There are a lot of threads in this forum dealing with GAS, GAS poetry and new gear in general.
This thread shall be the place where we can lay the pieces of our equipment to rest that went too soon from our setups.
To get it rolling:
May they Rest in Pieces.
When I was about 14 (48 now) my dad bought me a Bpm counter to go with my dj setup. We got the thing home, plugged it in and blew it immediately.
I can still see the look on my dads face.
I feel with you, what a loss.
My DX7 won’t turn off when plugged, and makes bursts of what sounds like FM feedback, almost white noise, on top of the “normal” sound. I really like those quirks but I don’t think it is going to last, and the fact that I have to unplug it to turn it off is a bit worrying, so I don’t touch it anymore. Sad.
a stand collapsed sending gear tumbling. grid now has a small dint in the top aluminium. It’s vain, but still sad.
I have a Dangerous Music Bax EQ that blew an input about four years ago, and has been sitting in the rack since then, unused, because I still haven’t got around to boxing it up and shipping it back with €150 to get fixed…
When I was 14, my dad bought me an electric guitar according to the spec “blue and with a whammy bar.” Over many years, the frets wore down and some pieces of the whammy bar hardware became warped or otherwise broken. It’s also been subject to continual experimentation with the electronics and more recently beginner-luthier experimentation. Most recently I tried to replace the frets, but now the fret edges are super sharp. It hides in a case in my basement without pickups, haunting me whenever I think of it.
I have an Ensoniq DP/4 in the closet. It stopped booting maybe five years ago. I think it’s just the power supply. I’ll fix it at some point I think. It’s very good.
I used to have a Mattel Subsonic drums… I’ve modded it to have trigger inputs. I liked it a lot. But some day it broke and I’ve thrown it away… That was before I was into DIY electronics. I believe I might have been able to fix it with the knowledge I have now… alas
I have a Seiko DS-202 / DS-310 / DS-320 setup that I found at Value Village without the weird power supply. Found a suitable PSU replacement, ordered a barrel connector adapter (the Seiko uses a 4-pin connector for the PSU). It powers up but the PSU connector is loose and I have to hold it at a weird angle for it to work. Opened it up and resoldered the connector. Still no dice. I may order a new connector and try again but I’ve been saying that for a few years now. 
Great thread, although sad of course. I hope I can brighten the mood, and that it won’t be too In opposition to the theme.
I had been stymied in my efforts to get some solenoid activated drums recorded in a satisfactory way, went looking for an additional interface and ended up with a second K-Mix.
Day later, one of my cats got into my studio and peed on the other k-mix. Noticed it acting weird and quickly noticed the smell upon close inspection.
Fast forward a week, I had taken it apart, and soaked it in distilled water, dried overnight… no dice, still acting up. One more week and I was going to see about ordering a Motherboard from Keith McMillian, plugged in to check that the audio board was ok, and VOILA! It all worked!
That was last night, still need to confirm all behaviors is correct, but pretty confident it’s good.
The heap of things awaiting repair mounts every year.
There is the Prophet-600 shipped at great expense from LA to London that has never worked since (and may not have before) with bent keys that I have finally found a local repairer to work on it, as and when they have time. I really would like to hear if they sound as good as they are supposed to one day.
The SH-1 that came in the same shipment has a dodgy oscillator that only does PWM on occasion, and plain square wave not at all. I can no longer remember if it ever worked properly, but the filter does sound good still.
Then there’s a ZVEX Ringtone that was great while it lasted, but gave up the power ghost within the last decade; I’m not sure if I can send it to ZVEX for repair or not, and keep forgetting to ask.
However, the cheap Rozz phaser pedal that I got in 1989 whoknowshowmanyhand and apparently died sometime before 2011 decided to start working when I brought it out of storage, so there’s that resurrection to be thankful for.
Said local tech will be busy if they ever have the inclination to fix some old things.
I still think of all the gear I could have revived 15 years ago for $2 in parts
RIP to my Alesis Micron
Isn’t it great that you can order that $2 in parts now (perhaps with $7 in shipping)? For all its faults, the internet has been great for finding replacements for esoteric hardware and electronic components and anything really.
the mode knob broke off my SQ1 while packed on a plane. stuck in 16 step, single channel, so could be worse but still.
the ones i really mourn is my access virus B desktop which met unresolvable CPU/board failures
I have two broken 16n Faderbanks and I’m struggling to figure out how to even begin to repair them. It would be a damn shame to do nothing with them, but there they sit on my shelf awaiting some greater fate.
Is it the normal problem or dodgy op-amp soldering? I had some very weird issues with mine (as did others building kits with me) which were completely solved by reflowing all the op-amps.
in memoriam…
long time back, I had a whole 'robot setup (mostly echoplex)
a friend lent me their Roland 303 groovebox
I ran it through, and made this track in one take
I don’t know what the normal problem is.
My problems arise from the USB connection breaking off on both of them. On one I had my local tech replace the Teensy to solve the busted USB connection. Upon receiving the 16n back I updated the firmware, and somewhere along the process I lost functionality in a few faders, but only via i2c if I recall correctly?
Meanwhile, while I was waiting for the repair on my first 16n, the USB connection on my other 16n also broke off, and I never sent it in for repair.
And then while I was troubleshooting the first 16n the USB connection broke off again, as they do.
So now I’m sitting on two non-functional 16n Faderbanks. I really wish I could just send them somewhere and get them back in a fully functional state, but I don’t know who or where that would be.
Gosh that sounds frustrating! Yeah, it’s an annoying thing about open source hardware - if you build it, you have to maintain it generally…
I bet someone would fix them for you if you put the job up on buy sell trade.
