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CZ-101 memory cartirdge fault


Spivkurl

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Hello all, I am new to this forum, and have been searching around for someone with more experience with Casio CZ-101 troubles.

 

Have had this synth for quite a few years, and I love it so much!

 

I finally got around to doing some updates, like a backlit LCD. Then I moved on to building a 64 patch memory card, which is mentioned in the article down this page:

 

http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59847

 

I have it constructed, only using 1k ohm resistors in the place of the 390 ohms, just because I had them on hand. I have made sure it is all connected properly and there is continuity between the cartridge pins in the Casio and the card.

 

Whenever the card is connected to the synth, and I power it up, there is just a row of boxes on the LCD top row, and many of the LED's are lit up, but no functions are available on the keyboard. If I turn it off and remove the cartridge, everything works fine again.

 

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone here has experienced this with a CZ... as I noticed one person on another forum stating they had this problem before, but did not mention ram cartridges or any solutions. If anyone has more understanding here, would the current limiting of the higher value resistors cause the card to be unusable, or is there a deeper problem with the cartridge circuitry within the keyboard itself?

 

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Pat(Spivkurl)

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I'd say tripling the limiting resistors in the schematic definitely could cause the problems you are seeing.

 

It's only a 3V circuit to begin with and tripling the value of the resistors drops your current to almost a third of the specified value.

 

It may definitely be dropping the address lines to indeterminate values on the RAM chip.

 

I'd say use anything between 330 and 420 ohm resistors in that circuit if you have to make substitutions.  Tripling their value simply puts them way out of spec.

 

Gary ;)

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Okay, thank you happyrat1! Between your reply, and some on another forum, it seems like the general consensus that this is the trouble. I guess I will be making a another small parts order. I was taking into account the supply voltage from the CZ which connects to the cartridge, so if the card is not in standby (just battery storage) then the chips are supplied with closer to 5v... Don't know for sure what the actual data signals are as far as level goes.

 

Thank you for your help. I hope to get this working soon!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have a similar problem when using a genuine RA3 ram card with my CZ101. When I put the card in and turn on the 101, the board just freezes, emits a constant drone and random LED's remain lit. Nothing on the 101 seems to respond nor change with the card in place. If I take it out, all works as it should.

 

Even more bizarre is that when I tried the same RA3 ram card with my old CZ3000, it worked fine. However, the bigger CZ's work differently to the baby 101/ 1000, in that you load the cartridge memory into the internal user preset memory bank, whereas the 101/ 1000 actually reads the cartridge as an extra memory bank in addition to the internal user presets.

 

I never did get the RA3 cartridge working in my 101  :(

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I finally got the 390 ohm resistors which the schematic called for, and installed them in place. I made a new board for one of the RAM chips and rewired each ribbon connection between the cartridge slot and my RAM boards. It should be working but it is reacting exactly the same way as with the 1k resistors. I'm using a 3v cell battery, but when I plug my boards in, the CMOS chips supply pins only read about 3.9v... this seems weird, as the ideal supply for the ram chips is from 4.5 to 5.5v. If anyone has an idea of something else to check out which I might have done wrong, I would appreciate it!

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  • 2 months later...

How's the internal battery in your RA3? A weak or dead battery might act as a short or closed circuit and cause this problem. I recall the RA3 used an internal button cell I think.

 

Bought a brand new replacement and swapped it over (mind the casing screws - they're made of chocolate). Still had the same problem when I tried to use it in the 101, still worked fine in the 3000. I also tried it in a friend's CZ1000, and that behaved the same as my 101. :-(

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Another somewhat educated guess-years back I had several RA-3 and "EZ-CZ" cartridges which I used in a CZ-101, CZ3000 and CZ-1 (really cool keyboard that one!) so don't remember if the RA-3 worked in the 101-maybe not since I ended up using the EZ-CZs in it and those worked, maybe why I bought those but was a long time ago. 

 

Not sure, but I think the EZ-CZs were powered by 4 AAA batteries-this would give 6V to the memory ICs and this may be why the EZ-CZs worked and the RA-3 won't.

 

If the bigger CZs apply 5V+ internally to their RAM chips (common for older TTL ICs), once the cartridges transfer their programs over that is what runs the programs internally. if the CZ-101 is seeing the cartridge as another RAM chip, there may be a voltage mismatch-the RA-3 is not providing enough voltage internally to power its programs as an extension of the internal RAM-newer chips used 3V instead of 5V but the CZ-101 may not be providing the 5V to the RA-3 cartridge internally. But since (I seem to remember) the EZ-CZ cartridges provided the higher voltage, whether it operates as an independent RAM module or an extended internal one, it works either way.

 

The EZ-CZ cartridges were configured with 2 DIP switches which allowed for using 16 programs at a time in 4 separate banks, which the CZ-101 needed in order to work at all with the CZ-101 although in the others-the 300, 5000 and CZ-1-see 32 EZ-CZ sounds at a time which is what their internal memory is configured for. Possibly providing the RA-3 with the higher voltage (I have no idea how to do this!) might make the RA-3 work with the CZ-101. Do at your own risk! What's the worst that can happen? You maybe fry the CZ-101 and the cartridge, not a good option! :(:wacko::blink:  

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Thanks for the suggestion Jokeyman, however, I don't think I fancy changing voltages for the cartridge and risk frying either it or the 101!

 

I did wonder if the 101/ 1000 utilises the cartridge in a different way to the 3K/ 5K/ 1 and that might be what causes the issue. On a similar note, I am lucky enough to have 2 x RA-100 cartridges for use in my HT700 and HT6000. Despite being the exact same cartridge, they cannot be swapped between the 6000 and 700 once formatted (unless they are reformatted again). However, the manual clearly states they need formatting depending on which model they are used in, whereas the RA-3 cartridge mentions nothing of the sort. I've tried leaving the battery out of the RA-3 to see if that 'clears' or re-formats it, but still with the same result. I thought that maybe there was a fault with my 101, yet the fact that I get the same result when I tried it in a 1000 suggests not.

 

I don't really need the RA-3 to be honest, as my plan is to eventually invest in the Virtual CZ software from Plug in Boutique that has extensive editing and librarian functions covering all CZ models. The RA-3 would have been handy for when I make a nice patch I can save it without risking losing it if the power supply is disconnected. Once I get the Virtual CZ program then I can simply use the librarian function in that to safely save and store patches.

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  • 5 years later...

I had both the EZ-CZ cart and RA3 with my CZ101 and CZ1000 and I never had that locking up issue but, I did notice that if I wanted to save the internal memory sounds inside the CZ101 without those big D batteries, I had to leave the RA3 cart plugged in the Casio all the time. The internal coin battery seemed to supply power to BOTH the cart ram and internal ram. I never forgot that cause every time I see internal battery hacks for the CZ101, I remember the Cartridge slot may hold the answer to said coin battery hack because of my experience with the RA3 backing up my internal memory as long as it was always plugged in. I HAVE seen the 4 blocks on LCD, all leds lit, no response issue on several CZ and even YAMAHA keyboards, and I always thought that was a CPU failure but from what you say here it seems, a RAM failure instead? So if that is the case, you would need to check for issues with your RA3 or CZ101 and battery acid leaks anywhere in the past that may have eaten some circuit traces or components. Also, isn't there a memory protect switch too?

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Looking at the 101 (well, 1000, but same thing) schematic, the only power supply to the cartridge slot is from VBR, the battery backed RAM power rail. This gets its power from the keyboard's battery pack when power is disconnected. Presumably the cartridge can back-feed power into VBR and thus preserve the keyboard's internal RAM.

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I knew there had to be a reason for the cart backing up my internal ram even when I was not actually using the cart contents! Man, the last time I saw the RA3 and 101 schematics was back in 2010 when I still had my HT6000, CZ101, and some other keyboards! lanB, can you post the RA3 slot schematic for that VBR? Me thinks that some one back in 2012 had made a battery backing circuit module for the 101/1000 but he was charging $120 or Euros so that was stupid high cost. I reckon buying a better CZ makes more sense since in the end, that is what I ended up doing, CZ3000 and CZ5000! No more battery backing conundrum

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Lest we scoff (my big word for the day) at these Casio CZ's-keep in mind I am in Casio's camp for many reasons-I recently discovered a rather troublesome Alesis Fusion which required extensive work to get up and running-and as much money as my PX560.  Much to my surprise (this is a full sampling workstation) a master programmer on the Alesis Fusion group created a dozen or so CZ samples, and some SK-1s for the Fusion, including the cheezy SK-1 drums!  After having left all my CZ's behind years ago-but still remembering how amazing these were-with 8-stage envelopes for-everything-what a kick to hear these sounds again-with some reverb or other efx-wow! Repeating my own posts but FYI-the big CZ's were the only synths I've ever been able to program to create amazing 'real-world" sounds-explosions, car crashes, glass breaking, horns honking, car and motorcycle engines-closest thing to sampled sounds I've ever been able to program. I needed a special book I no longer can find to learn to do it, but it was tremendous fun, and taught me how to program sounds which translates to every sampler, VA synth of just about any other synth's method of creating or modding sounds. And unlike so many newer keys-were built very solidly-a bit heavy but were built to last-and apparently many have-judging by e**booboo listings! 

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7 hours ago, pianokeyjoe said:

I knew there had to be a reason for the cart backing up my internal ram even when I was not actually using the cart contents! Man, the last time I saw the RA3 and 101 schematics was back in 2010 when I still had my HT6000, CZ101, and some other keyboards! lanB, can you post the RA3 slot schematic for that VBR? Me thinks that some one back in 2012 had made a battery backing circuit module for the 101/1000 but he was charging $120 or Euros so that was stupid high cost. I reckon buying a better CZ makes more sense since in the end, that is what I ended up doing, CZ3000 and CZ5000! No more battery backing conundrum

 

Hey Joe, here's the CZ1000 service manual, the cartridge slot is the set of connections at the top of schematic 1-1 labelled "to pack".

CASIO_CZ-1000_SRV.pdf

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  • 10 months later...

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