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[Mark McFarlane]

My Roland FP-5 failed the other night at a festival-style party (non-paying gig) after about 10 minutes of use.  Worked fine previously in the evening for a different band. Reasonably cool ambient, indoor temperature.   No lights, no power. Swapped out the power supply, same problem. Tried several outlets that were powering other devices, no workie.


Plugged it in today to diagnose and, of course, it just works fine. Wiggling the cord, the power jack, turning on and off repeatedly, no problems.


I rent the piano out a few times a year for touring jazz pianists so I need to figure out the root cause.  I suspect if I take it to the local Roland repair shop (at least there is one) they will say 'it works fine'.


Any ideas what I should look at?

[Kevin Maxwell]

How much of a do it yourself type are you? I assume it is out of warranty. If you are the type that likes to take things apart and try to fix them then I would suggest you look for a bad solder joint very close to the input jack for the power. It could very well be the power jack itself. This seems to be a weak point in a lot of electronic devices that use an external power supply. I had that problem on one of my notebook computers and I dissected it and re-soldered the jack and fixed it, I am type on it now.

I have found that a surprisingly large percentage of equipment failures are fixed with a touchup of a few solder joints.

[Bob Charest]

My Roland FP-5 failed the other night at a festival-style party (non-paying gig) after about 10 minutes of use.  Worked fine previously in the evening for a different band. Reasonably cool ambient, indoor temperature.   No lights, no power. Swapped out the power supply, same problem. Tried several outlets that were powering other devices, no workie.


Plugged it in today to diagnose and, of course, it just works fine. Wiggling the cord, the power jack, turning on and off repeatedly, no problems.


I rent the piano out a few times a year for touring jazz pianists so I need to figure out the root cause.  I suspect if I take it to the local Roland repair shop (at least there is one) they will say 'it works fine'.


Any ideas what I should look at?

That'll be fun to find! Touching the solder joints sounds like a good and easy idea for sure. Can you meter the power back where the event was? Under voltage or cycle might have been way out? Just a thought...

[Mark McFarlane]

That'll be fun to find! Touching the solder joints sounds like a good and easy idea for sure. Can you meter the power back where the event was? Under voltage or cycle might have been way out? Just a thought...

I have no fear of the soldering iron. 


The venue was actually my house.  It is an annual event I host for local musicians.  11 bands played this year, then a few hour jam. I think the power was OK but there was a Lot of other stuff running off what is probably the same circuit: X32 rack, TT22As, vDrums, a few tube amps,  Eden bass amp, some LED lighting,.... but a low volume gig that you could talk over 10 feet from the speakers.


I wonder if low voltage could cause this problem.  Normally my house a little hot, like 120-125Volt, so even with some sag it should have been OK.  I can recreate the internal conditions and test in the same room.


As I said earlier, the piano worked fine earlier in the evening (3 piece band) but it failed when on a 7 piece band that was bit louder. Still, the piano doesn't need much juice.

[David Parker]

My Roland FP-5 failed the other night at a festival-style party (non-paying gig) after about 10 minutes of use.  Worked fine previously in the evening for a different band. Reasonably cool ambient, indoor temperature.   No lights, no power. Swapped out the power supply, same problem. Tried several outlets that were powering other devices, no workie.


Plugged it in today to diagnose and, of course, it just works fine. Wiggling the cord, the power jack, turning on and off repeatedly, no problems.


I rent the piano out a few times a year for touring jazz pianists so I need to figure out the root cause.  I suspect if I take it to the local Roland repair shop (at least there is one) they will say 'it works fine'.


Any ideas what I should look at?

My TC Helicon harmonizer did the same thing. Quit working and didn't allow the mic to pass signal during a performance. Got it home and plugged it in with the same cables and it worked perfectly. fortunately it's not a critical piece for my solo performances, so if it goes out again, I can just bypass it and finish.

[ProSoundWeb Community]