Ensoniq VFX circuit issue?

A few months ago, I decided to try to replace the fixed battery inside my Ensoniq VFX with a battery holder to make future replacements much easier. Normally, I’m OK with DIY soldering de-soldering, but I was struggling a bit to get the battery out with the braided desoldering tape and might have damaged a printed circuit path right near the battery leads because when I soldered in the new holder and put in a verified battery, my VFX came up all scrambled on its display and doesn’t play any sound.

Are there qualified repair shops out there that could address something like this, perhaps by finding the damaged circuit path and jumpering it, or shall I consider my board gone for good? I am in the NYC/New England area.

Thanks,
Steve

Steve, did you reinitialize the VFX after replacing the battery? You need to do that to reset the ‘Low Battery’ message, and hopefully it will unscramble everything at the same time.

Press the Presets button, and while holding it down, press the first (upper left) soft button on the display. The display will hopefully then read ERASE ALL MEMORY AND REINITIALIZE? Press the button for YES (I think it’s the lower right soft button - press it even if everything is still scrambled).

Hopefully this will bring you back to life. If not, try removing and replacing the two EPROM chips that contain the operating system (the two socketed chips on the main board with paper labels).

Good luck!

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