Swap +Drive from MD MkII UW+ to MD MkII UW?

Elektron Gear Machinedrum
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Goal: upgrade an MD MkII UW with the +Drive from a donor unit MD MkII UW+.
Skill set: basic electronic tinkering (no fine desoldering and soldering)
Questions:

  • Would it be possible to cannibalize a stock UW+ (not upgraded) for the +Drive in order to use in a plain MD MkII UW?
  • If so, is a firmware update required, or will the latest firmware automatically recognize and support the +Drive?

Thanks in advance for any advice! :blush:

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Thereā€™s a thread where theyā€™ve reverse engineered the +Drive to produce some aftermarket units and I think that they may still have some for sale.

I believe that the bottom line is that with the correct hardware and firmware they can all be upgraded to a +Drive.

Iā€™ll find a link to the topic.

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Why do you want to swap them? Unless Iā€™m misreading your post youā€™d end up with the same configuration of units right?

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The donor is kind of in very less good shape.

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I believe from the description in the original post, that while theyā€™re both MKII and UW, only the ā€œdonor unitā€ contains a +Drive.

Iā€™d still avoid harvesting the original parts, if possible, unless itā€™s totally broken beyond repair or something. Even more so since thereā€™s now an alternative currently available.

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yeah that made sense but they still end up with 1 MDUW+ and 1 MDUW, but his reasoning makes sense now. Like @shigginpit is saying, I agree if you can afford an aftermarket +drive, you should get one of those to avoid taking 2 expensive machines apart, and instead just 1.

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I initially just assumed that it was an ownership thing, like how you might buy some rims off of somebody that has the same car as you, but you donā€™t necessarily want to swap cars just because theyā€™re the same vehicle (this is a pretty outdated analogy though because Iā€™m not buying any car parts these days but I think you understand what I mean).

In my opinion though, I think the latter option of the aftermarket unit will add at least the same value to the machinedrum that you put into it for the part so in the end, itā€™s kind of a wash.

Or at a minimum itā€™s money well spent.

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Thanks to your tip I am now in contact with @SyntheticJudah about buying and shipping one of their +drives. Will keep you posted :smiley:

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Btw. this thread that I found while following the links in the other thread suggested by @shigginpit is visually very interesting and answers a lot of questions prior to install and/or transplantation.

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@shigginpit @jw Thanks for your recommendations and mentions of MachineStore, guys! :pray: I really appreciate it. :orange_heart:

@Elekktrikk Regarding the installation procedure, we have excellent instructions (this Elektronauts post includes instructions for the MKII, but in our Discord we also have instructions for the MKIs MachineStore [ Global šŸŒ ]).
In addition, @waftlord made an amazing video on installing +drive in his MKI UW. By the way, donā€™t forget to check out his channel: what he does on MD is amazing. I canā€™t stop admiring his skill!

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