FR3-s Factory Reset display reading Err

[TimeSwan]

I had a customer bring in a Roland FR3s today that he inherited from an uncle who passed away. It isn't making any sound but I can hear the speaker "fuzz" when I crank the volume. Tried multiple cables, tried headphones, nothing.

I opened the accordion and found an army of dead cockroaches and 20 years of dust. I took it outside and blew out all of that fun stuff, checked all of the internal plugs and solder joints (all secure) and hoped that might work magic but it's never that easy of course. Moved on to a factory reset and when I boot it back up the display reads Err.

Anyone have any idea if that error message is telling me there has been some sort of hardware failure and parts need to be replaced? Electronics are by no means my specialty so if things get more technical than that I may be out of luck.

I tried to reach out to support on Rolands website but it appears that they only allow submissions on behalf of registered products, which this is obviously not. Not to me, nor the customer, anyway. Any tips on how I can contact someone at Roland?

Would the customer be better off trying to sell this off as parts?

 

[Ventura]

i would think the army of roaches were living happily in there before they died,
so they were not hungry until they ran out of whatever it was they were eating
which took some time since they had to make babies to make the army.

so yes something in there, maybe everything, needs to be replaced

parts ? the body shell ?

 

[Caps]

Probably a dumb question but did you do the factory reset correctly? Hold down the set and orchestra registers and then switch it on while holding them down. The display should change to "Fty" and then says "don" after all has been initialized. May take a while for the initialization to complete. It should then be working correctly. If that doesn't work, look carefully at all the circuit traces and insulation to see if the bugs left any residue that shorted something out. They were eating something (probably pads, glue and bellows) and crapping it out somewhere.... i would do the reset while plugged in to power and not batteries. Make sure the battery cover is on and closed. FWIW my manual shows no "Err" message so that is a bit of a mystery. next option would be to pull all the boards one at a time and hose them down with cleaner and reinstall them.

 

[TimeSwan]

I did do the factory reset the way you describe. Strange the manual shows no message that I'm getting.

I have a bottle of CRC QD Contact Cleaner, will that work? I've only ever used it to clean potentiometers.

 

[Caps]

I did do the factory reset the way you describe. Strange the manual shows no message that I'm getting.

I have a bottle of CRC QD Contact Cleaner, will that work? I've only ever used it to clean potentiometers.

The radio shop that I used to live by would squirt circuit boards off with distilled water, then wipe them down with a q-tip dipped in Isopropyl Alcohol and then lean them up against the wall in their back lot in the sun to dry. Looked odd but I guess it worked. They did it for years. Mostly Motorola transceivers for government vehicles. I suppose the CRC would work - nothing to lose since it doesn't work anyway.

 

[Ventura]

distilled or condensed water is aggressive (but not in an acidic way)
because it essentially has no dissolved solids in it, and is ready to
react with anything it comes in contact with..

so a factory reset needs to access the permanent memory area
where the original "setup" is stashed, and flow the data to the
writable area of memory, and it must flow error free, be accepted,
and pass a check test that it is error free.. from there the programming can
be accessed actively/dynamically to run the device. So if you try the reset
several times with the same result, you have 4 area's of possible damage..

weak electrical power to the processor.. that does not mean necessarily
a weak power brick, just the power handling/buffering in that circuit/area

damaged permanent memory

damaged basic processing function
(think it as flashing the BIOS so a very basic simple function)

damaged writable memory

even if cleaning gets this to work/complete/initialize,
well, did the army eat all the top-hats under the keys too ?
was the plastic part of the variable inductors yummy ?
did they gnaw the edges of sockets, polyester capacitors,
and such ? insulation off the wires ?

like Caps said "nothing to lose since it doesn't work anyway"
except your time, so good luck.

 

[JerryPH]

Was the v-accordion plugged in when the factory reset was done? Maybe there wasn't enough juice in the battery to do it completely/properly?

 

[TimeSwan]

He only had the plug, there's no battery in it.

 

[Caps]

Let us know if you figure it out and what you did.

 

[JerryPH]

I am betting that at the very least there are a few proms that are corrupted and there is a significant amount of work to get it up working. This is one of those cases where if you are really good in electronics, it could be a deal... but if you are a common end user, this will fast turn in to a money pit to repair both in time and money.

 

[TimeSwan]

I tried removing the boards and cleaning them with the contact cleaner. No luck. The customer is disappointed, of course, but thankfully, he is understanding.

I appreciate everyone's input!