Piano tech help? Repairing a street-find Kawai CN23R

  • Thread starter Thread starter shmaller
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S

shmaller

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Hey all,

I just got a Kawai CN23R for free. Here's the catch: some of the keys don't work. "Don't work" means:

1. Some keys hold sustain even when the sustain pedal is not depressed.
2. Some keys have maybe a 25% chance of playing a note when they are pressed.
3. The problem seems to be isolated to certain keys - other keys seem to always work.

The first thing I did was take the back off, but other than removing the Australian nickel rattling around in there, wiring-wise everything looks OK at first inspection... The action is a mechanical hammer striking a cushioned area, under which I assume is a sensor for each hammer. I've attached a photo - the keys are at the top. I see that there seem to be sections of about 10 keys grouped together under a plastic housing, so I'm wondering if the issue might be localized to certain groups of keys that share a sensor or wiring or something?

But I'm no piano tech and not even much of a keyboardist, so I don't know what the hell I'm doing in here lol. Does anyone have experience repairing digital pianos? Or can point me in the general direction of what might need to be replaced here?

I could always take it to a piano shop but that would take the price of this thing above "free", and I will do just about anything in my power to avoid that lol.

Thanks in advance,
s
 

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Gonna get the first reply on my own thread and say that I'm going to see what comes of this walkthrough:


But any advice, commentary, anecdotes, fish tales appreciated!
s
 
You done good shmaller.
That's pretty standard for many keyboards.
I found the carbon contacts leave their own smudge on the pcb after time, degrading the connectivity.
I used a drop of washing up liquid in water, to lightly wash everything.
You could also remove all of the keys, and give those a good bath too.
 
Small bit of advice. Just a tiny contribution…
Clean all contacts that the wiring plugs into also.
Often times stuff isn’t broken, just dirty and corroded. De-Oxid is your friend.
 
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