Hi Everyone,
I’m repairing a Roland Jd 800 which suffer about epoxy. The Flex Pcb have some glue on it and i’m trying to remove it but i don’t know how, this pcb is too fragile. If Someone have an idea that’ll be great !
Thank you.
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I use a lye solution to dissolve the red key epoxy, but that may damage the flex PCB. Maybe test in a small area first?
We remove this red glue (typically from keys) by letting them sit in the sunlight - usually for a week or so. This makes the red glue become runny and thinner. Then we soak the keys in Awesome, a cleaning solution. It’s a long messy process, and I don’t think the Awesome would damage the flex board - but we haven’t tried cleaning one of these, so please don’t take this as the gospel!
Be very very careful with the printed contact sheet. They damage very easily around the join. Don’t flex that end of it around too much or they become detached and then you’re stuffed (apart from hacking a U220 or D10 contact sheet into it like I did).
Does the D10 have the same red glue issue? If not is it a plug and play keybed that will fit right in?
Thanks!
The keys are the same, except they’re not weighted. The contact strip is electrically compatible but the actual connection on the end are in a different format.
I messed up, it’s the D5 not the D10. Link here
I see, Ya so not a plug and play. Looks like there are only a few, like the u20. But I image they all have the red glue problem. I just fried the ribbon connection. So Im trying to figure that out. I might just go midi in and forget about it. It’s such a pain after all I put into the keys. Dissappointing to not be gentle enough and jack up the connector.
I broke mine doing the red glue repair. It wasn’t massively bad, but tried to catch it early. Unfortunately I not only managed to ruin the contact strip connection but also the rubber contacts. I bought some new rubber contacts, used a D5 contact strip and a lot of soldered wires and it now works but in the end I got a J990 and my JD800 is “resting” for now.
I did design a 3D printable contact block to clamp down over the contact strip connection and make contact but I couldn’t get it to work reliably. But here’s a link if you want to check it out.
Yes Ive been looking at the D5 and for a U20 for that contact strip. Do we know of any other models that had that keybed? Very cool on the contact clamp. Im also considering this video I found about using Silverglue. But Im most afraid that im a little too shaky or my hands are too big to do such a small precise job. Im actually gonna call roland today and let them be rude to me about it. Ill let u know how that goes
None that I know of. I expect it would be possible to convert the signals from some other keybed if you were good with electronics.
They apparently did have some spares keybeds once, not sure if they still do.
Ya Im not holding my breath. But I will keep u up to date on this. Thanks for replying to my message.
I joined a facebook group dedicated to the JD800. I saw a post asking about the keybed situation. And someone mentioned that these keybeds D50, U20, D5, D10, D20 would all fit. Now I realize some are unweighted and some have a different keymounting system all together. But is this legit? I have a lead on a really affordable d 10. If its a matter of replacing the keybed even thought its not semi weighted. I would do it. I realize you have to retro fit the ribbon connector to the PCB. But any thoughts on this? Thanks!
I can only comment on what worked for me. The problem is the connector the contact strip plugs into is in different places on each synth. On the JD800 it connects to a small PCB under the keybed and that then connects to a wire cable to one of the PCBs. On others the contact strip plugs straight into a connector on the mainboard. Some are right angled, some are not. Varying lengths too.
Hey Sam, Long time YouTube subscriber, love your channel and the journey you and your team have taken me on from day one!
I am a new Forum member as of today though…
I have a Roland VK-7 Organ that I had stored in my basement studio for 15 years where it is always relatively cool year round. Never had issues with red glue during the time it was down there…
I had to move it to a back bedroom on the first floor when the 15 years idle basement studio was taken apart and obsolete huge pieces of gear were sold off.
That bedroom was not a hotbox during the summers, but it was not as cool as the basement.
Found out that the VK-7 appears to have the pink/red glue problem…
There aren’t any keys stuck together yet, but there are a couple of small mounds of the glue in two places on the rail beneath the tips of the keys. None of the weights have fallen out yet.
I am not sure of the layout of the circuit boards, so I don’t know if i am already in imminent danger of stuff having dripped onto the organ’s vital… um organs?? lol…
I powered it up about 6 months ago and it was still booting and the display worked and the buttons all seemed to. But I have not tested it with it’s main outputs connected to a mixer, nor even with headphones in a while…
My main question is:
Have you evolved any changes to the way you approach removing the red glue?
I am on Long Island in New York, it is winter here, and putting them in the sunlight is a bit of a non-starter right about now…
I am relatively good at taking stuff apart carefully and putting it back together, (did some service on my Kurzweil PC-88mx to get a jumpy mod wheel De-oxit-ed and the 2032 battery replaced, but not sure how tightly packed the innards of the VK-7 are…
I am only able to address this stuff now, as I just renovated a bedroom to use as a dedicated music / room studio space, and I am cleaning up and repairing all the gear as I go that I have not had the space to deploy before… The VK-7 is something I have been dreading dealing with.
Thanks in advance! Hope you are well!
Chris.
If you have only seen a couple of glue droplets, then things may not be too bad yet…
If you store the keyboard flat and face down, that will keep any drippy glue inside the keys. Then you can tackle the project on a sunny spring day. And this glue won’t be a problem with any electronics, it just gunks up the works with the keybed. So even under the worst-case scenario, your VK-7 can be played via MIDI.
We haven’t found any better way to deal with this - it’s a tedious nuisance no matter what!
Thanks for the reply!
I guess I will be waiting for the sun here in NY… I just need to worry about the keys maybe getting rained on or something… I suppose I could maybe put em all in a translucent storage bin while they sit out in the sun for a week.
And I will look up that awesome stuff you mentioned for soaking em.
@Sam I have been reading up on the Red Glue issue and LA’s Awesome cleaner, and I have heard people say that submerging the keys in that solution works almost as well as Lye solution on it’s own, without the need for days of heat beforehand.
I believe I am inclined to test the theory perhaps with one key as a starting point.
Another commenter mentioned putting the keys in a clear container with Awesome IN THE SUN from the get-go which they say sped up the process considerably over just the Awesome itself.
Either way, this is a job for a spring day… Thanks again!