Synthpro's New Polymoog Restoration (Video# 5)

Hi everyone,

This is an update on the restoration of the polymoog 203a I have been working on. It is finally alive.

Thanks for watching!!

Take care,
Jareth

[DreamsOfWires]

Sound's fantastic, very nicely demonstrated too.

[AranBrowning]

The insides of that thing is ridiculous, keep up the good work!!

[gstormelectro]

So ridiculously cool and sick. Great to see all your hard work paying off.

[STEVEL]

Another excellent restoration project well on the way to completion Jared.

[Oldworldman]

Fantastic!!!! I am happy to know you have accomplished your goal! I know a happy synth when I hear one and this synth is happy!

[pdmillar]

Great!! One of ours had audio bleeding through some cards at one point, and some notes sounded way too bright.. it turned out that there were a lot of weak solder joints on the three motherboards (it would start acting right when you slapped the bottom). Took out all the cards and redid all 1400+ solder joints, it's perfect now

[synthpro]

Thank you, I am not sure if you could call me a genious but I do know my way around these vintage instruments. Almost all the sockets you see, I installed, I replaced many of the op amps to modern ones for better quality. That is the only problem I have had working with ARP synths is that the tracings lift very easy seems like. Still great instruments though.

Thanks again and take care,
Jareth

[synthpro]

@pdmillar Thanks Paul! Oh yes, solder joints are one of the problems polymoogs have for sure. As you have probably already noticed is that the chassis is flexible and the board flex with it, this is the reason for having to re-seat the polycards after moving the thing. One problem I am haing on this one is the power supply connector is not making good connection. Slowly getting the bugs worked out. I know you know what a job these can be, haha.

Take care,
Jareth

[synthpro]

@gstormelectro Thank you! Yes, it is great to finally see my work pay off.

Take care,
Jareth

[synthpro]

Thank you very much!!!

Take care,
Jareth

[synthpro]

Thank you for noticing, I put many hours of cleaning in this thing as well as a complete electronic rebuild.

[synthpro]

@soundmanhaven1 It is fairly clean sounding, I put TL082CN Op Amps in the reference oscillator board and that did help on some of the audio. This synth is different than the 280a in sound, I actully built a Vox Humana sounding patch for the demo but you can get many different variations of sound out of the 203a. The biggest thing is that you can adjust the modulations independently where the 280a is all fixed, you can only adjust what the presets allow.

Take care,
Jareth

[synthpro]

Thank you very much! Sorry for the late response.

[synthpro]

@simeoneukable Hi Lee,

Thank you very much! I bought these LED's from Mouser and here is the item nuber if you go with mouser: TLUO2401, just type that in at mouser and it will tell you all you need to know. I am very happy with these LED's and I know you will be too.

Do let me know how it goes.

Take care,
Jareth

[synthpro]

@machman05 Thanks Marty! Maybe you will find a 203a one of these days. That is great, CR-78 are very neat!

Take care and thanks again,
Jareth

[synthpro]

@STEVEL361 Thank you, it has been a job but no regrets at all.

[leesimeone]

@synthpro Hi Jareth, thanks so much for your help with that. I've manged to get a few more parts. Have you seen the new MM5823N chips from Flatkeys here in the UK? They're cheap as chips ;) Hope the restoration is going well, my 203a is looking rather fresh! ;)

[synthpro]

@Beetlebum1992 No, I do not had a Prodigy but if I find one, I will let you know.

Take care,
Jareth

[leesimeone]

Hi Jareth, great work! I was always against changing the L.E.D.'s in my 203a as I wanted to keep the Poly as original as I could, but after seeing them installed in yours I've changed my mind! Can you point me to the place you got your L.E.D.'s? as these are the best I've seen so far. Mine is almost there just need to fix some switching problems on the front panel.

All the best wishes,

Lee ;)

[soundmanhaven]

great work sounds so clean and sweet but sounds diffrent from the 280a?