

That's it, the rest matches what I can see on the schematic! It's EHX so there's always gunna be some discrepency, the only one i'd have concern about is the 0.47 to 0.047 as that's a ten fold change.

I count 5 transistors (6 with the power one) as well so that puts to rest that weird B> section being there.