MC-4 power switch horror

Alright, horror is a bit dramatic. Bear in mind I love my MC-4, maybe not quite to the extent that I want to be buried with it when I die, but you know.

The softly glowing power switch had gone wonky, with one side slightly pushed in. I didn’t really think anything of this until the other day when I went to switch it off and it fell in completely, and then started flipping off and on as if it was panicking…

…and then I started to panic, and lunged for the mains switch.

Then the switch fell out completely – here’s the button with the two broken bits.

Broken MC-4 power switch, showing the pivot points having snapped off

Clearly one of the plastic (not delicious) orangey bits had fallen off at some stage, so it was just a matter of time until the other one broke. The bobbley bits are the parts that the switch face pivots on, they clip into holes in the on the inside of the body of the switch:

Bosted power switch

…which is looking pretty manky after forty years or so.

I glued the pivot points back onto the switch in the hope of getting it working again, but I couldn’t balance the contacts and springs and squeeze the switch face into the body it without hearing it all coming adrift.

I didn’t fancy taking a guess at how it should go back together when 230V would be bouncing around inside, so I started looking for a new switch, more out of hope – and found this from RS for a panel cut-out of 30x22mm:

Brand new replacement power switch - shame it's not amber-colour, but can't have everything

Not the right colour, but maybe the right size?

Time to pull the old switch body out, and it was a bit of a fight. I took a photo of the markings on the side of the original in case anyone comes across a warehouse full of the things – marked T100 16A 2WI XII, and also T 65 C UND.LAB JNC LIST.

MC-4 original power switch markings

I made a note of all the connections before desoldering:

Making a note of the connections on the old bosted switch

After carefully heatshrinking the connections, and doing a bit of testing with a multimeter, it fitted in place perfectly:

Replacement switch in place - fits perfectly

Flip the switch, nothing goes bang, it glows…

New power switch glowing on in the murkiness

and success. (Still a shame about the cracked screen, nothing to be done about that really).

Switched-on and now working ok, phew

I’ll keep hold of the original amber switch in case I manage to finagle it back together.

While we’re here, let’s have a look inside. First time I’ve actually had it open, most things usually succumb to the screwdriver in the first week or so – here’s the transformer/noise filter/power supply board.

Transformer, noise filter, and power supply board

Here’s the main board, the Sharp version of the Z-80A in the middle-top, 16K of Mitsubishi-flavour memory on the left and 10K of EEPROMs including the system program on the right.

Roland MC-4 main board, including Z-80A CPU, memory, EEPROMs, and supporting circuitry

I went off into a little dream for a bit thinking, ooh actually, it seems like there’s actually 6K of memory address space free for extra code – maybe we could add some extra functionality.

Even if that’s technically possible, I realised it wouldn’t be much fun actually finding somewhere to put the extra ROMs and wiring up the additional select lines from the ROM address decoder at IC60.

And then desoldering the EEPROMs, installing sockets, reading the EEPROMs, disassembling the code, re-learning how to write Z-80 assembly (not that I was ever very good at it) and then about a billion other things.

It would be easier just to recreate it, like I’ve been talking about for the last ten years or so. Maybe this scare will spur me on.

Here’s the extra 32K of memory on the expansion board, with the connector on the right leading from the main board, and the connector on top leading to the digital cassette interface at the back.

MC-4 RAM board, including 32K of extra RAM and the digital cassette interface circuitry

This MC-4 has a serial number that works out to being built (according to the handy Roland/Boss serial number decoder site) in September 1981, and the date codes on the ICs on the main board all line up with that, but expansion board ICs are dated 1982/83, which is weird.

I would have wondered if mine was an MC-4A (with 16K of memory) later expanded to an MC-4B (with 48K and the digital cassette port) but for the fact that the serial number plate clearly says it’s a B. Maybe the extra RAM board chips were failing and another one was subbed in.

Here’s the back of the front with the lovely period wiggly lines.

Wiggly lines: MC-4 front panel circuit board from the back

Now it’s all back together and working happily.

So anyway, if you’ve got an MC-4 still in use, go easy on the power button.

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2 comments

  1. 30th November 2024michael says:

    hi, was searching google when i stumbled across your website. this isn’t meant as a comment really, rather a way to ask you if by any chance you’d know how or where i might try to obtain/ purchase the extra RAM-board for the MC-4. i’ve got an MC-4A, but miss the ability to save sequences. hope you can help me out. cheers, michael

  2. 1st December 2024ua726 says:

    You don’t need the OM-4 board to save sequences on the MC-4 – you can use the quarter-inch inputs/outputs on the back (labelled CMT/Tape Sync) to save the data to an audio recorder. Back in the day it would have been a cassette recorder, but you could use a computer or whatever now – I’ve got a small Tascam digital recorder attached to save my sequences.

    I made a video of me loading a simple sequence years back, mostly to demonstrate the squealing tones that represent the data. This’d be familiar to those of us who played games on 8-bit computers in the 80s and that had spend ten minutes or so waiting for the tape to finish loading Jet Set Willy, or whatever – it’s the same sort of system.

    In terms of loading/saving data, the digital connection from the OM-4 makes it a lot quicker, but currently you’d need a working MTR-100 digital cassette recorder to save the data from this, and they are as rare as hen’s teeth. This excellent video from ActiveInventories shows the MTR-100 in action, and it’s a lot quicker than the audio load/save. There’s a good comment thread in that video about someone getting hold of an MTR-100 (it would’ve been expensive) and then having to chase round trying to get parts to fix it.

    It’s the sort of thing that could be done entirely digitally these days – I keep meaning to get round to making some sort of Arduino thing to plug into the back of the MC-4 to save data, but I do fret about damaging it.

    In any case, I think you’ve got near enough zero chance of buying an original OM-4 RAM board for the MC-4. Probably the only way would be to buy one from a machine scrapped for parts, but now the MC-4 has appreciated in value, it seems unlikely that people would be doing this.

    If you’re really really after the extra memory, or you’ve got a working MTR-100 to hand, you could actually make a new OM-4 board, as I’d think the parts on it are mostly still available (although it might not be a great choice as a “my first circuit board” project if you’ve never done this sort of thing before). The RAM chips would have to be bought new-old stock, unless you re-designed it to use new RAM chips, which would be another fun thing to do, in a perverse sort of way.

    I’m not tempted, by the way – I’ve got enough things to do 🙂

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