Incensed at the bad behaviour of my Clavinova (very sticky keys), and having run out of keys to swap between more and less important parts of the keyboard (see Part 1), and having had no useful response from the manufacturer (other than the idea of paying loads for a working keyboard) I tried a more drastic action than swapping a few keys.
Remove keyboard, and remove every key.
Note the dustiness — and, thanks to cats, hairiness.
(Images link to full-size versions.)
Don't let's waste too much time on poking around: a high-pressure shower should help,
spraying through the assembly from both sides while the troublesome thing stands in the bath.
That shower was good: several larger foreign-objects fell out during spraying, that hadn't been noticed before.
Now the base part is quite clean, and keys have been cleaned with cloths.
One is forced to think of further depths to fiddle with, or at least to
check there isn't too much water on electronic parts before reassembly ...
... so let's take off a few more screws, to allow the pads that sense key-presses to be revealed.
How like a computer keyboard, except in having two contacts per key.
That's all cleaned, but a bit of a beast to get back together unless one inserts a rod or
string to hold all the metal rods up while putting the grey rubber things back into position;
otherwise the white hammer things are pushing the rubbers up, making it hard to get them in
place for screwing the circuit board on top.
Gradual replacement of keys, taking the least sticky combinations for the most important parts,
and leaving real problems for the far ends. But I've run out a while ago — now there
have to be some bad ones in places where it hurts.
Replace the keyboard in the instrument.
Final impressions: it looked all lovely, and was better than just before; but there's still a big problem with stickiness. It's clear there's an underlying problem, or that (at least) lots of new white keys are needed. More grease would have been good for getting it back into original condition.
I'm not sure I'd recommend the washing to anyone. It's my impatient way of dealing with dirty
electronics, including whole computers (in their parts, for easier water-access and drying).
But I can't say the removal even of a great deal of dust and hair has done anything to the problem
of stickniess, although the already tried matter of swapping keys is clearly helpful.
That certainly does do something, but one runs out of good keys after fixing a few.
The main evidence of the above is that one doesn't have to be terribly careful when cleaning the
thing!
Compressed air at moderate pressure might be a better way to remove muck without getting it wet,
losing so much grease or needing to remove all the keys.
Page started: 2011-07-27
Last change: 2011-07-27