yamaha DK-40B Portamento broken. Parts for substitute ?

[fred lui]

HI ALL~

Long time for not coming here.

Someone gave me on YAMAHA DK-40B，
Some problem, the worst is the sound can't be out from Main Speaker, only from Rotary speaker.

And the "Portamento manual is broken", no sound, and the touch feel is not right,

Just wanna know any parts I can get for substitute?

[Larrytow]

Hi Fred,

Welcome back to the forum. I think I remember you from the EZ forum.

On most Yamahas with rotary speakers, the problem you are having is caused by the leaf contacts in the Rotary / Main switches being dirty. And the Ensemble or Flute Split switches. I always clean them with alcohol on a pipe cleaner ( the kind for cleaning smoking pipes ) between the leaves. Those switches have a stack of contacts under each rocker tab, and if one of them is not making good contact, the organ does similar to to what you are describing. You need to be gentle with the contacts so as to not bend them out of alignment, but they usually clean up nicely. On really dirty ones I sometimes use acetone first, and follow up with alcohol.

Sometimes you can get the contacts clean enough to start working by repeatedly working the switches ( Many times ! ), as they are sorta wiping style contacts. But if it has been sitting unused for years, you probably will need to physically clean them as I described.

I don't recall what sort of Portamento strip the DK-40 has. Is it the flat one like the EX-42 has ? Or is it the raised one that feels like a wire under the fabric like the E-5 uses ?

[fred lui]

HI LARRY!!! It's a long time, really happy to see you here~! ^_^

You are so crazy to have two EX-42!!
EX-42' sounds really awesome,

DK-40's Portamento is 2 and 1/2 Octave. (F~~C3)
EX-42 and E-5AR are 3 octaves, and I think their touch feel is the same, according to the model year.

Even I think it's the same with YC45D's ?

Thanks for your advice for me to clean it by myself, I'll try and I'm finding old technician in Taiwan.

Really hope you could share more your vintage babies' video!!