Paul wrote: DISCLAIMER: The foregoing is my personal experience only. If yours is different, I'd like to hear about it. Mine's a little different. Granted I don't like working on digital pianos. But I have worked on Kurzweils and Clavinovas. At least 80% of the problems I've been called on to fix were mechanical in nature, most of them dealing with cleaning or replacing the little contact pads under the keys or pedals, or replacing key weights on Kurzweils. I've had to replace some switches which involved de-soldering them from the circuit board, not something I'm comfortable with, but I did it. The other electrical problems were solved by hand holding with tech support over the phone, or for Kurzweil PC88s, you can remove the electronics and send them in to Kurzweil for repair, a lot cheaper to ship this way, weight wise, as opposed to sending the whole thing in. I find myself forced to do these repairs sometimes, mostly because no one else in 70 miles will do it. But I try real hard to get out of it whenever possible. I like to stay in my comfort zone (don't we all) and I don't need the extra work. I've not had any trouble getting parts from Yamaha or Kurzweil. I've even gotten service manuals from them. Dean Dean May cell 812.239.3359 PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272 Terre Haute IN 47802 _____ From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul McCloud Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 11:18 AM To: Pianotech List Subject: RE: Digital Piano Repair Hi, Michelle: Your question seems to be, should I try repairing these electronic instruments? If this is your aim, you would indeed need specialized knowledge in this field. Before I got into piano repair, I had taken a course in electronics. I live in San Diego, which is a military town. Lots of ex-military electonic techs live here. I couldn't land a job to save my life, because I had no experience. Out of desperation, I took a job as an apprentice piano technician at a local store. I'm still at this same store almost 20 years later. It happened that there was an organ repair shop in the same warehouse where we had our pianos. I used to imagine myself working in their shop, but no openings were available. As time went on, I observed the difficulties of electronic repair, and was glad I never went in that direction. First of all, you have to understand electronics, so you go to a school, pay thousands of dollars for that, and then graduate. Ok, so you have the skill. Now, you get one of these glorified organ things (digital whatever), and it's time for repair. You have to disassemble the whole thing, just to get to the part that's ailing. Then, you look up the part number, and order it from the electronic part supplier. Or so you think. Hold on, partner! THE PART NUMBER DOESN'T MATCH ANYTHING IN THE PARTS CATALOG! It's marked with special numbers at the factory, which are proprietary. You have to order the replacement parts from the factory. No problem, I'll order them from the factory, right? NOT! They won't sell to you unless you are the "Authorized Repair Facility". In order to become such a repair shop, you have to stock thousands of dollars of parts, so you can do these repairs in-house. Ok, ok, so you shell out the bucks to become the "Authorized" repair shop. You have to do the warrantee! repairs for the company (I'm talking about just one line of products here), so you'll have your phone ringing off the hook for these. And, guess what? They don't pay very much to do the repair, and it takes a long time before you get paid! Now, not all brands are like this. But, many are. The repair shop has since moved, but the repair guy has branched out. He's now doing- PIANOS! Kind of gives you the idea which way you should go. If their electronic keyboards need repair, leave it to those who do that sort of thing. If the school can't afford to have them repaired, that's a shame. But, I wouldn't try to get involved unless you know what you're doing. DISCLAIMER: The foregoing is my personal experience only. If yours is different, I'd like to hear about it. Good luck. Paul McCloud, RPT San Diego -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070707/aa8bc69c/attachment.html
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