what is this component that i smoked?!

gravityandwhold · Joined: Nov 28, 2007 Posts: 1 Location: trinidad

hey whats up?
Well Im new to circuit bending
So far, Ive been fiddling around with a yamaha pss30..nothin interesting from that (anyone tried this?)

but anyways, so I bought this cheap cheap toy guitar and thought itd be perfect for bending lots of sounds, bla bla..
so there i was poking around, when bam..smoke! so I saw what was smoking, it was this black solid of something just there on the circuit board. anyone can tell me what this might be? It seemed to be a central point of the circuit, cuz I didnot see any processor chips or anything of the sort. and well now it totally doesnt work Sad

so yea anyone know what that component might be?

Thanks!

Uncle Krunkus · Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:44 am Post subject:

I'm afraid to say that component is the reason you got the toy in the first place. It's the IC which actually does what you were trying to bend. The only advice I can give is,...... go buy a new one and start again.
Whenever you're poking around in something like that, don't make a dead short anywhere. Use a 1K resistor at least. If that doesn't give you any joy, try shorting points with a cap (100nF should do), this way you won't fry stuff because of DC current.

salamanderanagram · Joined: Apr 08, 2007 Posts: 20 Location: VT

here's a quick writeup i did on the pss-30 from memory on another forum, it may have some errors but i'm pretty sure it's correct -

there's two ICs, for the purpose of this post use the one with 8 legs. take off the cover and position the keyboard such that the long row of resistors is to the left of the IC (i soldered onto the "wrong" side of the circuit board on this keyboard, so don't bother flipping it over). connect the far right pin on the upper side of the IC to the two resistors closest to the IC. one will require a 5k potentiometer and the other should be hooked up to a rotary switch with a bunch of different values of capacitors in between (i suggest non-polarized types up to 1UF but try as many as you can. if using polarized ones, make sure you have + and - going the right way!)

i don't have the keyboard with me right now so these may be slightly off but it is to the best of my recollection. if it doesn't work let me know and i'll take another look. on the larger IC there's a bend that allows you to almost kill the drums too, i think the 1 and 3 pins starting from the upper left... kinda useless bend tho.

v-un-v · Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:44 pm Post subject:

Yes, the component that usually 'smokes' is the IC- usually recognised as being like a little black, rounded dot (on toys that is). When bending these, it's a good idea to check to see if they are getting hot. If they are stop straight away and find another point to bend- otherwise, the only place that will do for the toy, is the bin.

I hope that helps Smile

Blacklight · Joined: Aug 04, 2006 Posts: 23 Location: Connecticut

Just to add... If you DO blow up a toy, don't just toss it. What I do is pull the board, switches, and anything else I can get out of the thing and toss it into my "Scrap" collection. You can use that board for snipping off spare parts or just hook up other projects through sections of the board to see what you get. I have a large collection of spare circuit boards that I keep in my scrap pile for that purpose. I've actually gotten some interesting things from making bends through multiple circuit boards so even a "dead" toy can become a "useful" toy.