Can I fix my Roland digital piano myself?

December 7, 2017 10:33 AM

Over the past couple years, certain keys on my beloved FP-3 digital piano (circa 2001) have started to have weird velocity-related behavior. For example, one always sounds at full volume no matter how hard/soft I play it; another will only sound at all if I hit it hard, etc. Anyone have experience with this sort of glitch & any idea what sort of repair task this is? If it's just a matter of disassembling & cleaning components or contacts, I could probably do that. If we're talking serious electronics repair, I might be out of my element.
posted by jeffjon to Technology (2 answers total)

My experience is only fixing computer keyboards, but the issues you describe point towards physical, rather than electrical issues. How many keys are we talking about? 3-4, or all of them? Are they all concentrated in the same area of the keyboard? I would guess a good cleaning would take care of these issues.

In any event, it would be worth taking the case off so you could see the key mechanisms and take a quick look for any bagel crumbs or sticky grape drink residue.

What you need is a good friend with a tricked-out shop that you might be seeing in the next 24 hours or so.

Edit to add: A quick Google search kind of confirms my suspicions.
posted by bondcliff at 10:38 AM on December 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I don’t know about digital pianos, but opening the case and hoovering out the cruft has improved the performance of several of my old pcs rather more than you would think. Just having a look inside, sticking to stuff you can easily put back, is probably a good idea.
posted by Segundus at 1:18 PM on December 7, 2017