Roland MC-505 groovebox LCD display repair with a steam Iron
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ธ.ค. 2024
- Roland MC-505 groovebox repair, 2 new Pots and LCD display repair using a Steam Iron.
patreon page / markusfuller
all music used within this video came from this Roland MC-505
I think you don't realize how useful has been this video for thousands of MC-505 owner. Definitely one of the most useful video on youtube. Thanks!
Mate you are a bloody genius our 505 screen has been unreadable for years rendering it useless.
We were in the studio, searched on TH-cam, found your video watched it with interest. As soon as it finished we said in unison let's try the screen fix. 5 attempts of ironing the screen cable gingerly and each time getting a bit of the display back. We then tried your trick of pressing the cable to pinpoint the last couple of lines. We gave it one more iron and it was like new. We, Ionosphere, are extremely grateful to get our beloved 505 back.
Great work, we wish we found your video sooner you bloody genius.
Hello Brett, Im pleased you got it running again. I love my 505. however even though it all worked at the end of the video I have noticed a few weeks ago that a couple of lines have come back so it may now be a full time fix and possible need doing again sometime in the future. anyway glad you bought it back to life. Best wishes from Markus
@@markusfuller Same here, it went back to lines again. I lived in China and Roland wanted a small fortune and a lifetime to replace it so one of the freeware editors was the way forward. Strangely I was using it while dj'ing for kick drums because people would often stop dancing completely during the 'breaks'.
@@AJ-lq7qhthere are suitable drop in replacements for the display costing only 30$
@@oskarbastin367 hello dude - do you have any links to purchase a replacement? ta
@@oskarbastin367 where
Just did my ironing for the day ,on the MC-505 ribbon that is ! Pixels have now increased from 15% to 90% .Thank you so much Marcus .Kind regards.Reg Plasma.
Hi I bought my MC 505 12 months ago (used of course), I’ve just got round to sorting out the display using your ‘steam iron technique’. Thanks for posting your knowledge. The display on mine is now perfect.
Dear Markus, your tip was brilliant! With this trick I was able to change the display of my old 505 from "unreadable" to "quite ok, enough to work with it again". She has returned from retirement thanks to you! Although I virtually never comment... You more than deserve subscription, like, comment and everything else. Good job, keep it up and many, many thanks!
Cheers...
Matze
thank you Matze
Using your tips from several previous videos I have managed to bring about 6 or 7 old machines or items back to life. Thank you! Always look forward to these.
steam iron method worked and its super easy to do thank you very much. Was thinking about selling it but now the display is like new again
YAY! I used to own the MC-303. Had loads of fun with it. I later borrowed a 505 from a friend but never ended up getting one myself. Thanks for this vid Markus!
Hi Jakob. pleased i found this. it actually sounds pretty good considering its age. ( I don't mean me i mean the mc-505 )
+markusfuller How did you find the 505 and what did you have to pay for it?
I just re-watched this video with my girlfriend. We both love your channel Markus. Btw, the ending is brilliant! =D
Hi Jakob, it was a car boot find £15 uk. I also picked up the philips phillicorda from the same seller but it is real bad condition and still drying out from last week.
I have had my 505 since its release and they where £949 so a brilliant bargain.
Great vid too, Im going to sort my lcd screen using this method @@markusfuller
Great video Markus :) I've had my MC-505 since the late 90's and it still is going strong. Glad you opened it up - now I know what it looks like inside :)
Hi Ranzee. I have never owned one of these before but they sure do sound good.
This helped me a lot! I had the same display issue with my Roland JX-305 Groovesynth, which I believe shares the same display with the MC-505. The ironing did the trick. I did have to press the iron relatively firmly for a longer time for all the pixels to display. Thank you for the post!
The paintbrush soap cleaning method is probably the best one i've tried on electronics it doesn't damage the paint or plastics and you can really get into hard to reach places, awesome job markus
Thanks Walter.
Very nice job, Markus. I once destroyed a zebra cable by applying too much heat. I wanted to bang my head on the wall. The trick with the steam iron is invaluable - thanks a lot!
Had a JX-305 since 2013. The display was fine, so only the flash rom got resoldered. Now the Display has the problem with missing columns. Time to replace it with that blue display with nice backlighting I have lying around since 2014. Hopefully it still works. Bought it new in 2014.
Awesome, Marcus! This totally worked! Had my MC-505 since about 2000, and the display barely worked at all.
I set the iron to "Wool" (same setting as Synthetic), and moved the tip slowly back & forth on the ribbon. I think that's the trick, go slow & apply pressure. Repeat as necessary. Display looks amazing! Liked & subscribed! Thanks for the Huge save, mate!
I came back to this, and just wow. This is one of the best videos involving equipment repair I've ever seen. Great work!
I learn a lot of procedural methodology from you, that is, how you approach taking units apart and that you give each item a "spring clean". Plus naturally some electronics knowledge.
Many Thanks Alchemetica. I hope to have many more video's on the way soon.
Hi, I wanted to let you know how much I'm enjoying your videos. I've recently started learning how to use a soldering iron to try and fix old gear that I buy cheap on auctions. Your videos are extremely helpful. Also you explain things so they're easy to understand and I appreciate that. Thanks for taking the time to make them!
Well done. I got the JX-305 which is basically that groove box with a keyboard on it. It has the same problem with the display but is still readable. Vertical lines are missing depening on from where the wind is blowing, and maybe planetary alignments ;)
I dont think I have ever actually seen the JX305. sounds interesting.
This was my first gear i ever bought for over 20 years :D In that time i paid around 2600 DM i think. Nice to see this machine is still alive. 22 Years after this i bought again Rolands newest Groovebox the TR-8S ^^
It makes me happy to see an old machine come to new live.
I really wish there was someone of your talents in my area, revivifying classic bits of gear!
After watching this video I decided I will fix the display as you did, clean the unit thoroughly and start playing with it again! Thanks !
I love these repair videos, very interesting and lovely to see classic equipment restored.
I had that same problem with the display. Did the steam iron trick and it was fine but within a week it was unreadable. Had to replace it in the end. Nice to see guts of an mc 505 :-)
luckily mine still working but I know it will eventually die again.
Dude I was digging the music that started playing when you started cleaning the metalwork with the paintbrush. The effects in this video were pretty great.
You beauty! Thank you very much, this is brilliant. Picked up one of these for cheap and the screen was almost completely gone. Taking it apart was pretty tricky but managed to get the screen back to to full functionality. Now just need to get some new buttons and a potentiometer
Best MC-505 youtube repair video. With respect to the POTS, I'd start with some Contact Cleaner first...usually does the trick. I also dump a bottle of windex into a container for cleaning the plastic components, let soak for 10 minutes and rinse with water. On one unit there were cigarette butt burn on a black key. I used thick black epoxy and an exacto blade to smooth out the burn hole. It's amazing what substances can be found in these units...next time I'll wear latex gloves.
synthetic setting...
i like that one mark
The last person I would expect to use a preset...
awesome video Markus, love the sped up section with the banging techno! and the ending, haha. i always enjoy your videos, amazing, inspiring repairs, please keep it up. you also got me to sign up with Patreon for the first time.
Thanks Pulse . really much appreciated.
Sounds a bunch better than the MC-303 that I had, back in the day. Very nice repair work indeed and am surprised that the outputs weren't scratchy. Goooood find !
Yes im pleased with it. I kinda like those old style rhythms and sounds.
All of us of a certain vintage likely do... many an over praising drunken comment of mine can be found on House/DnB/Trance Old Skool on TH-cam (did I just admit that ?).
Oops seems you said it now LOL
Brilliant as always Markus! Great to see a sickly bit of gear brought back to its glory days!
Awesome job! Loved the effects, too. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Thomas :-)
Same issue with DMG gameboys. Great video. As always. Thanks!
interesting background music during the cleaning sequence :) Reminds me of industrial meets 80 synth pop with some early electronica thrown in. I liked it I think :) That video of the iron was an angle I don't think we have seen in these videos before. I swear this sounds better than my MC-808. Makes no sense though, heh
Michael Bauers the 505 is dope way better than the 909 imo
Thanks for the great video. You might consider to use a brace for the sides of the machine when you flip it, because the way you are handling it the pots on the front are going to need replacement. Pop the pots off and use the case with a small towel or a shim to support the weight without motion.
Hello Markus! Enjoyed your video. Reminds me of my electronic bench tech days. I own a MC-505 and have the same problem with the LCD. I bought one on e-bay, received it. It doesn't exactly fit the mounting tabs. I may try this trick on the old one. Thank you much for posting this. I wish I had seen this before buying the new one. Cheers! New sub.
The trick with the display still works. Thanks
One thing with replacing pots is not only do you need to know the resistance but also if it's a linear scaled pot for a slider that's used for direct digital control of a parameter or a tapered pot for audio signals. Slider pots for digital control will be linear so they can evenly increment up the scale such as 0 to 255. Whereas a pot used to attenuate a real audio signal needs to be tapered which means for example that every mm of travel the resistance per mm along the carbon track under the slider handle will increase by a logarithmic amount since our hearing responds logarithmically to loudness.
The blokes a genius! Honestly.
Great repair and cleanup, I love the iron trick. Karl
u r a brave pocket,i had to make an unfourtunate modification to my jdxi's cutoff potenceomiters,though cruzin tunes,so u replaced it unofficaly with a 10k slider and positioned it along side the mod wheel under the tap latch,not a bad move
Hi Terence, I was playing with a JDXI only yesterday. wow they are really quite good and have some amazing sounds. so you placed a new slider on yours ?. sounds a good idea.
Thanks for that. It was a moment of zen.
The best video today! Congratulations!
Great video Markus, and a neat fix, cool ending too.
Thank You very much Micro Banshee
In my current setup I use a Roland MC 505 and a Korg Es-1 for my music but a couple of months ago I was given another 505 from a mate who said it was faulty (couple of the keypads don't work unless pressed with force and the usual screen issue plus all the pots were wobbly as hell) he said I might as well use it as a donor machine just in case anything with mine goes wrong. After watching your video you inspired me to open it up and have a noodle around to see if I could find out what the problems were. Stripped it down, put all buttons and knobs in soapy water and cleaned up the chassis. Wobbly pots I sort of crimped with a pair of long nose pliers and it sorted them all. Ironed the screen back to life and figured out why two pads don't work. The little rubber switches are split so don't make contact properly, what are the rubber switches called and can I replace them at all?
Great channel by the way, right up my street
Cheers.
Great question. Did you ever figure out what to do with the buttons being janky?
Hi Markus, great tear down. How did you fix the buttons that required a lot of pressure to get them to work, or did I miss that bit? Cheers
Brilliant! And the washing music was great 80’s industrial yes
I have two MC-505. They are fun machines and easy to use. great with a keyboard and some external fx.
Iwill try a keyboard in it later today. there are some good sounds in it.
The front screen protector is for sure plastic?
Wicked Markus. With this, mind me saying "household" method I was able to repair the donkey display on my Alesis QS7. Even if I have a spare LCD now it's far more fun to actually go through the entire machine to remove somewhat 10-15 years old musical dust'n'dirt, as I was at it :)
Thanks for another great repair video. Best luck in the future.
Thankyou very much
When you said "dust'n'dirt" for a moment I thought you were referring to the presets on the QS7... :D
Hah hah, got that so right. Cheers lad.
Magic Markus , I always enjoy your videos
Thank you very much
Very cool! Would love to see you have a crack at a Korg EMX-1 with the so-called "knob jitter" issue.
I hear piece of wax paper fixes it. Need to look into it.. Mine is going as well
Great tutorial. I would like to have close to my town one crazy sientist as you to clean and polish my MC505. It is still a great machine. I will start looking for one as you. Thanks and cheers
Great repair and good trick with the iron. Thanks for sharing 😀
Great Vid I got a really good deal on my 505 because of that exact flaw. Have Iron, will now fix. Thanks
ahh..the good old 505. awesome vid!
I enjoyed your vid, now if you could tear down a Roland MC 808 and repair those nasty nasty motorfader units i could not be happier!! thanks for your vids, i love them.
Brilliant, got the same problem with the display on mine so I'll give this a go.
Great video, as always! You are an amazing source of info. I always wanted one of those, but I don't have the space for all the things I'd hold onto if I allowed it :)
Good job 👍
Hey nice one my friend.. there is also a way to clean the yellowish white buttons.. ive seen it done to restore old computer parts.i guess its the same plastic.
thanks for the video. I'm buying a almost dead 505 with bad potentiometers
Nice fix, MC-505 sounded great in the day, not so much now unfortunately, what did you do to fix the 'Chic Keys' you mention at the start but never show the fix :/)
oh yes a couple of the click keys felt a little spongy but there was a sticky fluff dirt on them and I just cleaned that off and the keys worked fine.
Good video and nice Omega upgrade too!
I was a bit confused for a while about your comment but now I realised you meant the watch i was wearing :-) I just randomly pick a watch for the day and wear it as theres must be 30 in my workroom alone though most of those are the old LED watches. Thank You
lol, sorry about the confusion. I've seen you wearing various watches before, sometimes two at a time, but nothing as classy as this one. heh
That was amazing 👍
Cool repair video. I got a MC-303 and it still works :)
excellent :-)
Sequence playing from 9:15 to 10:00 = the background music to every porno on VHS made in the '90s. XD
LOL love it
What is the tool you're using at 6:03 to remove the pot?
Hello . that tool is called a solder sucker. It has a heatproof tube and when you heat the solder into a liquid it sucks up the hot solder from the board. you can buy them cheap from amazon or electronics stores. just dearch for solder sucker. best wishes.
Fantastic informative, interesting videos as ever sir. Gonna start hitting the carboots early aswel methinx!
theres still things to find if you get up early.
Is the music 7:05 playing from the MC-505? Sounds awesome.
Hello Yes all the music is from the MC-505
Its from the Industrial Pattern set, its the same in my Roland JX305 ;)
JohnnyX50
That's because the JX-305 is basically same as the MC-505 stuffed in a slimmer case with 5 octave keyboard. I have the MC & JX both ; tho I think that the MC's sequencer is easier to use than JX's (; .
excellent
Glad that got ironed out!
You make it look so easy! When are you going to write a 500 page tome for us?
Yes
Always very very interesting content.
n I love your great humanity.
Thank you from Japan
Thank You very much Nine Number
great video Markus
Thankyou
you should be like one of those meme channels and title videos like "FIXING A SYNTH WITH A STEAM IRON?!?!" and make a wacky face for the thumbnail
Brilliant! I have a JX-305 (the keyboard version of the MC-505) with the same LCD issue. Might just be the fix I'm looking for.
make sure the iron is not too hot as you can melt the connector.
This youtube channel is better than 99% of the dung on the tele. Makes me wonder why I keep a TV :)
Michael Bauers so true lol
i havent watched tv in about 3 or 4 years because of youtube
TH-cam Support I have not had a TV for about 7 years now, I like to choose what I want to watch not what a TV company wants me to watch.
markusfuller agreed 100% Markus on those exact reasons. I salute you sir.
Here in Germany it doesn't matter whether or not you got a TV.
You have to pay licence fee anyway every month.
Our television stations have made already, that everyone must pay.
Without exception.
Nice to see you back. like the iron tip fixing the 505 display.. what are you using for that lighting effect at the end of the video ?
Hi Terry, I used a couple of laser effects and something called the jelly dome light effect.
I'll give this a go when I get a chance... thank you!
so what happened?
@@tanker777. It didn't work and I ended up buying a replacement screen.
ok, thank you for your reply
Are the keys for the keyboard the same as the ones for the MC 303 , and if so where can one buy them ? thanks.
Markus Fuller is a steely eyed missile man.
:-)
as always, wonderful instruction! Thank you so much!
BTW, I am experiencing a different issue. My display is fine but switches are all erratic. For example, I'd push a button to change between 4 functions but all 4 would lit up or do partially. As a result, I cannot tell which function is active. Unfortuantely, this happens with more than one switches/buttons. Is it something I can fix by cleaning contacts? Other than my 505 is clean and functional. Any advice will be welcome!!
Hello Young Choe. sorry I am not sure what the problem could be. yes I would start by cleaning the buttons but normally unless there is resistive dirt on the board there should be no reason this problem is happening.
Thanks!!
Fantastic video - love this machine.
you found that in a car booty! crazy, probably paid peanuts for it and can now sell it for a huge profit! good find!!
Have you ever encountered or do you think its possible for missing pots to cause the 505 to fail to boot up pls? The guy i bought off assures me it worked but on arrival just blank screen nothing else.if i poke the missing pots sometimes it shows other lit lights but nothing else.all connections on board are connected athough on arrival the small lead from bottom board to top round the audio board was off.i understand if u dont have time to answer thanks
Just wondering, do you keep all these car boot finds or do you sell them on at a profit once repaired?
well, a 10k pot isnt equal to another 10k pot, there are linear and logarithmic pots. in audio this makes quite a difference.
In that application those pots are probably only connected to channels of an A/D converter with the micro controller actually setting all the levels, so it only make sense for them be linear.
What's the cool industrial themes from 7:07?
Hi Dmitry. thats one of the demo songs within the mc-505
Wow, yeah, it's song #4 and it's almost like Trent Reznor music.
Brilliant video tutorial. My 505 is in similar disarray but I haven't got the time or materials to repair it myself. Where can I take it or send it out in order for it to be repaired? Also how much do you charge for the job you just performed in this video? US $$
Very nicely done!
I just wonder what was happening in the ribbon when it got warmed up, what could be the logical explanation for the display repair?
nothing like flipping a groovebox. nice!
Im really enjoying it. sounds better than i thought it would.
love your videos thx m8 greetings from MX
hi ya mark,great vids,always worth a watch even if i dont own said gear,anyway any handy hints on the 4ever lose pots on these Roland as ive seen hose pipes[sliced into washers] being used,any advice gratefully accepted as got 303 and 505,thanks
Hi markus thanks for this very enlightening video can you please tell me what voltage the LEDs are in these units please.
Hi I think they must be about 2 to 2.5 volts but thats a guess as I have not tested with a multimeter. I have made a later video all about calculating LED voltages.
@@markusfuller thanks markups very greafull I will check out your other video for LEDs👍
Love the music, are those demo songs on the MC-505??
Killa vid..i melted my ribbon trying the iron technique lol then replaced my old 505s screen with a blue one..my ex sold that 505 I have a mint one arriving today , which apparently has a new original screen fitted.,to sit with my Fantom XA and MC909..I assume you dry cleaned the pad button contacts?
What brand soldering iron are you using? I really dig the yellow hook on it
Peace from oz
Wicked job man, love the vids, keep it up!
There was a cut when you used the iron, how did you keep the iron on in total?
Hi the cut was because my doorbell rang. but in total the ironing took about 5 minutes though gently and not on a very hot setting.