Hello everybody, I have a Roland f30e which I have had for many years and is has never given me any trouble. I know that it is out of date with modern instruments but as I am also old / Well over 80 / I cannot justify or afford a new one. It has now given me a problem as the two octaves in the middle of the keyboard have gone silent, notes above and below this are ok. I feel that I have done something silly and I am hoping that an expert amongst you can help me fix it. I thought that thre might be a factory reset but there is nothing in the manual that I can see that would help. I live in the Shetland isles which is an island group belonging to Scotland and is out in the North sea. There is nowhere to take it to here. Thank you all.

It's possible that the keys come in sections or sets. And an electrically conductive track may have corroded. Impossible to know what has failed. An electronics technician or roland repair technician should take a look at it.

Hello, Thank you for the reply, up until now you are the only one. I have opened it all up and cannot find any damage circuit boards etc. I am conversant with electronics. I do feel that it is some sort of program problem. I have been on youtube and others have had this problem but as yet cannot find an answer. Roland do not want to know and will not help with advice. I am not certain if there is a way to do a factory reset but most of these electronic items have one built in. As I said earlier due to where I live you cannot get anything like this repaired here. It does seem strange that it is exactly two octaves that have failed. If you get any info please share. Thank you.

Most welcome. At the moment, I'm just predicting that it's not a software issue, as when I flick through the user's manual for the F-30/F-30e, there is no indication of a factory reset procedure. Instead, a lot of the information suggests that default settings are restored whenever the unit is turned off, and then switched back on again. That is, the user manual says that users can set transpose, etc etc etc ..... and the setting will remain until the unit is switched off.

Even though it's hard to say if any improvements to the situation can be made easily ------ one easy thing to try at least, is to see if there are any cables/connectors that can be 'carefully' undone ---- disconnected (inside the unit) ----- and reconnecting them.

There doesn't appear to be any service manual seen online for the F-30e, so that we can try to see what multimeter measurements could possibly be made - to check/test for electrical continuity between various points that is expected to have electrical continuity. A service manual could probably provide some clues about whether the key sensor system is arranged in groups --- individual groups --- in modules. So that --- if it's a modular system, one could then see what happens if one an adjacent working module is swapped with the non-working one ------ which could help with figuring out where the issue lies.

Hello, Yes I also saw this in the manual but I was hopimng that there would that someone would know more as not everything is in these manuals. You were correct in your first answer as I have now removed everything and although reluctant to remove the silicon pads that fit over the key sensors as I find that they never seem to go back and work correctly I have found that sometime in the distant past One of my family must have spilt some liquid into it and patrs of the printed circuit have vanished. Sometimes on printed circuits a track can be bridged with fine wire and I have done this a few times on various electronic items but this I think is beyond repair. Getting another board is not an option as thee cost would likely outweigh the cost of a second hand Yamaha or similar as you can pick these up for a few pounds. Any ideas on what I can do with a set of good keys as the key board is in good condition. I have thought about altering it so that the good top section and the good bottom section could be joined together and fed into the microprocessor board and eliminating the top and bottom notes as They are very seldom used anyway but this is just a thought as I have too many other things that need attention. Clarinet and bagpipe playing. I will start looking for a Yamaha P-105 which are now some years old but are not too expensive. Thank you for everything. William Stuart Shetland isles Scotland.

You are most welcome William. I trust your judgement about beyond repair of the corroded tracks.

Regarding the F-30e ..... it's certainly possible that somebody could use it as spare parts.

The P-105 will be great! All the best!

Welcome to the forum, Hakama. My first guess would be a circuit problem rather than software since some keys still work correctly. Can you tell if the keys sensors connect to the main circuit board in blocks? That is, one connector for the bottom block, one connector for the two middle octaves and a third for the upper keys? If so then you have really narrowed the problem down to the middle connector or the traces. Next, if the connector has a wire for each key, then the problem would be with the ground or return trace or contact which would be common to the whole block. If there are fewer wires than keys, then they must be using some sort of multiplexing and it could be a digital chip associated with that block or again, the connector and traces.

Given your situation, there would seem to be nothing to be lost by just digging in and trying to find the problem yourself. The spilled liquid is suspicious but as SouthPark has indicated, especially with old equipment, connector contacts are always a good place to start.

Good Luck,
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