CZ-230s-troubleshooting

[pianokeyjoe]

Eeeep! oh no! Well That blows for us with Roland and Casio... I am wondering if I still have my LCD from the CZ230S or not. I can not really remember, but I think it has a black plastic mounting bezel? Not metal but plastic? I have so much stuff to look through when I build my tech room for SURE!

 

[IanB]

17 hours ago, Jokeyman123 said:

The MC505 LCD is nothing like the little "transreflective" non-backlit LCD in the CZ230s, I wish it had been so. The MC505 is an easy fix, mine has a new one and these are easy enough to get. The CZ-I'm afraid Cyber-Yogi is right-it is impossible to "re-laminate" these types of LCDs-it is such a thin ribbon connector-and the fault i found must have been inside the very LCD layer connected to the cable. There are a few Rolands floating around right now-forget which one-with backlit graphic display that delaminates-the supposed fix of reheating these defective displays you see on Youtube does not work- I tried this with I think it was an EXR-5 arranger which was an excellent keyboard except for the inherently defective screen-and although it temporarily brought back the graphic display and the backlight was fine-it faded again as soon as the heat cooled down. Apparently not all this technology is designed too well. These Rolands are notorious-as the display is not a drop-in replacement anywhere, and Roland will not release the part to anyone except-Roland.  The other is the Juno-G. Just passing it on. 

 

I wonder if the signals going into the ribbon from the main board could be decoded by a microcontroller and interfaced to a modern replacement LCD. I would imagine that is do-able.

 

Just looking at the CZ1000 schematic again for instance, it's just +-power, a brightness pot, 7 lines off the CPU data bus, a Read/Write line and another line "RS" which I would guess is the select line. They're presumably just bit banging 7 bit commands into the LCD.

[Jokeyman123]

If you have enough knowledge, IanB, sounds like you do. I don't have the CZ anymore-I remember the connections were so tiny and delicate-the hardware part might be th hardest part. I forgot exactly how the ribbon came off the IC board- but I seem to remember it was very frail, very tiny traces. Now the other CZ's-these have beautiful drop-in backlit displays available-but I had researched that too, and didn't think the data lines would match, but I did not go further to try. the other problem I recall-these small displays are somewhat hard to find-in a footpint that would fit the CZ-230s. unless you did some "surgery" which would also be possible. Jameco, Allelectronics are sources I've used for other unusual parts. I would get the shcematics for the backlit displays for the other CZ's if these are available, see if you can match anything up-and do a little hardware mod to fit these into the 230. Might work well. The Alesis Fusion group had to come up with alternatives to the stock display once it was discontinued-and managed to remove the fluorescent tube backlight and substitute LED strips, and found an inexpensive replacement here:

 

https://www.mpja.com/LCD-Display-240-X-128-Graphic-with-Backlight/productinfo/31003 OP/#

 

Might a good place to look for something for the 230s. These 240 x 128 are out of stock because all the Fusion owners buy them up! For 20.00, sure beats the usual price of 170.00, if you can find those. Slap a few LED strips on the side-bingo!  Just trying to give you some ideas. I'm sure it would make a few CZ230s owners happy-might restore quite a few.

[Jokeyman123]

Forgot this one-gave me a real good price for a replacement LCD for the Fusion-not 20.00 but they actually had a factory drop-in for it. Bought one as a sparet. Customer service was great-have schematics, worked with me to locate the right display, and its not an easy one to find. Might be able to get you something for the CZ230.

 

https://www.crystalfontz.com/

[pianokeyjoe]

Ok, I did buy drop in backlit replacements for the CZ101/1000 units which are slightly BIGGER circuit boards than the usual cheap LCD modules you find on ebay and so on. The Yamaha DX synths can use the same display but that is because the LCDs in most of these older keyboards were industry standard 16x2 dot matrix LCD modules. Mind you, SOME keyboards/tone modules will use a REVERSED pin out and I fell victim to this with a DX100! I learned my lesson and was able to restore the synth but the LCD module I tried to install died. But even THOSE reversed pin out LCDs, as long as you have actual data sheet with pin out and labels for each pin, you can adapt almost ANY of them that has the HD44780 character controller/ram combo in any size! But the CZ230S and HT keyboards use a CUSTOM LCD module that is NOT industry standard like the MT70,PT50,PT30 and so on.. ALL the modern Casio keyboards and digital Pianos also use custom LCD modules for said keyboards/piano models. So if ANY of these go south on you, you only have ONE option and that is find a working used module for that Casio model you are trying to fix. I think the reason I just kept my CZ3000, and jumped on the CZ5000 when I got it cheap is the fact that if anything goes south on them, I can fix them easy due to being able to use off the shelf parts and even upgrade parts from better sources to really make these 2 keyboards look good and rock! My CZ3000 is missing the LCD module right now cause I removed it to put the backlit version but then I met a woman, got married again and blah blah blah, my Casio is collecting dust unfinished. But the because the unit uses a industry standard LCD, I am not worried if I loose the original module or one of the backlit ones I bought for it(extended storage can ruin things I am finding out), I can just rebuy another $5 LCD! The CZ230S and HT is another story sadly. I do not think any electronics supplier will be able to match those totally custom modules.

[pianokeyjoe]

BTW, the CZ101/1000 display module overall size was hard to find but finally I got the dimensions though they are in metric and not in American Imperial measurements so it was double hard for me to find but the circuit board has to be 84mm long by 44mm tall. The CZ3000/5000 uses the standard size found almost everywhere which threw me for a loop(I assembled a CZ101 module only to find out the CZ3000 is smaller lol!). Sadly all these modules are only sold in China so it is a 50/50 chance of getting the right item, working item and getting the item at all.. But for $5USD each, I try.

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

You can not install any other CZ-series LCD into CZ-230S. While others have matrix displays (possibly a generic industrial part), the CZ-230S needs a custom layout segment display (much like a watch or calculator LCD) that can not be swapped.

 

It might be possible to emulate the CZ-230S display on e.g. an arduino with 2 row matrix display by writing a program that simulates the segments, but that would be a complicated task and nothing generic.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler

[Chas]

11 hours ago, CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler said:

You can not install any other CZ-series LCD into CZ-230S. While others have matrix displays (possibly a generic industrial part), the CZ-230S needs a custom layout segment display (much like a watch or calculator LCD) that can not be swapped.

 

It might be possible to emulate the CZ-230S display on e.g. an arduino with 2 row matrix display by writing a program that simulates the segments, but that would be a complicated task and nothing generic.

 

 

 

I wonder if the the CZ230S uses the same display as the CZ5000? That too has custom segments or characters unique to the model, and though a standard 16*2 replacement display will physically fit and mostly work, the custom characters needed for the CZ5000's sequencer operation will display as garbled.

 

Or is the CZ5000 display also different to the CZ230S display as well as the other CZs?

[pianokeyjoe]

@Chas The CZ5000 uses the same LCD display TYPE, as the CZ101/1000/2000S/2600S/3000/5000 and CZ1(but CZ1 is the only EL backlit version,same generic HD4778 controller-driver). I have the CZ3000 and CZ5000 now. Sadly, all the others I already sold after swapping the LCDs to backlit ones.