Kawai Digital Piano - disassembly and repair

Thank you so much.

THANK YOU for this!! It took 3 rounds of taking my Kawai 130 apart and putting it back together again, but I was able to fix it and it sounds great now.

nice one! I have the same piano with an annoyingly lazy G key! Cheers :)

Thank you for this video. I used it to take apart my CN25R fix a stuck key, and this was supremely helpful!

Un grand merci John. Votre tuto est vraiment parfait. Grâce à celui-ci nous avons pu aisément réparer une touche qui ne fonctionnait plus. En effet les salissures étaient en cause. Recevez toute notre gratitude 🙏

Thanks John.

I too thank you for this and it makes me ask a related but not specifically related question. We have a 206 and it's started to making a popping sound through the speakers - usually when it is just left on and idle for a bit. Sometimes the sound will go out entirely. But if we restart it, sometimes it will come back, sometimes not. Any ideas about how and where to repair. Parts availability for these keyboards? Should we reach out to Kawai - it's maybe 15 years old or more.

I know this was posted a long time ago, but I still want to say thanks for this video. It helped me fix my squeaky keys on my piano.

usually I don't make any comment to videos BUT you really saved my life!!! I had the volume bar full of Pine needles of the christmas tree and I was desperate. but 2 hours and tons of screw after I MADE IT!!! thank you very very much!! i guess with the assistance it will cost me around 100€...(or more depends on how much they would have lied)

not clear demonstration nor explanation

I have this kawai. but the right channel works quietly on the speaker outside and in headphones. what is the problem? Maybe somehow you can adjust the balance using hidden buttons? Thanks

Do you know where I can buy the silicone rubber conductor pads? It’s a Kawai PN 100. It’s old. Most of the keys won’t play. I tried the pencil lead trick, but it didn’t help. I think I used the wrong cleaner, and messed up the old pads. I can’t find replacements anywhere!

Thank you for the guidance, I had a bunch of keys on my RockJam Xfinity that didn’t work and now it’s as good as new!

Hi John, thanks for this. I think I'l try this with my CA67 🎹

Why not show the results???, Do you not have a vacuumcleaner?

My kawai es110 got urinated by my cat and it was too late when i noticed it when i try play it sounds out of tune is there any way to fix it

Thankyou very much John, you helped me fix a dead key on my kawai es6. The rubber is a pro tip!

I own Kawai cl26 it has stopped producing sound it switches on if i switch on it after a few days then it works fine for 2-3 minutes and again no sound. does it have a motherboard problem?

Is it possible to replace piano mother motherboard into other piano?

Thanks John , I am now about to dismantle my Kawaii CN37B with your help . Wish me luck.

Hi there! I’ve done this last weekend (before seeing the video), since there was juice spilled on the piano. I cleaned the circuit board with acetone and decided to also clean the keys and underneath since it became really dirty and in the damaged spot some didn’t work and some were really loud..

Now after I put it together, all the keys only respond when I press them really hard. Any idea where the fault could be??? I’d really be helped with some advice :)

Where can I buy the conductive rubber?

Thanks to this Video I was able to take apart my CN43, altought must admit getting the display and sound buttons of the Keys was a pain in the ass ^^

Any idea where i can buy contact rubbers?

Any idea what might be causing the problem if the keys occasionally sustain randomly as if the pedal is pressed? I’m very familiar with the sticky key issue but I’ve never encountered this problem before

Thank you, very useful

If a note still muted, even despite having cleaned the contact rubbers, personally something that helped me was to scratch the part where it makes contact with a pencil. This completely fixed it in my case. Of course, you also have to verify that everything is clean and connected. Greetings!

Hi, I seem to have done some kind of mistake because now the upper half of the keyboard all the A, C sharp and F dont work anymore but I cant figure out what I did wrong. maybe you could help me out?

I tried this with a Kawai piano having one key with significantly louder volume. However, using eraser did not change anything (maybe I was too gentle with it ?). I was wondering whether one should use some appropriate (electronic) cleaning agent and whether the problem is more on the circuit board contacts or on the rubber strip side?

Sound quality is awful!! Sounds like you have potato chips in your mouth when you are talking. A shame, since the video is informative---clean up the audio, please--speak clearly!

first, thanks for the video.  what a help. 
i have a kawai model CN33R and need to replace the contacts on one octave of keys.  kawai will not sell parts to the general public, albeit, i have found quite a few people selling contacts for kawai digital pianos.  
my question to you (since neither the kawai support nor their service departments would tell me) is:  are the contacts interchangeable across the model lines?  
the ones for sale look like the ones on my piano.
any help you can give is greatly appreciated.  thank you.

I have to replace an A key on my Kawai ES-1? Go for it? I hope it's simple compared to what you've done here. Thanks!

You’re awesome John! That is exactly the tutorial I needed to take the pencil out of the digital piano. Thanks soooo much!!!!!!👍👍👍👍

Hi John, inspired my your wonderful video, I tackled my Kawai which had keys that do not sound. After cleaning them, the some of the keys still did not work, so I cleaned the contacts again and they still do not work. Can you please tell what I can do next ?

Thank you so much for this video. I have a Kawai CN 34 whose action has been breaking in irregular intervals for years, and your video is the one I look up when I try to remember how to take this hellish piece of gear apart. Kawai really are masters of planned obsolescence, and I swear this will be my first and last instrument of theirs.

I've tried this method on a Kawai CN27 and nothing improved, there are around 4 keys in the 4th octave that are not working as they should. What could be the problem?

Brilliant. This is one worry I have about purchasing. How long had you had it before it needed this maintenance? Is this the kdp120 or cn29?

I must've done something wrong. None of the keys make a sound now, although the sound still plays when I press the demo and metronome. Can anyone help? Do the rubber strips need to be returned to their original positions or is it ok to switch them around?

You saved me a ton of time. Very thorough!

Thanks so much, John. I'm an experienced piano-tuner, but have ventured into repairing digital piano only occaskeys producing ionally.
As you rightly say, getting at the offending contacts is the tricky bit. I just repaired a very heavily used KAWAI CA500 which had the B next to Middle C not sounding at all and several notes producing incorrect volumes. While the lid was off, I replaced a felt strip and made some adjustments to key operations, to quieten them down and to ensure consistency of respective note volumes.
Result: Digi-Piano that cost just £40 is probably now worth 5 times that price . Thanks.

Bonjour merci pour cette vidéo, j'ai un kawai 260 avec un bruit de larsen, comment puis le démonter ? Merci

Adding to my comment of 1 year ago I found out the reason why my Kawai would not go and it was because of the re-assembly on my part which was not being careful enough following the instructions. Great video thanks to you the piano is like new.

My one left speaker is not playing any sound any suggest what I should look out for when opening it up.

Thank you so much, it was so helpful although my CN34 looks a little different inside ( cables)

Thanks for this great video on doing this repair with the ES8 !!!!!
One note, I don't think you want to over rub (you certainly did not over do it) the graphite composite tops on the contacts someone (Oli) said as it will damage them and all the sudden the damaged keys will play louder than the rest. I do not know for sure but see Oivier's comment below.

Is the process similar for cheaper hammer-weighted digital pianos? Or does it really depend on the model?

John does this go for the model CP1 Concert Grand Kawaii makes? I play weekly at a nice restaurant, and the middle C sustains on and off without pressing the sustain pedal Talk about frustrating. We had a keyboard man here in Kansas City who worked on boards from all over the country. He died recently. Anyway if you can give me an answer it would be much appreciated.

I got a CE220 from Kawai where all the F and A keys are dead. I'll open it up and let you know how it goes.

Thank you