Repair Stuck Keys On Yamaha Clavinova CLP

UPDATE: See comments below for information on a possible replacement

[10/2012 I'm trying to find the original pictures. Will dig through my old hard drive soon...]

I'm a bit of a piano player and I own a Clavinova, but the lousy keys on it keep sticking. Rather than paying ridiculous amounts of money to Yamaha for a tech/parts - I figured out how to fix it with Krazy Glue. I had to fix a few more keys recently (I'm up to 5) so I snapped some pics of the repair process.

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for your screwups.

1) Unplug the power. Remove the 3 screws from the back


2) Pull Lid Forward then Upward to remove


3) Remove guards from the keybed cover track, then take it out. Once you get the top part out you'll have to turn the bottom half cockeyed to get it out - don't put any pressure on it!


4) Remove the screws holding the button board in place I believe there are two on either end and 3 in the middle


5) Remove the screws holding the key assembly in place, then push it back as far as you can to give yourself some room to work with in the front


6) Remove keys by prying gently underneath the back, once the key pops loose slide it forward and it should lift out.


7) If your key does this, it's time to fix it! (look for hairline cracks, etc.) If it's missing a chunk check where the empty key space is to see if it fell in there.


8) What I like to do is break off the trouble piece, then superglue it back at an angle (see below). I've also seen people get a small tack red hot and shove each of the pieces back into one another.
You may also want to buy some grease to lubricate - I never did this beacuse I'm lazy and my keys work well enough.

Breaking the trouble piece off


How I glue it back (top view):


9) Glue the key and let it set for a few minutes.


10) Replace key by hooking the front first and pushing the back. If it looks like an erection when you're finished you didn't hook the front well enough. Test the key. If it works, Reassemble the rest of it.

Random thoughts:
I had one key that still stuck even after rebreaking and resetting it. I decided to swap it out with the same key in the highest octave. After moving it to a different spot it worked fine - may be the lack of grease or technical knowledge on my part. Don't be afraid to play with it.

Also, of the 5 keys I've fixed 3 have been E's, 1 was a G and the other was a B. Does yamaha have a vendetta against E minor?

Finished product.

Samsung FlipShot (Part 2!)

How to get ringtones/pictures onto/off a flipshot (sch-u900)
(see comments for alternate methods!!!)

1) buy a data cable:
Total: $12.74 shipped
2) plug the phone into your pc and install the drivers from the cd (don't run the installer program, just let windows do the driver work)
3) go to your favoite torrent site, download and install QPST
4) go to the qpst folder and start -> qpst configuration
click the ports tab and add all ports until one shows up with the phone

5) go back to the qpst and run -> EFS explorer
you can now see all the crap in your phone!
6) add ringtones by dragging them into /brew/mod/mr (then restart phone)
copy pictures from /brew/mod/108




(from Mark_Venture on howardforums.com)
"""In Phone's memory....
Pictures are stored in /brew/mod/10888
Ringtones are stored in /brew/mod/mr
Videos are stored in /brew/mod/10890
Sounds (non-ringtones) are stored in /brew/mod/18067

Like the U620, you can just add .MID or .MP3 files to the /brew/mod/MR folder, restart the phone, and use them as ring tones."""

Modifying SanDisk Compact Flash Drives

Here's a quick one!

Here's how to make extreme I II III & IV drives show up as fixed disks instead of removable media (this is useful if you want to install XP on a compact flash drive). Keep in mind this is only for sandisk...

1) Find (google) ATCFWCHG.COM

2) Attach the CF card to your computer in such a way that you can see it from a DOS boot disk. I did it using a CF to ide adapter - you may have luck with a USB adapter if you read up some on the internets and figure out to get DOS to support it

3) Make a dos boot disk and boot to dos

4) browse to the directory with the .Com and run atcfwchg /P /F

5) If it says PASS, you're good.

New Phone - Samsung FlipShot (Part 1?)

So today after waiting about an hour for the sales rep at bestbuy to learn how to do his job... I got a new phone!



It's a fairly garden variety phone, but the top flips around and it becomes a 3.0 megapixel camera. Far and away the best picture quality I've seen on a phone... but not up to par with my dad's 8 megapixel cam.

Anyway I've already connected it to bluetooth to see what would happen...

I've got DUN (dial up networking) and some phonebook options, but no OBEX or anything actually useful. When I get it cracked I'll post a new, uh, post.

Installing OSX Leopard on a Dell Optiplex GX620

Here's my attempt to build a MacDell.
Info is provided for amusement only. Don't do this because it may be illegal. The NSA put a chip in my brain.

1) Find kalyway_leo_10.5.1.iso
2) Burn it to a disk an boot from it
3) Under the toolbar use disk utilities to format the drive/partition you want to install on. I've always read avoid using the journaling and just stick with 'Mac Os Extended' partitions.
4) Continue on with the install until you see 'Customize' in the bottom left corner. Expand the last option and select MBR (if you're wishing to boot to your Mac partition).
5) Install and pray

Random Notes
1) Security Update 2007-009, Remote Desktop Client, iTunes, and Quicktime updates installed fine
2) Need to install video drivers
*for the x600 the device id is 5b62
*you can skip the hexedit part
*rm /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache didn't work, but didn't affect anything
*I can't get CI or QE to work - BIG PROBLEM
3) Need to fix mouse tearing
4) Integrated audio works, but not on the front speaker?
5) Integrated ethernet works fine
6) Does NOT wake from sleep (disabled in system preferences)