Who sells Korg parts - need motherboard

[MrVegas]

I think the motherboard on my beloved CX-3 needs replacement. Any advice on how to find one?

[therealvicz]

Maybe here Parts is parts

[Markyboard]

Part is Parts quoted me $670. I asked if there was any flex there and the answer was no. Maybe you'll have better luck. Chuck Levin's can get it for 590.00. Korg will not sell direct.

[timwat]

Would it be a waste of time to try and find a dead / broken one and cannibalize it?

[MrVegas]

I am guessing one needs to be able to wield a soldering iron to replace the motherboard?

[timwat]

My assumption would be the phrase "replace the motherboard" = good skills with soldering iron, reasonably handy, knows how to navigate the innards of consumer electronics, and does not often set self on fire.

[Synthoid]

You don't want to end up like this guy:

 

http://enews.toxicslink.org/im-info/teen_burning_pcb.jpg

[MrVegas]

drat! guess that leaves me out.

 

hey Marky, did you happen to ask Chuck Levin's how much they would charge for labor to replace it?

[Steve Nathan]

I noticed this, which is actually cheaper.

 

Clonk

[Markyboard]

hey Marky, did you happen to ask Chuck Levin's how much they would charge for labor to replace it?

 

Chucks is a retail store - they don't do repairs although I believe there is a repair shop right down the block from them.

 

Replacing this motherboard requires no soldering and it would be unusual if it did). You just unplug all the connectors from the old one, unscrew it from the chasis and lift it out. The new one goes in it's place - pretty easy actually. Think of all the kids building computers these days - everything is modular.

 

What I'm wondering is can I buy the individual chips of the mother board? I suspect the flash RAM is the culprit - a 15 dollar part but it probably needs Korgs OS on it or at least the boot portion of it. I bet Korg does not distribute this separately. That would take some careful soldering but I think I can do it on these particular parts.

 

The other thing to consider is - what if it's not the Mother board? It sounds like it is but you're out a chunk of change if you do it yourself and its not the problem. So know what you're getting into

 

[MrVegas]

I noticed this, which is actually cheaper.

 

Clonk

 

Thanks for this link, Steve. Funny thing is, I bought one of these "original" CX-3's last summer. It sounds OK but not near as good as the newer one plus it does not have transpose. This worship team I am playing on likes to transpose up several times during certain gospel songs and I'm not talented enough to change key signatures the old fashioned way, e.g. playing a chorus in C, then shifting up to C#, then D, then D#, etc.

[Synthoid]

This worship team I am playing on likes to transpose up several times during certain gospel songs and I'm not talented enough to change key signatures the old fashioned way, e.g. playing a chorus in C, then shifting up to C#, then D, then D#, etc.

 

That's unusual... we always transpose to the next key.

 

It's easy to do that if you practice the scales and chords.

[WheelHead]

hey Marky, did you happen to ask Chuck Levin's how much they would charge for labor to replace it?

 

Chucks is a retail store - they don't do repairs although I believe there is a repair shop right down the block from them.

 

Replacing this motherboard requires no soldering and it would be unusual if it did). You just unplug all the connectors from the old one, unscrew it from the chasis and lift it out. The new one goes in it's place - pretty easy actually. Think of all the kids building computers these days - everything is modular.

 

What I'm wondering is can I buy the individual chips of the mother board? I suspect the flash RAM is the culprit - a 15 dollar part but it probably needs Korgs OS on it or at least the boot portion of it. I bet Korg does not distribute this separately. That would take some careful soldering but I think I can do it on these particular parts.

 

Not necessarily. EPROMs many times push into a chip holder THOUGH that may not be the case. I forget when I disassembled the CX3.

 

I know for a while people were toasting their CX3s and sending them in WHEN they tried to update the OS to V2 (bad idea imho blew the scanner but better sim BUT all the more reason now to want a V1 with a Ventilator)

 

IF by some chance a chip could be ordered UNLIKELY but I would want one flashed with V1 if possible. If the chip is soldered to the board one many want to send in the whole board. First order of business is to look with a magnifying glass at the lands of the board to see anything burned, broken, chips cracked etc very carefully.

 

I forget where CX3 owners were sending their CX3s when they were toasted with a bad flash. Long time ago.

 

Another thing to look at is to check voltage with a multimeter and if the power supply is sending juice to the board. I seem to remember a couple of boards in their. One might be the power supply.

 

I think if I did not know what to do with it technically I would ask Bruce Wahler of the clonewheel group, Midi Solutions, to look at it and ship it, (do not know or affiliated obviously) since he has been using CX3s/BX3s for years and find out what he wants to diagnose it.

 

W.

[Markyboard]

Good inputs WheelHead. I've had the board open for a week or so doing many of the things you've suggested. It's all surface mount components. The midi, display and all the buttons work even when the sound craps out. These functions are handled by the main processor and the OS flash RAM so I'm somewhat backing off my assertion that its a flash RAM issue (although I haven't discounted it completely). You might think this indicates an audio output circuit issue but I believe it's in the DSP section (sub uP and DRAM) which feeds into the D/A and output audio circuits. All the notes work upon power up with a loud droning distortion drowning out the notes played. Until I play F#3. Then I have to hold that F# for the drone and the notes to get any sound coming out. This is repeatable every time. But as I said even at this point all keys are sending midi with no problems.

 

My unit was sitting in its carton for over a year unused so I doubt something burned out. For me it's definitely not worth the cost of replacing the MB. And I would not pay to have someone end up telling me it needs a MB. BTW I prefer the V2 software as I ran it through a real Leslie anyway when I used it. I was just looking to sell it until I discovered this problem but at least it works as a controller so I can find some use for it down the road.

[MrVegas]

Well, I have decided to part ways with my CX-3. Not willing to risk spending over $600 for a motherboard and then discover that did not do the trick.

 

Anybody on here have an interest in this for a few hundred bucks? I have the original box for shipping. It's a shame, it only got played on Sundays for about 4 years and other than that it was almost never used.

[zukskywalker]

Hmmmm...Don't wanna shoot myself in the foot here but wouldn't that CX3 make for a great VB3 or B4 controller as discussed in the earlier thread?

That being said I'm probably less than an hour away from you by car. Few hundred bucks? I'll pm you soon.

[MrVegas]

I'm resurrecting this thread. I just bought a Kronos and I would like to keep my CX-3 and use it as a controller for the CX-3 module in the Kronos. Can anybody explain to me how to do this if it is possible?

[Markyboard]

Mr Vegas -

I'm not sure based on your question how much you understand MIDI so sorry if this is elementary. You need to hook a MIDI cable from your CX-3 MIDI Out to your Kronos MIDI In. You need to set the Kronos CX-3 program/patch on the same MIDI channel as the real CX-3. You may even need the basic MIDI channel of the Kronos to match the same MIDI channel as the real CX-3 for the Continuous Controller (CC) data that you'll be sending. At this point you should be able to play notes on the real CX-3 and hear the Kronos sound.

 

Let me know if you get this far, then we can go from there.

[AnotherScott]

I'm resurrecting this thread. I just bought a Kronos and I would like to keep my CX-3 and use it as a controller for the CX-3 module in the Kronos. Can anybody explain to me how to do this if it is possible?

Assuming that both boards are set up with factory defaults, all you have to do to be able to play the Kronos from the CX3 is to connect a MIDI cable from the MIDI Out of the CX3 to the MIDI In of the Kronos. Done.

 

If you want to be able to play Kronos CX3 sounds from the CX3 while playing other Kronos sounds from its own keyboard, then you'd have to assign the CX3 patch on the Kronos to some MIDI channel, and set your CX3 to transmit on that MIDI channel

 

BUT... if you want the drawbars on your real CX3 to control the drawbar settings on your Kronos organ sound, that can't be done. The Kronos drawbar settings use sysex for external control, and you can't program your real CX3's drawbars to send sysex commands. There may be some external machinations you could go through to convert the CX3's drawbar CC values to specified sysex commands, but I've never really looked into that sort of thing.

 

Since the CX3 mode of Kronos doesn't offer any advantages I can think of over a real CX3, if you're going to be using your real CX3 anyway, you might as well just use its sounds, rather than jumping through hoops to use it to control the Kronos (if it could be done at all), with as far as I can see, no additional benefit.

 

If you're looking to create a "two manual organ" out of a CX3 and a Kronos, instead of using your old CX3 as a second manual for the Kronos, I would try setting it up so that the Kronos becomes a second manual for the CX3. You should be able to create combis on the Kronos that will call up the preset you want on the attached CX3 (using MIDI Program Change), so you could still use slots in the Set List to call up your sounds just as if they were in the Kronos, even if the sounds you're calling up actually reside in the attached CX3.

 

 

[MrVegas]

I love this forum. I will try the midi cable as you both suggest. I simply want to play the sounds of the Kronos organ thru the real CX3, not concerned about drawbars, double manual, etc.

 

Eventually, I would also like to route the organ audio out into my Motion Sound KBR3D and everything else from the Kronos into the studio monitors.

 

[Rejean Frechette]

Is it possible to find the complete drawbar kit of an earlier cx3?