An E key on my SL88 works once or twice after powering on then quits. I opened it up and a tiny surface mount capacitor fell out. Seems likely that each key has a small capacitor to maintain a charge for when the key is activated. Without it, there’s not enough charge after one or two key strikes so it quits working. That’s my theory…
I’ve been searching for instructions on disassembling the keyboard to the point that I can get to the key capacitors but can’t find anyone that’s taken it down that far.
Two things: does my theory sound right, and where can I get the information needed to get to the capacitor and assess how to repair it?
It doesn’t seem like they publish the service manual unfortunately so you’re just going to have to poke around. Get yourself some $20 led magnifying glasses/loupes, so you can see things up close.
I’ve never seen a SL keybed up close so have no idea whether they have caps on them. But soldered components aren’t supposed to just fall off. Does the cap look like it was ever soldered on? It might have fallen in during assembly. Most often intermittent keys are due to corrosion or fluff on the contact. Sometimes the contact needs a tiny tweak to make reliable contact. Once you have it out you can compare its behavior to a neighboring key using a multimeter.
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