I have finally decided to get a Juno 106. I was looking at the Juno 60 but went for the 106 in the end because it has native midi built in, although it does not have an arpeggiator.

I'm well pleased with it! :) What a lovely sounds, very distinctive as an 80s machine but so much inspiration at the turn of a knob. Takes me up to date as well. Some serious basses, already hurt my speakers / neighbour. And lovely for pads where the filter can be modulated in real time. Filter sounds a bit SH101. Nice.

Oh and the MIDI spec is really good. This is considering it was born at a time MIDI was quite new. All controls are outputted as syex. I'd like to see use of control change messages instead of sysex as that would be less bandwidth internsive, but hey, we can't all be that picky, I'm playing with an almost completely analogue machine without a CV convertor in sight!!

Flat battery - no presets

When I got the Juno, the presets did not work - a common problem as the internal battery holding them only lasts 5-10 years. Below is details of how I replaced mine, along with a couple of surprises along the way.

The batteries on the Junos are soldered to the motherboard and are now very rare (out of production). The model number is  BR2325. I have done a bit of research and found supplies of some CR2325s which are the
same specification but made of a different material inside. I obtained a couple of these from an Ebay seller who had ordered a batch of them for an industrial application which never came to reality.

I wanted to get a battery holder, so I didn't have to solder in a battery and the next time it runs out it would be easy to just flip out the old and in a new one! :)

For this reason I got the CR2325 without solder pins attached. I then had to find a button cell holder of 23mm width, which turned out to be quite rare! Most cells are other sizes such as the common CR2032 which is smaller (20mm).

Eventually I found a seller in the USA who was happy to ship me just the one for very low postage. And it arrived in under 8 days. I think that puts UK suppliers to shame who wanted £8+ to ship a £2 part!!! (most of them had something like a £20 minimum order too. The supplier were Microbattery - www.microbattery.com and they had many of the more rare parts in stock.

The procedure I used:

	Hinge up the top This takes 6 screws to be removed from either side. Or in the case of mine - 3 screws and some fruitless spinning of a screw driver in another 3 empty holes. Refer to here for more instructions of battery replacement.
	This is what I found inside. No battery at all! Just a bit of the old battery leg sticking out of the board! Well, its much better than finding one leaking all over the CPU board though.
	All connectors are carefully removed from the CPU board (after memorising where they all go) and two cable ties carefully cut away. As always, remember anti-static precautions. Find the four screws holding the board in and unscrew them.
	This is the track side of the CPU board. A fine tip soldering iron is used to remove the remains of the old battery and clean up the solder ready for the new one
	Put the battery holder in place. I had to slightly bend one of the pins out to exactly fit the hole. Note + and -. I then used the soldering iron to heat the hole and coax the holder into place. Extreme care!
	The board is installed back into the Juno. Carefully line up and plug in the cables to the correct sockets as before.
	Flip in a new battery, the correct way up. Switch on, save some sounds, switch off for a while and on again and admire the results of your handywork!

Refer to this site to load the original presets, or just start by saving your own :)

Now I have memories in my Juno - lovely!!

The only job now, is a general overhaul to remove the smoke smells from it - this could take a while and not be completely possible :(

I have also noticed two or three of the sliders are not bottoming correctly ie its crackly or unreliable at the lowest setting. I suspect this needs a clean with some magic fluid when I get time. If there is no hope there is an ebay seller offering a complete change of all the sliders for 50-60 quid so that's an option. Does anyone know if these are as good as the originals? Let me know!

Finally I have noticed the chorus unit is noisy ie it can be quite crackly (sounding like a loose connection) when any loudish waveforms are going through it. I'm not talking about the background noise associated with that type of effect. Again when I get to overhaul, I hope I can sort that out.

 
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