smd or hole thru

[sunny pedaal]

is the voyager smd or holethru soldered ?
( hope the last , in case repairs should be made in future )
and is there a difference in b.e. signature series and/or later versions including the latest 24k gold plated version ?

[MC]

and is there a difference in b.e. signature series and/or later versions including the latest 24k gold plated version ?

Electronic wise, only the computer boards differ depending if you have one bank of 128 patches (originally installed on SE) or seven banks. Early Voyagers like the SE did not have filter glide or other improvements. Early Vgers also had IC sockets for all the ICs.

is the voyager smd or holethru soldered ?
( hope the last , in case repairs should be made in future )

Analog board is thruhole

Original computer board is thruhole, revised one (with 7 banks) is SMD.

[sunny pedaal]

thank you , so upgrading my signature in that respect degraded the computerboard...
glad to hear the soundboard is thruhole, good for futureservice

[EMwhite]

Have a look here at our good friend, Till Kopper's web site and you'll see the Voyager in all of it's through-hole goodness; then click on the link towards the top of the page for the 'upgraded' SMT digital board.

http://till-kopper.de/voyager.html

[EMwhite]

And then, of course there is this series of photos posted from some 3 years ago (including the Old School and the obvious vacancy of any digital bd).

viewtopic.php?p=44085

[sunny pedaal]

thank you very much
very nice to see.
i wonder, why did they change to smd , nothing else available anymore ?

[Tibbon]

Keep in mind that SMD is absolutely repairable. It isn't hard even with a standard bench iron. With hot air rework, it becomes easier than through hole for some stuff.

[sunny pedaal]

most professional synth-repairders in the netherlands don't agree on the easiness of repairing smd. to be more specific they state they don't repair it. ( or very limited and with great dislike, holethru is always greatly preferred ). maybe the future younger generation will make less problems of it...hope so

[RL]

BTW ... it's also possible to upgrade old digital boards. When you're living in the EU you can send the board to lintronics.de for the upgrade.
Have fun,
Rudi

[Voltor07]

most professional synth-repairders in the netherlands don't agree on the easiness of repairing smd. to be more specific they state they don't repair it. ( or very limited and with great dislike, holethru is always greatly preferred ). maybe the future younger generation will make less problems of it...hope so

There's only so much one can repair on an SMD board. Many of these boards are multi layer. A dual layer board is no problem to fix, but a three, four, or five layer board is non-repairable, unless a dead component is on one of the outer surfaces.

[thealien666]

...A dual layer board is no problem to fix, but a three, four, or five layer board is non-repairable, unless a dead component is on one of the outer surfaces.

BTW, on multi-layered boards, there are no components on inside layers (to my knowledge). Only traces that connect to different parts of the the two surface layers where SMD components are located.

The main reason for some technicians being reluctant to fix SMD devices, is the specialized tooling required and the high precision also required in manipulation. But most importantly,the increased cost (mostly in hourly rate) in fixing these. And also the occasional costlier custom designed replacement parts (PLA and mask rom DSP) in hybrid systems. It's a fact of life that, what synth companies save in design and manufacturing costs by using SMD, will be lost in trying to repair such technology. It's, more often than not, less costly to simply replace a whole board than trying to diagnose and repair it, especially complex multi-layer ones.

Sometimes, using JTAG, it's possible to quickly and easily find faults on SMD multi-layer boards (mostly bad solder joints or broken traces or interconnect between layers), but again that requires specialized diagnostic equipment and documentation.

[sunny pedaal]

as long as spareboards are available it might be no problem. ( with the alesis-a6 b.e. it might become a problem soon )
for future, it might be my model-d better stands the teeth of time ( Dutch expression don't know if it exists in English too ) than the newer analogue synth's , so it'll be.
thanks you all for the info]

ps btw the digital board in my signature was upgraded by RL , so guess it's still hole thru.

[Tibbon]

...A dual layer board is no problem to fix, but a three, four, or five layer board is non-repairable, unless a dead component is on one of the outer surfaces.

BTW, on multi-layered boards, there are no components on inside layers (to my knowledge). Only traces that connect to different parts of the the two surface layers where SMD components are located.

The main reason for some technicians being reluctant to fix SMD devices, is the specialized tooling required and the high precision also required in manipulation. But most importantly,the increased cost (mostly in hourly rate) in fixing these. And also the occasional costlier custom designed replacement parts (PLA and mask rom DSP) in hybrid systems. It's a fact of life that, what synth companies save in design and manufacturing costs by using SMD, will be lost in trying to repair such technology. It's, more often than not, less costly to simply replace a whole board than trying to diagnose and repair it, especially complex multi-layer ones.

Sometimes, using JTAG, it's possible to quickly and easily find faults on SMD multi-layer boards (mostly bad solder joints or broken traces or interconnect between layers), but again that requires specialized diagnostic equipment and documentation.

It still really isn't that bad to work on SMD. Most synth companies aren't using tiny SMD parts (603 or bigger in most synths).

The only special tool that you *might* need is a hot air rework station. These start at $99 new and go up from there. I think my soldering iron was in that price range, and a good scope (when new) can easily run into the thousands. In short, setting yourself up for surface mount work isn't that much money. A steady hand and a good magnifier can do a lot to help.

Finding the fault is the hardest part, but that's really true with any circuit. Sometimes these days it isn't about wanting to do SMD, but the requirement of doing SMD if you want to use some parts. Through hole is going the way of the dodo slowly. You simply can't get some stuff as through hole now, and in the future that's going to be more and more true.

[Voltor07]

Never seen the inside of a Little Phatty, have you, Tibbon? There are many tiny components on those boards.

[thealien666]

As anyone who has ever tried replacing an SMD resistor will tell you; these things are focking small !

And did you know that there is now a sub-SMD format that almost only robots can handle (or Swiss watchmakers ) ?
As demonstrated in the picture below, where the bigger rectangle shaped capacitors are "standard" SMD size and the resistors (with numbers printed on them) are the new smaller size no bigger than about 10 grains of table salt :