Yamaha PSR S550 Keyboard

Hey Everyone,


I'm in the process of doing some servicing work on an old Yamaha PSR S550 keyboard, most of it seems to be in pretty good condition except for a broken LCD screen, fortunately I managed to buy a replacement on eBay, I got an email notification from eBay that my order had been sent in the post, hopefully it should arrive within a few weeks.

There's also a broken front panel button that needs fixing too, but shouldn't be too hard to fix, the good news is that I managed to find a pdf of the user manual and service manual on the internet.


Stay tuned for more updates.....

Replacing the old, buggered LCD screen in my Alesis was a doddle - once I'd found a replacement (A$30 from eBay US) - and once you've got the thing apart, you'll probably be shocked at the lack of stuff inside the casing!!

I've had a couple of Yamaha PSR keyboards back in the "couldn't-afford-anything-better" days. I had a PSR-420 that I recorded both a studio and a live album with a band I played with back in the late '90s. Sounded fairly respectable for what it was.

Those lower end keyboards really have gotten better and better over the years.

They normally use either cut-down audio engines, or the same audio engine but with less voices/samples, from more expensive models, which is why they sound good. No point in them re-inventing the wheel! The main Japanese keyboard manufacturers have really underperformed in the last 20 years or so in terms of development and new sounds. Very little new R&D, mainly repackaging existing sound systems, perhaps with better D/A converters and the occasional expansion of the number of samples held or the number of tracks in the sequencer. Some interesting. if not groundbreaking, workstation synths that do offer a little bit extra, but there's a lot of reliance on reproducing old analogue synth models. Which is nice in its own way, but adding a 16 step sequencer to a 70's synth design is probably not what '70s keyboard players were expecting to see from a synth in 2019!

I agree. Progress in that area has been disappointing, to say the least. I've been a Roland user since about '01; XP-10, XP-80, C-180, and PK-5. Pretty much everything they've put out since the XP series (and even before that, really) has been just repackaging the same stuff with new cosmetics, and different expansion boards ... ensuring you have to buy all new stuff to get the same sounds. My XP-80 still works just fine. Changed out the memory battery last year (after 17 years), and just recently upgraded the floppy drive to a USB floppy emulator. Maybe get another 17 years out of it.

Good News!!!

The replacement LCD screen I bought on eBay, for my Yamaha PSR S550 keyboard, is awaiting pickup at the post office at 4:00pm this afternoon.....Woohoo!!!!



Update:


Parcel finally arrived, here's a pic of the new LCD screen I ordered:

Attachment 30375


I'm going to leave installing the new LCD screen till this weekend as I've got a few other things to do.

Pics of my Yamaha PSR S550 keyboard:

Attachment 30384

Attachment 30385


As you can see, there are two usb ports on the back panel, one is for connecting to a computer and the other is for plugging in a usb drive, the old LCD screen is all cracked and needs replacing, fortunately I managed to source a replacement.


Bit of trivia here, did you know that the brand name, Yamaha, is actually the Japanese word for Horse?

Update:


Well....after some trials and tribulations, I finally managed to get my Yamaha PSR S550 keyboard fully working with it's new LCD screen, the first time I tried powering it up after installing the new LCD screen it wouldn't power up at all so I put my troubleshooting thinking-cap on, and it was when I was about to unplug the plugpack adaptor from the DC in socket that I found the cause of the problem, the DC in socket felt unusually loose and I immediately knew why, as it turned out there were two broken solder-joints underneath the circuit board where the DC in socket was soldered to the board, some tinned copper wire and solder fixed it completely and now the keyboard powered up, what's more, it also produced sound too.....so job done!!!


There's just one more issue that needs resolving, one of the D keys doesn't seem to trigger reliably all the time like the other keys, I'm thinking that maybe the circuit board contacts are a bit dirty and needs cleaning with some isopropyl alcohol, and there's a front panel button that's sitting lower than it's supposed to, but I reckon we've done pretty well so far, at least the keyboard is working anyway.

There seems to be two left-over parts remaining, a screw and a metal mounting bracket, not sure where they're supposed to go so I'll have to have a good read of the service manual to find out.



Here's a screenshot of the display I'm currently seeing on the new and installed LCD screen:

Attachment 30411


It sounds pretty good through the built-in speakers, but it'll be interesting to hear what it'll sound like through my 300 Watt Behringer K3000FX Keyboard amp.

This is exactly why I would have never made a good brain surgeon. When I take stuff apart and put it back together, there is always something left over haha

Well done, good job Doc

Update:


I finally figured out where the extra metal bracket and screw were supposed to go so that satisfies my OCD, turns out the bracket was supposed to be screwed into place just over the DC in socket, my guess is that it both provides reinforcement for the DC in socket and supports the bottom half of the bottom cover, there was a vacant screw hole where one of the circuit boards (called the AM board) was fixed into place by 5 screws, I think everything is accounted for now.

Oh yeah, I found out why two of the front panel buttons were loose in the process, one part of the circuit board was actually covering a mounting screw, this was easily fixed and the front buttons are as they should be now.


Next thing to do is to sort-out the miss-triggering D key, should just be a case of cleaning some contacts with some contact cleaner spray and a Q-tip.


The contacts underneath the miss-triggering D-key definitely were a bit dirty, hopefully cleaning them should fix it....we'll see.


Yay!!!!.....the miss-triggering D-key is now fixed!!!!


I think that's about as close to fully working as I'm going to get the keyboard......job done and dusted!!!!