Current Moog Voyager Repairs

[PaulLawler]

It seems my Voyager has lost osc 2+3 and it was purchased in the danger years as listed by Moog recently, so thankfully it is under warranty, but, what do they do with the repair, replace only the parts that have failed, or all of the parts that they listed as being potentially at risk ?

[EMwhite]

If you read the note from Moog, they mention 'faulty ICs' and then go on to cite a series of potential symptoms. I could be wrong but I would guess that they will look to replace all implicated components known to be faulty if your particular Voyager was built with these ICs. That way they do not have to address again.

And if I'm not mistaken, you have the option to pull and ship out your analog board, which is a fairly straight forward procedure. No need to ship 60 lbs. across the pond.

Worth a call to them to discuss.

[PaulLawler]

Actually they just wrote back and mentioned they replace the entire analog board assembly, so I guess that'll cover everything.
I didn't know about the option to just ship the board. I wonder how difficult that is to take out for a ham handed electronics novice

[EMwhite]

It's easy.

- prop up panel
- remove screws
- carefully tilt cover backwards (digital and analog boards including power supply is attached to the back panel which will be perpendicular to the controls when in position to continue)
- carefully remove all ribbon connectors from the analog board
- remove several screws with philips head screwdriver

done

Moog can email you the procedure. Just don't go and rub a balloon on your hair or walk in circles on a shag rug from the 70's aka avoid shock build up; ground yourself to the chassis before screwing with the 100s of delicate ICs.

[PaulLawler]

Yes I was just watching the moog Voyager teardown youtube video, I think that should be pretty easy, and a lot easier than shipping the synth down to London.
I've emailed them to see if they will ship me a board directly. Don't worry about the static though, it's been maybe 30 years since I've been able to ru a balloon on my hair

[moogie instructor]

that sounds like my situation, my voyagers envelope broke down in 2012[year of purchase} after sending it to belgium for repair there have been no problems but im really scared for it to happen again. so the mail about the faulty IC's brought me some relief, but , the european importer want me to send my voyager to them because they say, the board has to be calibrated , i am really scared to send my voyager for the second time to belgium (from holland) and rather do the board swap by mail, any experts here ? is it an easy swap out in operation, or do i need an oscilloscope to calibrate?

by the way my voyager is an old school sn 0674 with the faulty IC's

[thealien666]

The only things that might, and I say might, need calibration are the oscillators. And you can do that yourself with a reference (another digital keyboard) of better yet a tuner.

The procedure is most probably available from Moog Music customer support, Just email them about it. I know it's also available somewhere on the web.

One thing puzzles me though, yours is an Old School model, and those were not produced in the period concerned by potentially faulty chips to my knowledge.

Even though you bought yours in 2012, it was certainly made much earlier. The production run for that model was from april 2008 to january 2009.

[moogie instructor]

The first run was in those years. First 500?
Mine is number 674 from the next run of 200?
So who knows when iT was made

Andy Hughes' mailed me that my beloved voyager
Was made with the wrong batch

[thealien666]

I had hoped for you that it wouldn't be concerned by the defective parts.

But at least you know that it is officially. Andy could probably send you the calibration procedure also ?
Replacing the analog board itself is not difficult.

[EMwhite]

I'm pretty sure they can calibrate the analog board on the bench, the exception being, depending on the tolerances (and the position of the knob on the shaft) of the potentiometers (tuning, specifically); they might not all be dead on 12 o'clock when in perfect tune. But to be honest, my old school (which was 379 if memory serves) wasn't perfect fresh out of the box.

The power supply voltages should be well regulated enough to not make a difference.

I can't speak to temperature variance being inside the case vs. on a bench but certainly when they are tuning it, they have the back open.

But I'm no expert...

It's a bit ironic actually (the Old School timing). I loved mine and felt like it would last forever with zero problems. I traded 'up' to a Select Volyager and my first concern was the conspiracy theories that were bouncing around here having to do with OSCs dropping and something about Midi and some code that may or may not have been new, or incorrect etc. It was all bunk and debunked (we now know). But I was concerned about the Voyager none the less because mine was burnt in so-to-speak.

Sure enough, about 4 months ago, my filter env gen died... grrrrr... but I pulled the board, mailed it to Moog and they took care of it for me. The notice was released about a week later. So your Old School was too new but rest assured, you've not got amnesty against future issues. It's quite a good situation now... a bit inconvenient for some, but we can all sleep at night now.

[thealien666]

If memory serves me right, it's not the first time that Moog Music has problems with one of its chips suppliers. I remember a certain Moogerfooger analog delay that was, uh, delayed because Moog had realized that the BBD chips they were sold were crap. Fortunately that time, they caught it before having sold any unit.

That's one of the traps of buying in bulk at the lowest price sometimes.

[MC]

I used to work in component test. The military industry mandates 100% passing inspection in all the parts they procure. In non-military industry, not every supplier will test every part and some may not test them at all. That is why companies have a quality assurance department. A defective lot of parts can happen at any time, and certain circuits may trigger a fault condition that was not detected in QA screening. It happens in every company and Moog is hardly immune.

[thealien666]

I do not, repeat, do not blame Moog Music, but rather parts suppliers who offer lowest costs estimates by sometimes cutting corners on quality assurance. We've seen it happen in the auto industry as well with defective parts that were bought from suppliers, sometimes even requiring a recall (air bags).

And since there are over 1000 parts inside a Voyager (over 800 on the analog board alone), and although electronics are very reliable these days, the odds of something going wrong with one of them still remain a remote possibility.

But to Moog Music's credit, try to go and have a defective water pump replaced on your car by a dealer outside the warranty at no cost. Fat chance. Even if the problem was known by the manufacturer about a batch of defective ones from suppliers.

[moogie instructor]

And my beloved voyager OS is on the road to belgium. For the second time in two years.
they'll put a new analog board inside. to be continued

And they send me. My golden Moog Knob Yeehaaaw