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Trouble with your Access Virus? Here you can get help when you have trouble or just don't know what to do.

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  #1  
Old 01.11.2018, 08:39 PM
Frith_Travesty Frith_Travesty is offline
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Default **UNSOLVED** I Need a Virus B Full Circuitry Schematic Diagram!!!

Hi Everyone,

I couldn't see any recent posts on the "Introduce yourself" section so I'll give short blurb here...

I'm Frith, I live in Manchester UK, and I'm part of a 3 piece Drum and Bass act, Travesty, focusing on mainly tech step/Neuro drum and bass using a mix of hard/software on Reaper and Reason.

First acquired a Virus C in 2008, then a B a few years later. Changed my productive outlook, as I'm sure many of you will agree!

So to the issue.... My B is playing up. I think it's a capacitor issue, but it's hard to diagnose without a) someone who can just look at the board and go "that's what it is" and b) the schematics... which is why I'm here..

I've currently got my B with someone in the Manchester area, who is struggling to identify the issues without some form of technical manual. On searching, it's been impossible to find, obviously as I'm sure Access made sure no one could get a copy as they then wouldn't make anything on repairs.... which I'll add, is looking to cost me £200+ in shipping and labour, and that's just to get it to Germany and have it looked at. Access technicians have said they may not be able to fix it, depending on the issue, as they may not be able to source the replacement parts.

Does anyone have anything like this that could help me or know of anyone in this area who knows them well and can have a look?

Thanks in advance,

Frith
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Old 01.11.2018, 09:58 PM
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Timo Timo is offline
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Welcome. Hope this helps:-

http://infekted.org/virus/showthread...917#post305917

You didn't mention what symptoms you were getting, but if it's a bad capacitor it should be a very easy and cheap fix indeed, odds on it could be one of the 100µF 25V caps (as shown in the thread/link above ^), they only cost around 25p each or thereabouts.

RS Electronics http://uk.rs-online.com or Hobbytronics http://hobbytronics.co.uk should be of use to source capacitors, given Maplin in the UK went bust last year.

Obviously use a low-wattage soldering iron (15 watts) with a fine tip to reduce the chance of heat/component damage.

~Timo
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Old 21.11.2018, 11:50 AM
Frith_Travesty Frith_Travesty is offline
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Hi Timo,

Sorry I should have been more specific with the symptoms. It appears to be the same description to that of the threads you've linked me to - OS won't boot, LCD glitches, LFO led's light up etc...

I've gone back to the shop who are looking at this, and they say those schematic diagrams are not enough for them to diagnose effectively.

I personally wouldn't know where to start with repairs and I think I would prefer to get someone who is familiar with the board to have a look. I may have someone in London who's capable. I'll be sure to link him to these articles as I'm sure they will be of use,

Thanks for your help with this,

Frith
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Old 21.11.2018, 02:28 PM
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Hi Frith, apologies that I don't have a full circuitry schematic, sadly I've certainly never seen one available for any Virus.

If you open the Virus, though, sometimes you can see if a capacitor has blown just by looking at it, hence the capacitor layout I gave you. From the various similar forum threads elsewhere, the capacitors that people have seemingly had problems with in the Virus B are the 100µF 25V capacitors, of which there are two - I've highlighted these in the dashed green box:

http://www.infekted.org/virus/images...b-bad-caps.png

Capacitors in general can 'bulge' outwards slightly at the top (or bottom) when they've blown, or sometimes they split, or show chemical leakage in worst cases.

If you take a look and they do look blown and you're not happy with soldering, you could perhaps ask the shop you've been just to replace the caps for you on your behalf, rather than have them do extensive diagnostics. Or you might know of a friend who's confident with a soldering iron, that could switch out the capacitors for you.

Sorry that I can't personally help further. The only synthesizer repair centre that Access tend to recommend is their hardware branch in Germany http://www.synthesizerservice.de, although I'm unsure how much they charge, with P&P it could be costly.
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Old 28.08.2019, 07:03 PM
Frith_Travesty Frith_Travesty is offline
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Hi Timo!

So after many months of waiting, the repair place couldn't do anything as they couldn't work without the service manual, so I tried myself.

None of the caps on the board or any other components look to be at fault after removing the board. So I've just replaced the reported bad 100uF cap on the left side as mentioned - the Virus now boots into the OS which is a good start!

However, I've got no sound, and (the strangest bit) the LED screen lights up intermittently. I turn the Virus on and only sometimes get the ACCESS logo. But whether the logo appears or not, the screen goes blank (off) when the OS boots. I can tell it's booted ok as the all LEDs are present - I can change from Single to Multi-Mode and change filter modes.

So, it looks like that bad cap was causing the majority of problems....

But do you have any thoughts on what this new issue could be? Do you think replacing all caps and voltage regs would sort this or is it something else? I've seen some mention here of the LED cable that's significantly twisted and thought maybe that might be involved.... But that wasn't ever an issue initially. The booting problem has always been the main factor here.

Thank you again for all your help,

Frith
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Old 29.08.2019, 12:37 AM
rtofvnt rtofvnt is offline
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Hi Firth,
I'm the owner of Indigo 1 which is pretty much Virus B with a different case. I have some similar issues with mine and I think I made it worse.
A couple of weeks ago my Indigo after switching on booted up normally, but the backlight of LCD stated blinking. I didn't do much research about this issue - initially, I think I didn't even found this forum, but I think through gearslutz I found some info about failing capacitors. Someone linked to a drawing of capacitors location and polarisation of Virus B, so I bought capacitors on eBay and replaced all. Also - trusting in that drawing I didn't notice that there is a slight difference with locations of capacitors and polarity. I also replaced the 5v 5pin voltage regulator. Btw original on pin 2 was showing 4.95 volts - is it right? Shouldn't be 5V? The new one shows less than 5V as well. So now I have indigo that plays, leds and knobs working, but LCD died. I even managed to break one of the wires to LCD just few moments ago, so without soldering iron I can't fix it now. I'll get one tomorrow. Just a couple of hours ago my cheap 9.99 soldering iron just died on me and I can't do anything.
I'm not sure also If I didn't drop a ball with the wrong temperature settings on soldering iron - I'm sure I set this to higher than 370 degrees, and I'm afraid I actually damaged capacitors when I was soldering new ones to PCB.
Anyway ... since you are based in Manchester and I live in Westhoughton, maybe we could meet up and have look around? I have one 5pin 5V controller left. We can measure voltage on yours - God knows - maybe yours is broken. There is 7805 regulator that should draw 5V, but shows on my voltmeter 4.95V. Maybe there is a chance that we have the same PCB? Mine is Virus MB 3.2 Lage 4 2000. Worst case scenario we can have a few pints
Cheers
Matt.
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Old 25.03.2021, 08:08 PM
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Looks like my Virus Indigo is suffering LCD problems too, particularly the backlight which now only works intermittently (about 20% of the time). And the LFO lights occasionally stay lit up after booting.

Holding LFO Shape button while turning on resets the device back almost to working condition (other than the backlight).

Will be re-capping the mainboard, including the infamous 100µF capacitors, and checking for dry solder joints on the LCD cables.
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PS > And another thing! Will the Ti|3 have user customisable/importable wavetables? A ribbon-controller or XY-Pad might be nice, too, please! Thanks!
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