Piano Lessons

Well over a year ago, our little Casio keyboard started acting funny.  The volume knob simply stopped working.  It was loud enough that we could still play; so we just dealt with it.  But then it started to get quieter.  Eventually, I had to plug in some external speakers that we could crank up to be able to hear the keyboard.  Then we couldn't hear it at all.

So, I opened it up and tried to figure out what was wrong.  I know quite a bit about computer programming, but not much about electronics.  Still there was a little piece that seemed to be the culprit: Casio Board 404-CNB4, the volume knob assembly.  These are hard to find on eBay.  It seems that PacParts is the only place to get Casio pieces from?  Maybe not, but I placed the order.  

In the mean time, I hooked a midi cable from the keyboard to our laptop and sent the audio to the external speakers.  Unfortunately, this tended to introduce a tenth of a second or more of delay between pushing a key and hearing the note.  It made playing fast sequences of notes incredibly difficult.

Six months after I placed the order, our part finally arrived.  I'm glad it came, but it could have been a bit more speedy.  I don't think it's necessarily PacParts' fault.  It seems that Casio dragged their heels in sending it.  It came with a couple extra pieces.  Now I have some backups in case those buttons fail too.

It seems that the keyboard is designed to be difficult to open.  To get at the electronics, one must first remove about a hundred screws from the back. 

Several of the screws are under the mechanism.  I do love having weighted keys though.

Finally, we've got the top off.

This little board on the left has a knob connected to a variable resistor that controls how much sound gets through to the speakers.  Ours was set permanently to zero.  The new one has more options.

Replacing it just involved unplugging the old piece and plugging in the other.

A hundred screws later (putting them back is harder than getting them out), our keyboard works again and we don't have to worry about damaging the kids' sense of rhythm anymore.