I have been recently replacing a battery in OT MK I and I took some photos of the internals. Not the finest quality but someone may find them useful. I will take better ones when I finish display upgrade.
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Thanks! OT is not sexier naked with close ups. 
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wondering what this trimpot above the P101 marking does! Cut and replace with a big pot 
Noise amount. Or was that on the 606?
No, it’s actually just the LCD contrast.
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oh okay thx so no circuitbending hehe
Trimpot adjusts Spotify ranking.
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theories ? … what is this, seems truncated and somehow odd !
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Okay - I can follow the fun of putting these on the A4
but what’s with the grammar/reference - or is the boo(nintendo) angle a bit of speculative fun’n’games
genuinely curious
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curious enough to Google it - so it ain’t truncated
still none the wiser why it’s on an 
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“messing with heads since way back”
ain’t never seen one of those pesky Easter Eggs neither 
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I love these strange hidden nuggets of mystery… 
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in the encoder repair video, why does he use every tool he owns to painstakenly tear the encoder apart while it’s mounted to the board, then de-solder it anyway? just de-solder it to begin with, remove the old one, replace it with the new one. unless I’m missing some reason why you can’t…
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looks like the A4 has a metal plate inside of it to secure the encoders (see below). the OT torn down here doesn’t have that but in the comments for the encoder replacement video, someone says their MKI OT does. @Ess can you share with us what serial numbers of OT’s have this, and which of the other machines do?
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What you are missing is that after breaking the enc into pieces it is possible to cut enc’s base into parts and desolder pins separately without straining the PCB. It is possible to desolder pot/enc without damaging the component but it increases the risk of damaging the PCB during the process.
To be fair, PCBs used in old Elektrons are pretty much of “military grade” quality. In recent years manufacturers are cutting corners and use “low end” boards.
The best example of what I am saying is Korg Volca series.
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ah, OK. I’d be more afraid of damaging something by breaking the encoder in place (using what appear to be bolt cutters at one point!) than of using a solder sucker to get all the solder off from the backside, and just pulling the encoder out.
admittedly I have limited experience with this sort of thing though.
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I can assure you that you would deeply regret your choice in a real life situation.
The bottom line if an encoder/pot does not work it does not have any technical value. If breaking it allows safer desoldering and speeds up the process I can’t see any reason why not doing so.
When I repair various devices, I usually use low-temperature alloys to dismantle components.
For example Rose alloy. This allows not to overheat the PCB. However, these alloys require careful removal after dismantling.
