ua726 replacer quick test

(If you want to build this, please check the note at the end…)

My attempt last year to build the Doepfer A-110 heater circuit on a small daughterboard for my 702 VCOs went up in actual smoke. It took me a while to realise I’d used a bad CAN-10 footprint for the ua726 connection, so now we have this

ua726 replacer board

Is it gonna work? Is it gonna fill my room with smoke?

ua726 replacer board on 702VCO

…and nothing is on fire! it works!

It gets vaguely hot – putting my finger on it, it seems warm – and pointing my (newly acquired, slightly shit) laser thermometer at confirms this.

It was a drag to get it in the dodgy socket I’d fashioned out of bits of a standard DIP one. Next time I’ve resolved to build some sort of temporary jig (inevitably out of blu-tack) to make it easier. Getting the legs the same length would make it rather less difficult.

While breadboarding the circuit I tested both surface mount and through hole versions of the 3046, and I’ve gone for surface-mount – partly due because it’s being readily available from the usual places, but also because the SOIC version seemed to get up to temperature more quickly. I suspect this was because the through-hole version is bigger and takes longer to heat up anyway, but also perhaps because those massive legs conduct the heat away into the breadboard, though I can’t prove that.

ua726 replacer board on 702VCO

The components are a bit of a tight fit on the board (which measures 46 x 20mm), but I had to get it small enough to avoid covering over the existing trimpots. I like Dr Korg’s attempt at this but that’s beyond me at the moment.

Bunging my makeshift frequency counter on the output showed that it took longer than I expected to get up to a stable temperature – after about four minutes, it was still slowly dropping. When I returned after wrestling my son about ten minutes later, it had stabilised – a watched pot, and so on.

I’ll write up some numbers another time, and compare it to the original 726s inside my System 100. I’m interested to see if insulating the 3046 might help.

If you’re going to be replacing a ua726 in a circuit (I’ve got an original SH-2 oscillator board which needs a couple) you might need to change a resistor on the feedback of the CV input opamp to give the scaling trim pot enough leeway to tune the oscillator. I had to alter R9 on the 702 from 50k to 68k.

Here’s the schematic – should be familiar enough from the Doepfer version.

ua726replacer schematic

If you want to build it, I can’t guarantee it’s going to fit on your board, whatever it is, but I’ve shared it on oshpark, where it’s $7.20 for three. There’s a BOM and further instructions there too.

Update: Feb 2018

I got round to testing this in a System 100 VCO clone, and it didn’t work.

Eventually I realised that the transistors are (sort-of) the other way round in the 702 – input comes into the base on pin 1, and the current comes out on pin 4, but on the System 100, the input comes into pin 2 and comes out on pin 9.

All of which wouldn’t matter but for the fact that we’re treating pin 2 as our ground for the heater board, and it’s pin 1 that is grounded on the System 100 (and 100M, and SH-1 and -2, and probably most other Roland synths from that time).

It’s possible to cut the tracks that lead from pin 2 to the ground, and wire up pin 1 to ground – I’ve got my System 100 VCO up and running like this – but it’s a faff. I’ll do another couple of versions of this board soon.

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30 comments

  1. 21st December 2016Bob Missingham says:

    Thank you for making this available. Will now have to pull my finger out and build the 700 vco, and the Formant vcos that I have been musing over for the past 3 or 4 decades! A long pop etching session is foreseen. Any chance of sharing further files? (He asked hopefully)
    Cheers,
    Bob.

  2. 12th February 2017kev says:

    has this been tested and working?

  3. 12th February 2017ua726 says:

    It works, but I don’t have any numbers to compare it to an original ua726 at the moment. I did start doing it but it took a long time and was interrupted.

    To my ears my (original) System 100 sounds stable, but I found that it quickly rose to a pitch then drifted slowly downwards, presumably as the heat builds up inside the box, measuring 1Hz down over thirty minutes.

    Just to reiterate the point in the post that it might not be a drop-in replacement – you may need to adjust supporting resistors in the CV amp to get the 1V/oct range you need.

    Someone at Muffwiggler is working on a THAT300-based version which might be closer to the original but a lot more expensive than the 3046 used here.

  4. 18th May 2017Karl says:

    Howdy,

    Where does this connect to ground? I’m going to replace a busted 726 on a Teisco SX-400 and pin 6 of the 726 goes to ground, but on this PCB, pin 6 is not connected.

    Here’s the schematic for the circuit I’m replacing the 726 in: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/geekslutz-forum/657149d1493633483-synth-vco-troubles-what-voltages-should-i-getting-sx400-vco.pdf

    Thanks! And good work!

  5. 18th May 2017ua726 says:

    On the original ua726, pin 6 is the temperature adjust pin, but we’re setting the temperature through the trimmer, so it doesn’t matter about pin 6.

    (ua726 datasheet – http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets/105/303692_DS.pdf)

    There might be a clever way of changing it so the transistor heater temperature can be set from the external resistor (so we could ditch the trimpot) but I leave that as an exercise for the reader 🙂

    It might be worth you setting the trim pot half-way (measure with a multimeter) before you start, that way it shouldn’t be at too extreme a temperature to begin with.

    good luck! (are you sure the 726 is busted?)

  6. 18th May 2017Karl says:

    Hi,

    Aha, I see. So there’s no ground for this daughter board? Floating ground only?

    I’m not completely sure, but by process of elimination it seems that the 726 is at fault. Its 1st transistor doesn’t seem to be producing enough gain to pull down the collector. I’ve measured all the stuff surrounding it in the circuit and unfortunately it’s the only thing acting anomalously. Which is a bummer!

  7. 18th May 2017Karl says:

    Have you ever tried replacing a 726 with an LM394, direct drop in? Seems like it should work.

  8. 18th May 2017ua726 says:

    Haven’t got the schematic in front of me at this second but that’ll tell you if there’s no ground – guess it’s just +V and -V then.

    I’ve tried with a pair of transistors (http://ua726.co.uk/2014/11/25/diy-roland-system-100-vco/) sorta-kinda-matched, legs akimbo across the socket, and that worked OK as a test but it drifted all over the place as the temperature changed. LM394 is the same thing, just matched better.

    Someone made a Eurorack version of the 100m VCO without a heater but people found it drifted, so they retrofitted a heated version similar to this.

    This setup with the heater takes some time to warm-up, ymmv. (“how long?” “it depends”)

  9. 18th May 2017Karl says:

    Ah, I see.

    I like this little daughter board. I’m going to get some and give it a try. Fair dues on making it and making it available to the community.

    As for warm up time. It doesn’t really matter. As long as it’s stable!

  10. 30th June 2017Karl says:

    Hi!

    Just wanted to let you know that I replaced a failed uA726 with your board and it works a treat! So thanks for designing them!

    I have the same issue you had with the KCV trimmer not having enough leeway. I’m just wondering if you could take a quick look at this schematic. I’m not sure which resistor I should look at changing out: https://static.gearslutz.com/board/imgext.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Foi65.tinypic.com%2F6fayoh.jpg&h=fe1feef026ec71e48212c7e0293ec0f4

    Obviously, it’s not a Roland 201 module. Before this node there is no resistor, i.e., there’s no resistor before the KCV input.

    Thanks again for designing the board.

  11. 1st July 2017ua726 says:

    excellent! Glad it works.

    I’m presuming that you’re struggling to adjust it to track 1V/oct? I think that IC25 2/2 on your mystery schematic (looks datasheet style? something Japanese given those transistors?) does the same job as IC1B on the 702, with R9/VR10 on the 702 doing the same job as the feedback resistor marked as 17.82K (seems very specific…).

    I reckon you’ll need vary this resistor to give you enough of a window to tune it to 1v/oct – and tentatively I’d say you’ll need to increase it. Bunging a trimpot in series with it will help. Ideally you’ll want a big enough pot/resistor combination to cover the possible range of tuning, but not so big that that a tiny tweak sends it wildly out.

  12. 1st July 2017Karl says:

    Well spotted! It is a Japanese synth – a Teisco Sx400.

    Actually that 17.82k resistor is wrong. I redrew the original schematic because it’s hand drawn and near impossible to read. For my own sanity, really. I realised that it’s a regular old 82k resistor, and what I thought read 17. is actually 1%!

    And yes, it’s the 1V per octave tracking that’s the issue.

    By looking at the 702 schem, it does indeed seem like IC25 does the same job, minus the trimpot. I have the circuit connected to a breadboard and have tried different values for that 82k resistor. No joy yet, but I will try replacing it with a multi-turn trimpot (or adding one in series) and see if I can’t dial it in. A higher value does look like the way to go – a lower value resistor reduced the resolution of the KCV and Tuning trimmers.

    I thought about replacing the KCV adjust trimpot with a higher value instead to give it more range too, but changing the feedback resistor value might be better. I’m not sure. Adjusting the feedback resistor mostly affects the tuning trimmer’s resolution and has less effect on the KCV trimmer. Everything affects everything else so it’s a delicate balancing act!

    I’ll report back for posterity!

  13. 1st July 2017Karl says:

    Success! 75k is what’s needed.

    Now the Tuning Adjust trimpot doesn’t have enough range, but I’ll try substituting the 150k resistor (directly after it ) for something else.

    Nice! Great little board! I’m going to swap out the other working uA726s with this board too.

  14. 1st July 2017Karl says:

    150k resistor after the tuning trimmer becomes 68k and we have total success with rock solid tuning and perfect scaling across the full range of the keyboard! Excellent!

  15. 2nd July 2017ua726 says:

    Nice! I should get around to getting my SH-2 VCO board up and running, it’s been in the queue for long enough.

  16. 13th May 2023pufffin says:

    did you ever get this running on the SH 2?
    just got a hold of a couple of 4038s and am thinking of getting your board
    (edit: sorry 3046s)

  17. 15th May 2023ua726 says:

    Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, the weekend is always frantic.

    I did manage to get a board working, but it’s not pretty.

    I’d warn that I only have an SH-2 VCO board, not the actual rest of the synth. The way that the the ua726 replacer board falls I think means that it’ll foul on the output jacks:

    ua726 replacer board on an SH-2 VCO board

    Also this version has the pins re-arranged as a DIP outline, mostly because I found the CAN-8 outline too annoying to recreate on my System 100 clone – I needed to bend the pins to get them to line up with the original ua726 outline on the SH-2 board.

    Here’s the link to the Gerber files anyway, ready to send off to JLCPCB, where it’ll cost £1.62 for 5 at their cheapest settings (plus postage).

    ua726 replacer rev D (for System 100, 100M, others)

  18. 17th May 2023pufffin says:

    thankS!
    i7ll order the boards and try and get it working in my sh 5

  19. 17th May 2023ua726 says:

    Haven’t tried it in my SH-5 (got the original ua726s working ok in there) but I think it’ll work.

    Interested to know if you’ve got dead ua726s in your SH-5, fingers crossed they seem to be fairly reliable.

  20. 18th May 2023pufffin2001 says:

    haven’t confirmed 100% yet but i think the 726 in my vco 1 board is gone. it looks great from the outside though. i am going down a huge rabbit hole trying to resurrect this SH 5. i only have the pcb boards
    as the externals have been totally destroyed by rust and rot. so far i have got the +/- 10V, S/H vco 2 boards working. all the 945’s have been replaced with 1815’s. scratching my head as how to maneuver
    this, i only have guitar pedal building experience in electronics! wish me luck!

  21. 17th September 2024motc says:

    Thanks so much for doing all this. Could I ask you to kindly draw up one more revision? It would be a conglomerate of your original as shared on oshpark and the Rev D you posted here. I’m looking for the circular 726 footprint but with the assumption that pin 1 is tied to ground in the host circuit instead of pin 2. It’s straight out of the SH-5 schematic, which is the unit I’m wanting to repair. I’d send that to manufacturing in a hurry. Cheers!

  22. 20th September 2024ua726 says:

    Hah, re-reading my comment “I’ll do another couple of versions of the board soon” – whups, time passes.

    It’s a good idea – I’ll see if I can knock one up, not promising any timescales tho.

  23. 20th September 2024motc says:

    Terrific, thanks kindly. Look forward to it as your time permits. One thing I’ll take the liberty of mentioning as a potential request – the total footprint of the board is about 3x the footprint of the 726. On the SH-5 with the way the 726 pins are oriented, the board would stick out on top of one of the trimmers (VR302 for oscillator ‘width’, or scaling). I’m not clear how I would handle installation of the board on the SH-5 to avoid this issue, perhaps using especially long pins to raise it above the trimmer. If you were tweaking the board specifically for the SH-5, perhaps a 90- or 180-degree rotation of the 726 pins would come in very handy. Just a thought – but anything you come up with would be most helpful.

  24. 3rd October 2024ua726 says:

    Alright finally, hope this does the trick:

    ua726 replacer, CAN10 format, ground = pin 1 for SH-5

    I’ve not built this one up, but it’s otherwise the same as the other versions. I’ve rotated the CAN-10 outline a bit, I’m hoping it sit OK on the VCO board(s).

    Let us know if it works.

  25. 5th October 2024motc says:

    Thanks so much for the redesign. I compared it against the prior revisions and indeed it looks like it would do the job. The SH-5 I was repairing was fitted with an actual and very expensive 726 purchased by the owner and it’s working well. I have no doubt someone else will benefit from your effort, maybe even I in the future if I come across another SH-5.

  26. 10th February 2025masahii says:

    Thank you for your valuable research information. I watched it with great interest.
    Just to confirm, is it correct to think that revF (for SH-5) can also be applied to the SH-2 and System100 configurations where pin 1 is grounded?
    Also, are there any plans to sell this revF board at OSHPark?

  27. 10th February 2025ua726 says:

    …is it correct to think that revF (for SH-5) can also be applied to the SH-2 and System100 configurations where pin 1 is grounded

    It should be fine electrically, but I couldn’t say for sure whether it would work physically – it might cover some trim pots, or perhaps foul something else in the synth. I’ve never actually tested the CAN-10 version in an original 70s circuit board, so I can’t say how well the CAN-10 pinout matches the original.

    Actually it might be alright for the SH-2, at least – here’s a mockup of the board with the rev-f ua726replacers in place:

    Mockup of SH-2 circuitboard with ua726replacer rev-f superimposed

    (edit: updated image)

    No plans to sell these through OSHPark or anywhere else – just upload the Gerbers to your favourite PCB manufacturer.

    If you do get it working in an original, do let us know, it’d be lovely to know that they’re getting some use 🙂

  28. 11th February 2025masahii says:

    Thank you for your quick response.
    Thank you very much for your kind layout.
    I arranged the board myself.
    Once completed, I will report the results here.

  29. 20th February 2025masahii says:

    I am reporting the results of my previous comment.
    I arranged the revF board from a reasonable price vendor in China and successfully repaired the SH-2.
    The two capacitors interfered with the board, so I remounted the capacitors on the back of the board.
    Its function as a musical instrument is also stable. I’m very satisfied.
    I would like to thank you very much for the valuable information and kind support on your website.

  30. 21st February 2025ua726 says:

    Excellent news! thanks for coming back to let us know

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