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Old Crow's Synth Shop: Polysix KLM-367 Board Removal

Again, DISCLAIMER: The information contained herein is provided as-is. No warranties of any kind are expressed or implied; use of this information is solely the responsibility of the persons accessing these pages. The reader is responsible for any modifications or repairs. In other words, I cannot be held responsible if you break something. This is a project page intended primarily for hardware engineers. While I try to make the information as easy to follow as I can, this isn't really a project for beginners. Considerable hands-on experience is *required* in areas such as soldering and circuit-board trace modification. You have been warned.

Step 1: Desoldering the Ground Wire

1-0: Make sure the Polysix is unplugged from the AC line!

1-1: With the Polysix hood up, locate the heavy (#10AWG or so), black grounding wire running from the KLM-370-- which is mounted to the front panel--to the KLM-367 board's left edge.

1-2: Using a low-wattage (perferably temperature-controlled) soldering iron, desolder the black wire at the point it is attached to the KLM-367, as shown.

1-2: Tuck the free end of the wire under any of the cable harnesses to keep it out of the way for now.

Step 2: Removing the Cables from the Connectors

2-1: Now that the wire is desoldered, use a small X-acto knife to carefully cut through the glue that is dabbed on the connectors. Using the image of connector CN08 as the "starting point",

do this for the following connectors, each of which is labeled on the board and listed here clockwise around the board starting from CN08:

CN08, CN06, CN11, skip over CN10 for now, CN02, CN05 and CN03. Referring to the KLM-367 image for this particular Polysix, here are the cable colors to help clearly note the connectors in addition to the board labels: CN08--one red, one brown and a small orange coax; CN06--all blue wires; CN11--five violet, one white, one black; CN02--all red wires; CN05--all green wires; CN03--all orange wires.

For each connector, after carefully cutting through the glue, start to work the upper connector+cable assembly out of the corresponding socket. These things can be stubborn, so watch the amount of force applied. Do NOT wiggle the connectors from side to side, this weakens the pins soldered to the KLM-367. If one or more connectors are being troublesome, grasp the connector shell at either end and try to "rock" the connector up and out along the connector's length. If you can fit the tip of a small, flat-tip screwdriver between the socket and connector along the open edge, it will help. Most connectors will give a final 'crack' as the glue that managed to get inside breaks, at which point the connector easily pops out. Take your time--there is no rush. Note that CN10 is still connected; we'll get to that in a bit.

Step 3: Removing the Mounting Screws

Scott Rider -- oldcrow@oldcrows.net