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Yamaha SY85 Synthesiser
Repair and Refurbishment
Project
A 6 part series of videos showing the work undertaken to repair and refurbish my Yamaha SY85.
I had been after a Yamaha SY85 for a number of years and shortly after my move to the south coast of the UK a Yamaha SY85, described as fully working and in very good condition was offered to me. So of course the deal was done, money exchanged hands and the synthesiser arrived about a week later.
The synthesiser was packaged in an aluminium flight case with zip ties through the locks to ensure it wasn't opened in transit. All good so far.
When I opened the flight case I found the Yamaha SY85 in very good condition pretty much as described with the exception that the on/off switch accessed from the rear of the synthesiser had been jammed into the case, meaning when powered up the synthesiser was permanently on. So some would say you could live with that, but it does have the ability to transmit power spikes from a wall socket straight to the synthesiser when you connect the two. Good job the bench power supply is suppressed.
The next issue followed a few minutes later after powering up the synthesiser. I popped in a floppy disk in the drive hit load and a high pitched noise was heard but the sounds did not load with the Yamaha SY85 reporting an error. This is actually a fairly common error on these Yamaha synthesisers of this age. The disk drive that was fitted used a belt to connect the motor to the assemble that rotates the disk. With age the belt stretches, or just disintegrates.
So that was two issues that needed to be fixed from this Yamaha SY85 described as fully working!
Time to get the screw drivers out.... Watch the videos to see what else was found when I got inside the case.
After I had made an assessment of all the issues with this fully working synthesiser, that clearly had issues. Given you could not use the disk drive it was not classed by me as fully working, I went back to the seller, and that is where the story turns a little ugly.
In short I asked the seller to refund me the cost of the parts to bring the Yamaha SY85 back to fully operational as claimed when I agreed to purchase it. (Basically I would cover the labour to install the spares and fix the synthesiser.) He basically refused. So I said refund me the whole price and you can have the synthesiser back. He didn't want to do that either. Stalemate!
At this point you have to state the facts, the Yamaha SY85 sold as fully working, was not and I have the video evidence. Shall we start the UK small claims procedure! An hour after sending that e-mail I received a PayPal ping to say that the seller had refunded me the cost of the spares as requested. In my opinion the right outcome and what a reputable seller should have done in the first place.
So following this refurbishment process I now have a fully functional Yamaha SY85.
