How to: Battery replacement on Yamaha SPX 90

finboy · Post by **finboy** » Fri Nov 28, 2014 9:23 pm

As some of you are aware, I got a great deal on an SPX 90 with a dead battery. The battery on these units controls the memory for the presets, they can be found quite cheaply and are actually not that uncommon. Unfortunately they are Soldered directly to the circuit board, I thought I would take this chance to take some pictures of how I replaced mine, and go through some of the steps you need to be aware of. Pictures will be an ongoing aspect of this post, I'm posting from my iPhone so it is kind of hard to post pictures and switch back to this thread without resetting the message.

Step 1: remove the seven bolts that hold on the top shroud

Step 2: remove the 5 screws (one is shorter than the other 4, it attaches to an Internal bracket) and 3 nuts that hold the circuit board and input/outputs to the chasis

Step 3: remove the 3 chasis mounting screws on the side of the circuit board, and the one bracket screw at the back. To remove the bracket, you will need to slide it into the chasis then pull it up to clear the board.

Hidden bracket screw

Hardware count:

Step 4: locate the battery, it's pretty plain to see, and is marked for positive terminal location. Now is a good time to write down the battery orientation (the side with the writing is positive, the other is negative).

Step 5: carefully remove the old battery with a soldering iron, I went about 600 degrees F. Make sure the holes are clear of solder for the new battery.

Step 6: Using needle nosed pliers, position the new battery terminals to line up with the holes in the circuit board.

Step 7: solder in the new battery, and plug the unit in (make sure power is set to the off position). The unit will still say "low battery" so you will have to power down and reset the unit using this guide.

http://faq.yamaha.com/us/en/article/liv ... 90-spx90ii

Step 8: If the message is gone, you are good to go, just button everything back up.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Fri Nov 28, 2014 9:54 pm

Why didn't you solder in a battery holder? That way you don't have to do this every time the battery dies. It's a common mod for old synths etc that have this sort of battery config.

finboy · Post by **finboy** » Fri Nov 28, 2014 11:05 pm

I looked at it, a lot of it involved drilling holes in the chasis, running wires, etc. the battery was $2 and I figure for the amount I use it, it's worth trying this out first.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:32 am

Fair enough.

stewart · Post by **stewart** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:27 pm

finboy wrote:I looked at it, a lot of it involved drilling holes in the chasis, running wires, etc. the battery was $2 and I figure for the amount I use it, it's worth trying this out first.

why would you have to drill holes in the chassis? you're just soldering one of these holders onto the terminals, then you can change the battery whenever it runs out with no fuss.

finboy · Post by **finboy** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:32 pm

stewart wrote:
finboy wrote:I looked at it, a lot of it involved drilling holes in the chasis, running wires, etc. the battery was $2 and I figure for the amount I use it, it's worth trying this out first.
why would you have to drill holes in the chassis? you're just soldering one of these holders onto the terminals, then you can change the battery whenever it runs out with no fuss.

Cool, will keep that in mind for next time, the method I found mounted two triple a's to the back of the unit

stewart · Post by **stewart** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 3:28 pm

ah, right. that seems a bit extreme!

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:32 pm

Yeah thats the ones I was thinking of. I installed one in an old synth.

finboy wrote:Cool, will keep that in mind for next time, the method I found mounted two triple a's to the back of the unit

That sounds like some super low rent mod. I thought it was just a space/clearance issue you were having so the little holder wouldn't fit. I shouldn't have gone all Mezz and hid the facts.

finboy · Post by **finboy** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 11:58 pm

Cray cray...

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Sun Nov 30, 2014 5:03 am

The nature of lithium ion batteries means you won't have to replace them for years, so I feel it would be better just to solder in a new one. This is pretty much the same thing as replacing a CMOS batt for a computer, it's not really gonna need changing for a while.

71Smallbox · Post by **71Smallbox** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 8:39 pm

are you making the Sheilds sounds now? I think its patch 47?

finboy · Post by **finboy** » Mon Dec 01, 2014 9:44 pm

Wish I had a chance to try it out, packing up gear to move to the new place at the end of the month, I might try to figure out if I can use lemur to tweak these rack effects, the stock screen is a fucking pain.