Hello, new user here after trying and failing to make a vintagesynthforum account haha, anyway I recently got an ESQ1 and so far, I really like it, except for an odd problem. It works fine, except that sometimes, the display will malfunction in an odd way; it freezes on a single column (displays only 2 characters on top of each other) and the VFD’s heaters seem to be overvolting as they begin to glow very alarmingly visibly bright. I’ve caught this about a half dozen times and always shut it off within a few seconds of starting (after which it boots up and displays fine again for a short period at least). I had taken it apart and removed a couple of random stray screws that were flopping around inside, assuming that they might have been shorting out components on the PCB board, but tonight it locked up like this again and I haven’t tried turning it on since (I did power cycle it briefly to make sure the display hadn’t been killed, that’s all). I would like to resolve this issue as soon as possible as I am very worried it might cause irreparable damage to the display or other components, so does anyone know what section of the unit might cause this? It seems like physical shock or vibration can trigger this problem also
Late but may be useful for others users:
Start checking power supply and for stable voltages. More information here.