Roland D50
This is another Roland D-50 that has come through my workshop. This time, the work consisted of fairly typical servicing:
- replacement of all 54 tactile switches on the control panel,
- repair (gluing) of one of the plastic control panel button plungers,
- repair (gluing) of the joystick, which was damaged during shipping,
- cleaning of the dust-covered LCD display,
- replacement of the Volume potentiometer,
- replacement of the keyboard contact rubbers,
- replacement of the EPROM containing firmware version 1.06 with version 2.10 (supplied by the instrument’s owner).
This time, I managed to complete almost everything. Unfortunately, I was unable to replace the EPROM because this instrument is fitted with an early (first revision) mainboard using a different type of CPU. As a result, firmware version 2.10 simply would not boot. The latest firmware supported by this hardware revision is version 1.10.
Unfortunately, despite replacing all of the keyboard contact rubbers and carrying out mechanical adjustments and cosmetic work on both the keybed and the keyboard PCB, I was unable to achieve consistent velocity response across the entire keyboard. I suspect that the contact pads on the keyboard PCB have become mechanically worn over time. I revisited the problem several times, but despite having extensive experience with this type of repair, I was unable to achieve a perfect result. In fact, this is the first time I have been unable to fully resolve this particular issue.
