INCREDIBLE MACHINE – GET ONE IF YOU CAN
By TJC
I have this, the M7, the R7 and the HP5. All are fantastic but this is a great all in one box that is more sophisticated than the HP5 but easier to program than the M7 or R7. Sound quality is superb and the effects are spectacular (easily in line with a top Eventide or Lexicon). The M7 is a real fave of mine but the V77 gives you a lot of its presets, plus a bunch of other goodies and the ability to combine two effects at once (in addition to EQs and gate etc.).
Issues with the display are common (missing lines) but they can be easily fixed. The style of LCD in the V77 (which is different to other Sonys such as the HP5) requires that you use a soldering iron at around 300c (that’s what I had it set to on my Hakko) with a 3mm tip on the top part of the plastic ribbon running from the display pc board to the glass. Essentially what you need to do is reflow the very fine solder connections under the plastic and bind them to the connections on the display again.
The contacts in question (from memory) are on the top of the LCD unit at the rear (just before the cable folds over on to the main PC board on the back of the display). You obviously need to remove the faceplate to gain access, but this is very easy to do if you have taken apart studio gear before. Do not overheat the soldering iron and make sure you keep it moving. There is a very good video by a young guy on YouTube showing how to fix this very same problem with a Nintendo Gameboy. You need to be patient. I ran my iron over the connections continuously for around ten minutes. If you are concentrating, you should be able to feel the iron running over the traces (although they are very fine).
When I first plugged the LCD back in the five or six missing lines were still missing. Then after a few seconds the LCD kicked into action and each of the missing lines permanently disappeared and is perfect now. This is a very common problem on these types of displays from this era and can be fixed to get the V77 working like new again. It’s an incredible FX machine and deserves to live on!