Hi everyone. I need a bit of help with an LCD screen. It's a screen from a music keyboard (Korg Krome).

The thing is my keyboard got wet, I mean really really wet. It was actually submerged in a swimming pool for three weeks after some burglars broke into my house. I let it dry for three months in the garage and then decided to test it. Everything works perfectly, except for the screen. I would assume it needs to be replaced, but its behaviour is very strange and I don't want to spend money in a LCD screen + Digitizer without knowing for sure the fault is there.

For the first few days after plugging it up, the screen kind of flickered and displayed inverted colors, but it worked all the time. Then, it gradually started working better and better. After around 10 days of using, it displayed correct colors during 90% of the time or more without a single issue. But after that, one day, it turned white while using it, and I had to reboot. I didn't pay much attention because it continued to work OK for many hours after that. Then, the day after that, again: it turned white while using it. So I rebooted again, but this time, it turned grey while booting the OS. I repeated many times, always with the same result.

I disassembled the keyboard, cleaned every connector and reassembled everything again. No change. It still does the exact same thing. One of the strange things is that after being unplugged for an hour or so, the screen exhibits its initial behaviour for a couple of minutes (inverted colors and flickering), then it suddenly displays correct image, but only for a few seconds, because it turns white after that. Whenever the screen turns white, it showed a correct image just before it happened. If it's flickering and displaying inverted colors, then it doesn't turn white.

Another strange thing I notice is that the SD card is not recognized while the screen is flickering, so it's like the screen itself is making some kind of interference preventing the SD card from working, or some other component is making interference making the SD card unreadable and causing the screen to turn white.

I'm a newbie when it comes to electronics, so I'd like your opinion on the matter. Where do you think the fault could be and what possible solution comes to your mind?

Thank you very much!

P.S.: I'm attaching a video showing the screen turning grey, so you can see for yourself what the screen actually looks like when it fails (it turned grey because the background was black at the moment, but it turns white if it happens after booting because the background would be white).

 

hi diego,
After water immersion and long dry out time it is possible that connector contacts may have corroded or become tarnished.
I my action would be to disconnect the unit from the mains supply.
From your local electronics supplier get a can of contact cleaner/lubricant.
Remove one connector at a time clean both sets of mating contacts and reconnect.
Do this for all the connector contact pairs, also any open fuse holders.

E

 

Often, the screen connection is made with light pressure contacts, that will corrode. Remove screen and lightly clean the contacts with a clean pencil eraser. Don’t touch the contacts, reassemble.

 

It is very impressive that it survived. I would have expected a ton of corrosion that would lead to it failing completely. So it is very likely the contacts. As others have said, try cleaning them. You can waterproof most electronics cheaply with certain putties or even a nail polish solution. If you think it could happen again.

Also, as I was writing this, I almost spilled water on my computer. Thankfully I caught the glass before it ruined it.