Opus 3 schematics/repair manuals/ interior pictures

jester69 · Post by **jester69** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 11:56 am

Hello,

I recently bought an Opus 3 that the PO said is missing a board. Does anyone have pictures of the inside of a complete opus, so I can compare?

Secondly, once I figure out the missing board, could someone send me a scan or closeup so I can reproduce it?

Fianlly, if anyone has the service manual I would love to have a copy. I don't want to pay someone $25 for a photocopy of something they don't own the rights to in the first place.

take care,

Jester

electrical_engineer_gEEk · Post by **electrical_engineer_gEEk** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:52 pm

Hey, I might be able to help you out with this. I been working on bringing an opus 3 back to life for almost a year now. I have come to a stand still because I have a dead rare Frequency Divider chip. I have seen some sort of reproduction version on some organ websites but they seem a little sketchy & expensive ($40). I'm waiting to come across a partially intact Opus 3 and maybe I can use parts from each to make a whole. I might be able to send you my Opus3 service manual if you pay for paper and shipping.
lemme know.

jester69 · Post by **jester69** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:36 pm

electrical_engineer_gEEk wrote:Hey, I might be able to help you out with this. I been working on bringing an opus 3 back to life for almost a year now. I have come to a stand still because I have a dead rare Frequency Divider chip. I have seen some sort of reproduction version on some organ websites but they seem a little sketchy & expensive ($40). I'm waiting to come across a partially intact Opus 3 and maybe I can use parts from each to make a whole. I might be able to send you my Opus3 service manual if you pay for paper and shipping.
lemme know.

There are a couple guys on e-bay that part out organs, and sell most anything $9.99 no reserve. Figure out what organs have what you need & buy the boards out of one, or, skip the freq divider altogether. Put in a jumper & play it as a monophonic synth? I am not sure if it is possible but I don't see why not.

If that doesn't work, often times even if a chip is obsolete, you can do the same thing with a couple other chips and a daughterboard, plug the little board where the chip went...If you know what the chip did, you can usually work around somehow.

So, it got here today, and board # 1 and board # 2 are intact. I am missing the smaller board to the right, which I believe to be the chorus board. At least there is a gap there and posts for mounting a board. One terminal is busted off the transformer, so I'll have to figure that part out. The manual will help immensely!

The jumpers I have that are not connected are j116 j25 and j22. I assume they go to the missing board.
Since at most 10 wires go to the missing board, it can't be that big a deal. I will run the synth without it until I can build one, I'll just leave the slider faded away from chorus.

That is assuming there are no other issues, hehe.

I really want a scan/picture front and back of the chorus board, if you could do that you would have my gratitude. I would definitely pay your costs for a copy of the repair manual, if you wanted to copy & send or scan & e-mail, either way is cool! If there is any way I could help your project other than parting mine out, let me know

take care,

Jester

MC · Post by MC » Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:29 pm

gEEk, call TSR in Whitney Point. He's got a basket case opus in for repair, not sure if the owner would be willing to sell for parts though. When I say basket case, I mean destroyed case and busted keys. Looks like a UPS job.

electrical_engineer_gEEk · Post by **electrical_engineer_gEEk** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 8:57 pm

Jester, wow, I am amazed by your optimism in the situation though I feel you might not quite understand how the Opus 3 works. It's quite inspiring though

MC, Thanks, that's a great lead! I will PM him

electrical_engineer_gEEk · Post by **electrical_engineer_gEEk** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:07 pm

MC, I gave TSR a ring, hopefully something comes of it, I feel so bad this thing has just been sitting on my bench for so long....at least it will come back to life in some form

jester69 · Post by **jester69** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:24 am

i probably don't completely understand it. My take was that there are 3 oscillators, and it does polyphony by dividing the frrequency of each single oscillator to make more than one note. If you took out the divider, it would seem to me that you would then get that one note with no polyphony possible.

Most any IC can be replicated with discrete components, it just may take a large number of them in some cases

If there is someone parting an opus I need a chorus board, so if you don't please let me know how to get in touch with them, i would really appreciate it.

My offer stands on the manual, I could use one for sure. I am updating my e-mail in my profile to be correct, feel free to drop me a line.

take care,

Jester

jester69 · Post by **jester69** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 11:16 am

OK, I looked TSR up in an internet phone book & gave him a ring. Nice guy, I talked to him about the smashed opus <tm>, and a bunch of other synth & electronics geek stuff.

He seemed to think it wasn't a UPS job, more like a jalous girlfriend & a hammer job, or a soemthing-big-&-heavy-falling-off-a-shelf-onto-it job.

He said he hasn't had the heart to call the guy & tell him what the story is, so to keep calling back until he gets around to it. I told him i'd call once a week until he knew something.

I need the chorus board & the wood board along the front under the keys. That is all I really am missing of any substance. I don't have any knobs or slider caps, but am going to buy those locally, I don't care if they are OG or not. Missing wood &PCB's bug me.
Take care,

Steve

jester69 · Post by **jester69** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 4:42 pm

Well, I am talking to myself at this point.

Apparently, Allen Organs has a large NOS cache of the divider chips the Opus uses. I didn't call them, just read this somewhere.

I bought the owners manual in PDF form. Now I understand how the thing works, it really is like an organ!

I'm not sure I like the way the chorus is handled, I may just build a copy of the board that was in here but handle the output differently so that you really get a stereo chorus. Why they would mix the chorus back to mono then out to stereo again is kind of confusing to me. Then again, I may just put it back together if I can find the original chorus board.

In other words, I don't need any help now, unless you have a chorus board to sell, heh.

Take care,

Jester