EX5 ROM upgrade

[Peter Korsten]

Hi Romain,

You could decide to get the EX5 out and put it upside down. That's probably
the safest way. If, like I, you have it on a stand, you may also decide to
put it up on the connector side. If you do that, you're basically working
upside down - not that this makes any difference.

After you remove the large metal plate from the bottom (about the size of a
10 inch tablet, you can't miss it), you're looking at the green circuit
board where you can also replace the battery, install the SCSI card, etc.
The side where the input/output connectors on the back of the synth are is
the "up" side when looking at the circuit board. If you put the synth on
connector side like I did, the "up" side is at the bottom. For the
following description, I'm assuming that "up" is up.

The four ROM chips are in the top left corner, partially obscured by a flat
cable. From top to bottom these are IC2, IC3, IC8 and IC9. What you need to
do is pull the chips out and replace them with the ones that Tim sent you.
They're clearly labelled, so you know which one goes where.

To get the chips out, I would recommend using a chip puller. There really
isn't enough space to do it with a screwdriver, although I loosened them a
bit from one side using a small screwdriver. A chip puller is a really
simple tool that you can buy at any electronics shop. Try not to touch the
pins of the chips, and preferably do this on a tile floor, not wearing
shoes. Keep the EX5 plugged into the wall socket, but switched off. This
way, you minimise the chance of damaging anything with static electricity.
Make sure you pull the chip and not the socket, or you'll ruin your EX5.

To push the chips in, first make sure they're properly aligned. There's a
little notch in one of the narrow sides, that has to line up with the notch
on the chip socket. It should be on the right. Then, carefully place the
chip over the socket, and make ABSOLUTELY 100% CERTAIN that the pins are
properly lined up with the holes. You don't want bent pins. It can be
fixed, but it's best to be avoided, because pins can easily break off.

Then, push the chip into the socket. It'll require a bit of force, and you
won't feel a click or anything. When the circuit board starts bending under
the pressure, the chip is inserted deeply enough. Push it both on the left
and the right side.

When all four chips are done, switch on the EX5 and see if it works. It may
take a little longer to start up the first time. If it works, you can screw
the metal plate back in its place.

That's it really. I didn't have any manual, but simply decided to go ahead,
and everything worked out.

Good luck!

- Peter

2015-02-12 12:18 GMT+01:00 Rom MUSIC BAR <xtechcode at gmail.com>:

> Yes, Thank you Tim !!
> And Peter for the advises. By any chance, Peter, did you take pictures
> while installing ?
>
> I didn t upgrade yet  cause the chips are still at Joost place :)
> I m quite curious and very enthusiast  tho … :)
>
>
>
> Romain
>
>
>
>
> On 10 Feb 2015, at 21:24, Peter Korsten <peter at severity-one.com> wrote:
>
> > Some of you may know that I own an EX5 ;-) and that I try to load it
> with all possible extras. So it's got four additional outputs, SCSI, 64 MB
> RAM, and 16 MB Flash memory. The one thing really missing was getting the
> latest OS.
> >
> > You may remember Tim's (random variate) offer on this list to get you
> the latest OS. So I took him up on that, and for a very reasonable fee
> (basically cost price) he delivered the four chips. Replacing them is
> fairly easy, although I would recommend buying a chip puller. You could
> perhaps get away with using a small screwdriver, but there isn't really
> enough space if you only remove the large metal plate in the bottom. (The
> one you remove if you want to install SCSI or replace the battery.)
> >
> > Even though I managed to bend two pins between chip and socket - Tim
> quickly helped identify this problem, which I managed to overlook when
> doing the visual check - the chips were inserted properly in the end.
> >
> > Boot up, and everything worked! Large samples now load in a manner of
> seconds. ;-) OK, the latter is not true, and cannot be solved because of
> the design of the EX5, but at least this takes care of the bugs (and there
> have been quite a few) in the earlier versions of the EX5 OS.
> >
> > Given the price of the upgrade, and given the value your EX5/EX5R/EX7
> has for you, I think it's well worth it.
> >
> > No, I'm not getting paid for this endorsement. :-)
> >
> > Thanks again to Tim,
> >
> > - Peter
> > _______________________________________________
> > music-bar mailing list
> > music-bar at lists.music-bar.org
> > http://lists.music-bar.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/music-bar
>
> _______________________________________________
> music-bar mailing list
> music-bar at lists.music-bar.org
> http://lists.music-bar.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/music-bar
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.music-bar.org/pipermail/music-bar/attachments/20150212/26dcca54/attachment-0001.html>