Nord User Forum

So I was dealing with the known power issues and ended up replacing diodes that were so corroded to the board. After 3-4 very gentle sessions I finally got them out but the process destroyed some solder lugs and ripped a trace.

Now looking to buy the whole supply as spare and not mess with it any further. Any leads on this here in our community?

gotta say i’m heartbroken, this is one of my go to synths. Any lead/help is highly appreciated.

I think you'll need to contact Nord directly, via whichever repair channel is available in your country. Ripping a trace and destroying some solder lugs doesn't sound very gentle to me...

Also, regarding what you call "the known power issues": I don't think there are any. Most Nords are as durable and robust as any other well-manufactured high-end synthesizer (they are on the higher end of that spectrum, though no doubt certain individual units show issues with the expected random variation) and I'm not aware of any "known power issues" that might be common to any particular model, particularly not the Lead 3 which is overall a well made product for its age and technical ambition.

I did already, waiting for a reply though.

I'm referring to this particular issue:
nord-lead-rack-forum-f12/nord-lead-3-cr ... 14922.html
http://frenchboyandgirl.free.fr/BUG%20N ... ad%203.htm
https://gearspace.com/board/so-much-gea ... d-3-a.html
nord-stage-forum-f3/sudden-boot-up-boot ... 12234.html
https://electro-music.com/forum/topic-43652.html

So I am for sure not the only one experiencing it. Well everything was going according to plan working through the solutions. After channging the capacitators it also worked for about 10-15 minutes, then again started rebooting. So i went over the diodes next. Those were corroded as hell - old solder and lugs were pretty much glued together. After pushing the third one out (as gentle as possible) it lifted the a trace of the board. (Trace is on the upper side of the pcb)

Ofc it would have been smarter to let a tech do this... Fully agree that is a really great synth with and overall sturdy and well made.

Contact the Nord distributor for Austria, they should be able also to get you spare parts.

Your links are to generic power supply issues on 2 different models. I could give you a ton of links to other synths with similar issues. Power supplies in general, when they fail, fail in usually a handful of common ways. That's not a "known power issue", which would imply a commonly occurring specific defect in a specific model; it's just a failing power supply which is a generic and unspecific issue that happened, randomly to your unit as it happens, randomly, to literally anything with a power supply on the planet, at some point.

In short: this is just ordinary power supply failure; on this synth is has the same causes and probabilities as any other power supply of similar architecture (and they are bog-standard) in any device. Not a "known issue". Just a common symptom of some of the many possible power supply failure modes.

I just don't want people to get the impression that there are "known issues" with any Nord power supplies or synth models; there aren't in this sense.

At any rate, from your description, that's excessive corrosion, it is not typical. I suspect an accelerant of some kind, whether it was a liquid spill, or salt/humid air, or long term storage in condensing environment (unheated storage unit going through winter/summer cycles), etc. It is basically abuse.

When there is corrosion, special care needs to be taken to remove / reduce the corrosion on both sides of a through-hole component before attempting to remove the component. This is standard practice for rework. Lifting a trace is always a sign of a) getting the joint too hot for too long and possibly in conjunction with b) not freeing the component fully before trying to remove and/or c) removing with excessive force.

However, if you can determine where the trace originated, you can run a jumper wire to that point and to the component, replacing the trace on the board and restoring the circuit behaviour. This will get you a workaround until you can get a replacement part from your distributor/service centre.