What would be destroyed in a clavinova CVP-105 after power surge?

Is it a hiss, not a buzz (humm)? A buzz or humm would suggest to me a power supply problem, which would be the most likly damage in a surge... a hiss suggests to me that something fried on the digital processer...

There really is not much that can be fixed on these things. You could open the case (making good and sure it is unplugged) and look at the circuit boards for any black spots that might indicate a component that has fried..

If you are lucky you might be able to simply replace that board with the fried component...

Thanks Steve

No black spots or sign's of being fried. I had hoped for some good news because this instrument had set me back a few thousand $. See if some one that has a clavi can help. Maybe it has happened before. Hoping. Ky.

short of sending it away to be fixed, the only thing yu can do is use a meter to test parts on the board. A fried transistor or dioed is the likely problem. They have two fry mechanisms.

1 blown open, nothing passes either way.

2 cooked into a conductive lump

3 third failure via parts slightly cooked and lose full gain abilities.

is there any local guy? you? who can do this screening in the hopes of finding the problem??

If not, send it out or bring tech there.

After noting that there are about 85 entries under musical instruments in the Brisbane Yellow Pages, and further noting that about a half-dozen of them are electronics repair shops, I'm inclined to agree with aurizon's final note re getting the thing repaired by an expert.

When I bought my own electronic keyboard, my music teacher gave me the names of two local repairers. My son's first keyboard could not be supplied with parts after breaking down when only three years old.

Good luck with getting the Clavi repaired. It's a great instrument.

Mark

Thanks Mark and all

Brisbane is 1000 miles away and she is quiet heavy (90kg). The cost of transport and packaging is a big problem. Silly me thought there would be a simple way to rectify or identify the problem. Thanks for putting things straight.

By now I have spoken to a few friends and Allen (the man in the know) seems the one that will have to come and fix her. I hope. The floods are still going on as we speak and he seems a very busy man. It will take a full day to get here and do the diagnosis/repair (if possible) which means that he will loose a day of work helping other customers and I hear now that there are a few with similar problems regarding electronic devices.

As he is a friend of a friend he might stay over night and I'll have his missus blame me that they spike the drinks with alcohol down the local pub. If he can fix it or not, we will have a good reason to have a few. I hope it's not going to be Clavi's funeral.

I will work a bit on the guitar parts of the arrangements and not hold my breath. Come time come Allen come Clavi come results. All in Island time as we say here.

Thanks to all. Ky.

A thousand miles, eh? Whew! That's a lot farther than it looks on the map. Are there more than one Magnetic Islands?

Glad you've got a local guy to help you check it out. Don't funeralize the thing yet, though. Clavinovas are still current technology, and a fix is quite possible. It won't cost too much to ship parts from Brisbane if that's what's needed.

All the best. You know how to reward a buddy for coming to your aid.

Mark

Yes mate 1600 clicks we say here. Plus an hours ride on a car ferry. The passenger ferry is a bit faster but if I turn up with "clavi" they'll think I've gone troppo, which can happen this time of the year.

Are there more than one Magnetic Islands?

If so, the other one could be polarised the other way and I would not want to be there. The one I live on is just right but you can't have the cake and eat it too, can we.

Electronics Allen is very busy because it seems that heaps of electronics have gone down the gurgler. It's bloody Murphy again. Maybe I should right a song about the bastard. That'll teach him.

Back to tuning Guitars it is for a while. Serious hobby. Therapy really.

You know how to reward a buddy for coming to your aid.

Allen is the technician that handles such things for a jazz pianist friend of mine. If he can't fix it no body can. That'll be the day when he stays over and we sort the important things out at the Pub.

Good old Murphy will think of some thing. Which reminds me I have to get some sets of strings from Australia. The large Island over there>>>. For us every thing is western Australia and we avoid going to the "Big Smoke".

She'll be right Mate. Ky.

A day has only got 24 hours and I am really busy with a few things. I just enjoy some time by my self to get away from it all. Clavi has recording abilities which allow me to arrange some material. I have to get away from the camp fire syndrome and the local musos just want to jam and jam. I've been there and I can't get no satisfaction.

The lone cowboy Ky.

All done. Thanks. Ky

You really live in the middle of nowhere!

Lucky you...

It is not clear if the noise is constant or if it is produced when you play a note. Can you tell the frequency of this noise?

Does it behave the same if you send the note to be played thru MIDI?

As others have stated, the power supply may be fried or damaged. You may for example have a shot rectifying bridge and/or filtering (capacitors) and the noise may be some AC going thru the amplifier.

If you have access to electronics competent persons, they should be able to verify your power supply (may be supplies as the digital part of the piano does not have the same power requirements as the analog part) voltages and waveforms.

Buy a service manual, they go for about $60 on the net.

Anything could be fried with power surge. Could be as simple as one or more grounding resistor/capacitor. Up to the processor. Unless you're a technician, there is no way to find out what's wrong.

Please invest in UPS (not the courier company) to protect your equipment. APC is one I'll recommend.

Maybe try eBay to see if you can find a replacement or broken one to swap parts hoping it'll solve the problem.

I'm not familiar with the workings of the Clavinova specifically, and without direct investigation you can't be certain about anything, but:

If it still produces the correct notes, the processor itself is probably OK.

If the hiss really only occurs when it is making a sound, there are a few likely causes, including:
The regulator for the DAC (that would only apply if it uses a balanced DAC);
A potentiometer (e.g. volume control - irrespective of whether it's an IC or mechanical);
A loudspeaker blown out of alignment (e.g. coil scraping against magnet or housing).

The last of these has quite a characteristic sound to those who've heard it before. If you know of a trustworthy technician, maybe you could send them a recording over the web?

For the future, I agree it would be worth investing in a top-end surge arrestor -or even a UPS. But be aware that unplugged is still best under extreme conditions, as these still have limited capacity - plus your equipment can be damaged by induction even if the protection is doing its job properly, so keep the connection between UPS and Clavinova as short as practical.
N.B. I speak from personal experience here - even with only the original equipment wires and the UPS working properly both before and after the lightning strike (proved by testing after the event), I've had equipment go pop during a lightning strike due to induction. It wasn't a particularly large strike, but it struck the protection on the supply pole to my house. Oh, and I didn't find APC particularly responsive - in the end I took the equipment down to my company's test lab to have it checked out (don't tell my boss).

Good luck

Well, for the present you are well advised. But for the future you could do a few things to insure that your valuable electronics is not fried, at least not in your home.

1,. There are half fist size large MOVs that plug in to your home's main breaker panel. You need one per phase. An MOV (metal oxide varistor) plugs in between the power phase (I guess 220V in you case) and ground in the panel. As long as everything is normal, very little current flows thru it. But, when a spike comes in, it gets clamped at 350V or just above. A normal power supply ought to absorb the rest all day long. You will have to talk to an electrician or a supply house, since it has to stick to your electrical code and fit your power panel.

2,. The best surge suppressor I found for individual units is:

www.zerosurge.com

this is a filter, not clamping, but supressing spikes. So it takes care of the remainder.

3,. Without at least 1,. even UPS is useless, as it can be fried just as well.

Thank you. Advice taken. Ky.

Any decent UPs will have MOV surge suppressors (or equivalents) built in. However, if you experience frequent strikes at very high levels, you should consider preceding these with gas-discharge suppressors, as these are less likely to be rendered non-functional.

Regarding the level of protection of your equipment, double-conversion UPS are usually recommended for environments where regular large pulses are experienced on incoming lines. The reason being that when the suppression equipment is damaged, the worst that normally happens to the protected devices is that the output of the UPS collapses.

Hello Ky, did you find a solution for your piano? I have a similar problem on the same device (clavinova cvp 106), except that it doesn't produce any sound at all. When I turn it on, all I have is a blue screen and the red led. I visually checked the fuses and circuits, everything seems ok. Since the repair costs will be huge, I wanted to know if it were worth the while in your case.

Thanks in advance!

No, not really. At least I can still use 'clavi' as a piano. Only if I switch to multi functions do I have the problem. It does me fine and I'll leave the recording to the 'dudes' and their computers. Things have changed in the last decade and I'm not sure if I want to compete.

This might be a very stupid tip but have you checked the head phones inlet? With the 105 all sound goes to the head phones if plugged in. Sorry if this insulted your intelligence but one never knows. If it was the case, let me know so I can have a good laugh.

I don't know were you are but if you can get hold of a technician, do it. They know best and keeping the clavi alive is a good thing to do. Enjoy, Ky.

Hello, This is a variant on a previous thread. We bought a Clavinova CVP-305 in the US and moved to India (which has a 220V supply). I had a transformer/stabilizer all ready but I was unfortunately rather hasty and landed up connecting the piano to the 220V output from the transformer (it was only later that I realized that it had outputs for both 110 and 220V) and turning it on. Nothing happened. Once I realized my mistake, got everything straightened out and I plugged it in again, I found that it still wouldn't turn on. Assuming I damaged it by supplying the wrong voltage, any thoughts on what would/could have got fried? I am trying to get a local Yamaha technician but have been unsuccessful so far. This was a brand new piano so I am very bummed about my idiocy! Thanks, - Vas

Hi, Vas!

I don't have a Clavinova, but I'd love to get one, so I've been subscribing to this thread since the beginning just to keep up hopes that the various damaged ones as described in here can eventually get fixed. So I'm not any kind of knowledgeable help to you. However, I read your blog, and the following occurred to me.

In your case, I would think that the original transformer at entry point could very well have been fried by inserting the heavier voltage through the lighter coil. Check at the power input point for a transformer and take it out and to an electrical shop for a look-at and replacement. Since the transformer is the start-point of the circuitry, it is highly likely that the instrument itself was not harmed as that part heated up and blew. Having stated that, it also only makes sense to me that there ought to be a fuse inserted at that point just to prevent such calamities, and that if anybody would have designed the fuse in place, Yamaha would be the folks to do it. So, also check the circuitry at entry point for a blown fuse.

Mark

Thanks, Mark. I am waiting to see if I can get an authorised Yamaha technician to come out and take a look at it. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too difficult or expensive to get fixed. - Vas