Technical help with my midikeyboard - spilled water in it!

[Joakim Lindén]

Hi everyone, I need help with a problem that maybe only a few people in the world can answer for me - if even that many... So, here I go:

I have an old Casio CZ-5000 which I have been using as a midi keyboard for some time now, until a few months ago when a cat I was "babysitting" for managed to push down a waterfilled glass over it's keyboard and some parts of the programming area. Very quickly I pulled out the powercable and waited for a couple of hours. When I turned on the synth later I found that something strange had happened - everything worked great except that the E - F, A# - B keys in every octave had became locked together so that when I played an E at any octave the synth thought that I played E AND F, the same situation occured with A# and B. I thought that there was some water left inside the keyboard so I screwed it apart and detached the keyboard, screwed that apart as well and began to wipe away some of the water that was left inside the keyboard. A CZ-5000 keyboard is a very mechanical device - not very hightech, just some resistors really, so I don't think that the keyboard itself has taken damage - the problem must lie somewhere inside the technology of the syntheziser itself. So today I've decided to write this and post it at some boards to see if someone has the same problem or might know what I can do to get around it.

 

So - summary:

 

I got water into my keyboard, ever since, it has been behaving strange as it allows me to play all notes as usual except E - F and A# - B which it plays together: When I press E or F it plays E AND F together, and when I press A# or B it plays A# AND B together. This goes for all octaves on my keyboard - which is why I think it's kind of a strange thing.

 

Thankful for all help or comments! (just don't tell me to buy a new midikeyboard...)

[Rod S]

Sounds like you shorted the sensors between the notes, so it doesn't note which one it's triggering, so it triggers both. Not sure what to do without looking at it. You could try to dig up a service manual for it.

[Slowly]

Wish you would not have fired it up, but anyways. Get yourself a can of DeOxit-5 and the stiffest toothbrush you can find. Open the unit up and what you should find is some waterspots on the printed circuit boards. Spray it down with the DEOxit-5 and brush vigorously until all traces of water spots are gone. Use the DeOxit-5 liberally. Its usually harmless to most plastics. Kcbass.

 

P.S. Video tape (or take notes) every step so that reassembly won`t hang you up.

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by Kcbass:

Wish you would not have fired it up, but anyways. Get yourself a can of DeOxit-5 and the stiffest toothbrush you can find. Open the unit up and what you should find is some waterspots on the printed circuit boards. Spray it down with the DEOxit-5 and brush vigorously until all traces of water spots are gone. Use the DeOxit-5 liberally. Its usually harmless to most plastics. Kcbass.

 

P.S. Video tape (or take notes) every step so that reassembly won`t hang you up.

You may also have got cat hair or other contaminants in there which got wet and are shorting something out. Its clear your problem is a short. Check for debris and vacuum any out. Especially check connectors for this problem. Detaching inspecting and reseating connectors may fix the problem. If you can detach the keyboard from the circuit boards you may be able to determine if the problem is in the keyboard or in the circuit boards with the aid of a multimeter.