Casio DG-20, fretboard

One last repair for the DG-20 before I can start considering breaking it in some other way! Any electronic instrument from the 80s is very much a excellent candidate for circuit-bending after all.. ;)

When I got it, the DG-20 had serious problems deciding whether a note was held on the fretboard or not. In closer inspection it turned out that a previous owner had attempted some kind of repairs on the fretboard. Like said, it’s too bad that this person had decided to remove the rubber mat by pulling it off from the fretboard instead of doing it properly, in turn tearing the mat into three slices. To illustrate the structure just for you (<3), I made the this fancy mspaint diagram:

Slice diagram of neck / fretboard

So in its original configuration, the rubber mat attaches to the fretboard with the bits wrapping around the PCB edges. Once this combination is installed to the neck (double-sided tape and two screws used on the PCB), the mat will stay nicely put although it’s not actually fastened with anything else than surface contact.

Casio DG-20, headpiece mech

Advancing with the DG-20 repairs..  Against my initial plan of “covering the rest of mech stuff at once”, the focus this time will be entirely on fixing the damaged headpiece mech. It turned out that some previous owner of my DG-20 has been kind enough to remove the fretboard rubber mat by tearing it off and attaching it back with some “hard plastic” type glue. Sooo.. because of this the rubber mat is in three pieces (instead of one) and there’s a neat glue mess waiting to be cleaned off the fretboard, all adding up to a bit of extra repair “fun” for me. Thanks a bunch.

These here are what this post is about, the DG-20 headpiece string tuning mech. A complete original part above and the damaged below it.

Casio DG-20, power supply

Guess what I bought last weekend.. :D

The instrument Darth Vader would use if he was into playing..

Yes, it’s the silly looking (and ridiculously overweight) guitar synth straight from the 80s, made famous by Flight of the Conchords.. the Casio DG-20! You probably now know what to expect to be reading in this blog over the coming weeks.. ;)