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Emulator II : Repairs
LCD Age After around 2000 hours use the LCD will need replacement, and its a good idea to replace the LCD whilst parts are still available. You can check when the LCD was manufactured by looking at the code stamped on the back of the LCD in black. The first 2 characters are the year, and the third character is the month. 84 or 85 is a typical build year. LCD Part Number The original part number is an Optrex DMC16207-AE. This is a 16x2 LCD with EL backlight. The physical size is 84x44mm and it uses a standard single row of 14 data connections. E-mu Systems no longer have any spares, and this is a good job as its expensive from them! The current part number is DMC16207N-EB and it is widely available still for under $25/£15. Try www.digikey.com. LCD Inverter The LCD backlight (the blue colour) is driven by a small inverter that generates 100VAC at 400Hz from a 5V supply. The inverter is a NEC (NEL-D32-46), and its a small black plastic box that sits below the LCD. The inverter can fail, which means no blue backlight, in which case it needs replacing.
EL Backlight Replacement An easier solution to replacing the whole LCD is to replace just the EL backlight itself. This works well if you know the characters are working okay but you just cannot read them properly. An added plus is that the black on blue lettering remains, which is easier to read. Visit www.backlights.co.uk for more details. The EL backlight is easily removed by unsoldering the two connections on the LCD and then pushing the backlight out using a credit card. The new backlight can then be slotted in and the connections soldered in place. Replacement 5.25" Floppy Drive E-mu System used a number of different drives including: Shugart SA465-3AA 5.25" The drives are DS/QD floppy disk drive, with 360kb/500kb of unformatted/formatted space. New 5.25" drives are no longer manufactured. The best replacement is a TEAC FD55GFR-7220 (in black), but these are difficult to locate as they have been out of production since 1999. Try eBay or a legacy PC component supplier. They have an operational life of 20,000 hours. You will need to set the ID to either 0 or 1 depending on whether it is drive 1 (upper) or drive 2 (lower). You will also need to set the RY strap to output a ready signal on pin 34. We have NOT tested this procedure. Hard Disk The Emulator II+ HD uses a MiniScribe 8425 MFM hard drive with a ST506 interface. There is an internal Adaptec adapter to drive the ST506 interface. The drive is a half height 3.5" drive, which holds 21 MB unformatted. The Miniscribe drive is especially designed for operation in a ruggered environment, and it has shock mounts. It can operate in any position. So in theory you can play your Emulator II upside down! E-mu Systems carefuly researched the hard drive market before chosing this model. Finding new replacement drives is not easy, and the life span of this drive is much smaller than a modern drive, at just 20,000 hours use and 5 years. Possible sources of the Miniscribe 8425 drive: Campbell Technical M Farris |
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A full set of buttons will cost around $60, and you can choose from a range of cap colours. You will need to desolder the old buttons carefully. |
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The Emulator II uses poor quality rotary potentiometers which should be replaced. |
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The power supply is getting old by now and failure is not uncommon. One of the rails
may go out of specification. Replacement PSU's are not available, so the best option is a service centre repair. |
3.5" Floppy Drive
The standard 5.25" floppy drive is better replaced with a new 3.5" floppy drive. Not only are these a lot easier to locate new, but 3.5" media is still readily available. 
Looking for replacement Slider Knobs for your EII ?
The EII uses a small momentary push button for most of the controls. After 15 years use they are beginning to wear out and even with cleaning still don't work immediately. 
The Emulator II uses a square black external fuse holder, with an internal red lid and fuse. These
were made by Littelfuse and are:
Replacement EII keyboards are not available as spares anywhere. However individual keys can be found from E-mu service centres and the rubber cones
used as the contact mechanism can be obtained as 5 key contact mats from EPR ELECTRONICS, part number 422005505 at $13.50 each.