Korg Forums

[mwilli9]

How bad did I mess up?

I had about half a dozen keys either not working or only working when pressed hard, so I opened up my Microkorg. Typical precautions taken. Careful unplugging the two connectors, cleaned daughter board and contact strips with contact cleaner.

The board and strips were patted dry with paper towel and air dried for well over an hour. Reassembled. Power still works, buttons still work, just no response from the keyboard at all now. My concern is there is still some contact cleaner in some of the crevices (I did give it a good spray, both sides) OR that I somehow FUBAR'ed the daughter board OR that the ribbon connector(s) broke when I was in there. The contact strips are flimsy and weren't fitting into the holes well, but it wouldn't explain why none of the keys are getting a response.

Has anybody ever done this to themselves?

Cheers

[voip]

I'm not familiar with the microKORG's internals, so this is a general suggestion. It might be worth checking that the ribbon cable is good, from end to end, testing each conductor using a resistance meter.

If the ribbon cables are of the flat type, do the connectors themselves have a latch that needs to be lifted before the cable is inserted, and then closed afterwards?

.

[mwilli9]

[voip]

Contact cleaners generally contain a light lubricating oil, together with an antioxidant additive. There is a chance, if the cleaner reached the rubber contact strip, that the conductive material may have been dissolved away. Contact cleaners are generally for contacts that are metal to metal, unless the cleaner specification clearly states that it is compatible with rubber contact materials. Many of them do, but not all.

The fact that there is still contact cleaner present, after considerable effort to allow the cleaner to evaporate, is a bit concerning. What was the contact cleaner used in this case?

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[mwilli9]

I used Deoxit. You're saying if the contact cleaner got onto the rubber contact strips that it could erode the carbon that's in the strips?

[mwilli9]

Circling back for documentation in case anyone runs into the same problem.

One thing I had not mentioned about my problem was that it started with one singular dead key (the C one octave above middle C on the mk). It never worked no matter how hard I pressed it. About a month of sitting around, collecting dust, some more of the keys started to be less responsive or unresponsive (around 9). That's when I figured it needed a little cleaning.

That's when I did all disassembly and sprayed with Deoxit.

Now, on the 23rd, I tried playing it one more time before I was going to get new parts and try again. The good news is, I'm back to the point where all my keys are responding except for that C note! I'm assuming the daughter board had some contact cleaner that hadn't dried yet. Still don't know what's wrong with that one key but I'll just get creative and play around it.

Thanks voip for the insight!