SUCCESS STORIES: Yamaha Keyboard P-95 sound problem (speakers & headphones)

FlorianK

Joined Dec 17, 2020
1
Thanks for sharing this. My wife's P95 had the same problem after being stored away for a few years. Switching C216 and C217 solved the issue!
 

waltergrund

Joined Dec 14, 2020
1
Hello everyone,

I have a Yamaha P-95 that after approximately one year of being stored, currently is not emmiting any sound from either speakers or headphone plugs.

I checked the functionality of the Keyboard and the MIDI processing was ok. I tried all the quick solutions out there (enabling internal audio, check if something is blocking the headphone plugs, cleaned volume key), I figured it had to be the amp board so I decided to open it and see if there was a component with blackened leads, or some visual clue of the problem, but unluckily the problem wasn't so evident and there were no faulty components to be seen.

Looking for schematics I came across a post in this forum that stated a similar problem:
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/speaker-relay-on-yamaha-r-90-receiver-not-closing.77234/
In wich it states that the keyboard has a protection circuitry that closes the speaker feed relay if after a few seconds from turning on the output stage is found healthy. This is indeed the case as I can hear the relay closing, and even opening again each time I connect headphones on either plug.

The strange part is that, trying to troubleshoot the situation, I unplugged the headphones board and after reconnecting it, the problem went away... unitl I turned the keyboard off and on.

Sadly the service manual has no schematics of any board. It only shows the disassembly of the unit.

Any thoughts on what may be the problem?

Thanks for reading,
German.
Hey,
just bought a P95 with the very same Diagnosis. No sound, but Midi was working. I exchanged C216 + C217 then checked them with my Multimeter, they had been okay. Then exchanged C112 also. Bam! This one was broken. You couldn't see it from the outside. P95 working fine again. Thanks a lot!!!
Walt
 
Hey,
just bought a P95 with the very same Diagnosis. No sound, but Midi was working. I exchanged C216 + C217 then checked them with my Multimeter, they had been okay. Then exchanged C112 also. Bam! This one was broken. You couldn't see it from the outside. P95 working fine again. Thanks a lot!!!
Walt
This fixed it so awesome
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,167
This thread is very educational indeed! Now I am wondering about the brand of those capacitors, C212, 216, and 217, that are havingto be replaced, and the date-code on them, if there is any date code. I seldom work on keyboards, BUt the same brand of caps is probably used in other sorts of electronic stuff as well. Knowing who are the likely suspects would be useful is my reason for asking.
 

flugwolle

Joined Feb 4, 2021
1
Hello,
I had the same problem, no sound.

All capacitors on the AM board changed. Now it works again. When the capacitors were subsequently measured, only capacitor C113, 33µF turned out to be defective.
Thank you for the valuable tips.

Wolfgang
 
I had a somewhat larger electrolytic in my junk box (50V, 150 microfarads). I found the bad capacitor by using my voltmeter, and found that one of them, C217, was shorted out. I replaced C217 with the junkbox capacitor and voila, the keyboard started working.
 
Hey,
I also bought a P95 with that issue. All capacitors was fine except of the cracked one C112 wich was shortened. After changing that one the P95 works fine again. Thanks for the informations that I got here to get the courage to buy and repair a P-95!

BR from Germany
Julian
 

etran44

Joined May 5, 2021
1
Hello AAC members !

I 'd like to thank you for all these advices and feedbacks :

I had the same issue with a P95.

As a newbie with electronics soldering, I bought a starter kit and a couple capacitors, then replaced C216 . I damaged the printed circuit when removing C217 so didn't replace this one :)

I replaced C408 just in case also, and the piano works, except the left speaker maybe that C2
17 left over , but its all right , as I already thought my piano was dead !

Thanks again to the community

Best regards.

Eric
 

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,845
Welcome to AAC!
As a newbie with electronics soldering, I bought a starter kit and a couple capacitors, then replaced C216 . I damaged the printed circuit when removing C217 so didn't replace this one
The normal failure mode for electrolytic caps is open (an initial short may cause the open circuit condition), you can tack a good cap across the terminals of the suspect one (observing correct polarity). If that fixes the problem, then it needs to be replaced.

Troubleshooting a single bad cap is straightforward. If you have multiple bad caps, it will be more difficult to isolate the bad ones. Start by looking for bulging caps.
 

Defalt

Joined May 22, 2021
1
Hello, I have been in this forum for several days, the problem I have is that the volume of my P95 is extremely low and only one of the speakers sounds
 

Dedo

Joined Jul 23, 2021
1
Same problem with Yamaha P95, (2012 production) no sound from speakers or headphones ( only led lights are on and operational ) after changing C216 cap P95 is working again the only problem I have now is when I press on- off on the keyboard it will cut the sound off from the speakers or headphones led power light is on no sounds at that point only power light is there (does not go off) when I unplug power supply and plug back on it works again sound is back keyboard is working to shut it off I need to shut it off from the keyboard or from the wall and than again plug it to the wall - keyboard on off is like not there will no do a thing .Could someone be helpful with that. Thank You very much.

Hi JURECKI,
I have the same problem. Did you solve this? Or you change the AM or the DM board.
Thanks! :)

Juan
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,167
Hi JURECKI,
I have the same problem. Did you solve this? Or you change the AM or the DM board.
Thanks! :)

Juan
But we hear that it cuts off the sound, and so the switch and it's wires must be OK. Does that same on/off switch turn it on when you want it to? Or do you have to unplug and then replug before it works?
Here is a guess, which is that afterrelacing the failed capacitor, some connection is not in the right place. But having never seen the P95 I am not able to point at the exact cause.
 
But we hear that it cuts off the sound, and so the switch and it's wires must be OK. Does that same on/off switch turn it on when you want it to? Or do you have to unplug and then replug before it works?
Here is a guess, which is that afterrelacing the failed capacitor, some connection is not in the right place. But having never seen the P95 I am not able to point at the exact cause.
Tools used: phillips screwdriver, basic soldering iron with temperature control, solder (60/40), solder suction pen, multimeter, a 6-8" piece of thin (22/24 AWG) solid wire (e.g. from a spool of Cat5 cable), brain, patience, extra patience, swear jar.
Parts: the 100uF/16v electrolytic cap of course. I had bought a variety pack of basic parts a year back, so I was lucky to have stock on hand. I'd look up ham radio clubs in your area and drop them an email asking for 2-5 of these caps. You'll not only reward their pack rat tendencies, but you'll make a new friend in the process. I'm not a ham, but I know some and they're always looking for people to get interested in their hobby.

I have the P-95B and the AM board is exactly the same as the schematic from the P-85 service manual. I had considered buying an ESR meter which is a $70 way to identify the broken cap, but I thought I might be able to reason my way through this. I had two big head starts. First, I have the schematic which Google helped me find. Some studying let's you identify likely candidate test points. Second is that this forum clearly shows that the 100uF/16V electrolytic caps fail after about 10-12 years, typically in places that get a lot of spikes (headphones, so C216/C217) or have a lot of power pass through them. My problem ended up being the latter, but I thought others here would benefit from the troubleshooting technique I used so that they can narrow the list of caps down to a few rather than replace at random, risking the pads breaking loose.

If you are rusty on removing components, I recommend getting something out of the rubbish pile and practicing your desoldering skills there before working on a board you care about. While your practicing, put the part or wires back in the hole and practice your soldering skills. It's easy to do a bad solder so do some Youtube-in.

I was able to do powered-on testing while disassembled by carefully connecting the long ribbon cables. Think VERY carefully about the directions the cables are connected and ensure that they are fully seated. Think carefully about your work setup so that nothing is going to tug on the ribbon cables because that's just game over if they break something. A soft carpet or towel will do nicely.

I had five main areas to test: power supply, audio standby, headphone connectors, audio output, audio input. The board runs off of 12v and 5v and the keyboard must be plugged in and powered on for these tests. Leave the AM board secured to the chassis. According to the LA4625 data sheet, the amplifier needs 12v on pin1 4, 5v on pin 2, and 3.2v on pin 4 (audio standby). The 5v power supply was easy to test - find IC102 or IC103 which are both NJM4580D opamps. Pin 1 of IC102 has a filled circle on the package. Numbering is counterclockwise, so ground is at the end of the row on pin 4 and 5v (Vcc) is pin 8, opposite pin 1. Set your multimeter to DC volts, around 15v but more than 12v. If your multimeter is registering 5v on those pins, then caps C408 and C404 are fine, as are the two voltage regulators. Now that you can find a reliable ground from the top side of the board, let's check 12v. Leave your ground lead to the tester on IC102 pin 4. Find C115 near the amp attached to the heat sink. The plus side of C115 is 12v (negative has a big black strip). You could get your tester on both pins of C115 and have the same effect, but it's tight quarters. If you've got 12v, then we know that caps C412 and C417 are fine - I think these are the large ones. If you've got weird behavior, like @default has, I'd start my investigation with whether or not power is stable.

Now that we know power is stable, it is on to audio standby. During power up, some self protection is used to avoid pops that damage speakers. The first protection is the standby line which is held low (to ground) until the super fancy digital board passes some initial tests and is ready to go, after which it raises to about 3.5v. Check one side of R122 for voltage. Anything over 3v is a win. If you really want, keep your probe on ground (IC102, pin 4) and R112 aand have a third hand power cycle the keyboard. You should see it stay at 0v for 1-2 seconds and then go to 3.5v. This told me that the main digital board is good.

The second audio standby test is the relay. If you've been playing this keyboard for any length of time, then you have the click memorized and would recognize it if it was different. If you hear a sharp click 1-2 seconds after power on, then the relay is probably just fine. If you never hear the relay click, then assume it's fine and check the circuit around it. Finding the exact relay is not fun and it's tough to find a substitute that has the same pin out and separation.

For these last tests, we need a steady source of sound, so start demo mode by pressing Select-Left and Demo at the same time. You can put the volume slider at mid level. If you're not sure that you're doing it right, you can just start the metronome and you get a blinking light.

Testing the headphones might be hard, but I decided to bypass the circuit to see if the dedicated headphone board had something wrong inside. As a bonus, we also work out if audio is coming out of the amp. Locate the middle connector with the speakers. Leave it plugged in. Now look under the heatsink near the amplifier IC. You should see four red capacitors and some resistors. I think R222 is closest. Use a wire to touch the right side of R222 to the white wire on the speaker connector. You probably could just set your multimeter to AC volts, say around 20V, and look for any voltage on R222 (use IC102 pin 4 for ground). If you still hear silence or have very low voltage, then the problem is at or before the amplifier. If you hear sound, then everyone's favorite caps, C216 and C217 have both probably taken a static shock that shorted them out. I mean, even if the problem is somewhere else, I'd replace those caps as part of the job if your soldering skills are good enough.
Finally, it's time to challenge the audio input to the amp. Your multimeter must be on AC volts, but this time measuring something below 5v. With one tester lead on ground (IC102, pin 4), put the other lead on resistor R112. If you get voltage, then audio is going to the amp. Double check it by stopping demo mode or the metronome and the voltage should drop to nearly zero. If there's no sound, then cap C108 is your friend to replace. If you were only getting sound from one channel, I'd check caps C108 and C208 early on in your testing as they have likely failed open, meaning a multimeter test for a short won't work.

If you got this far something is wrong at the amp. Look closely for scorch marks. If you see them, I guess you're buying a new amp IC and some thermal paste. Be sure to stick to the exact model number because a slightly different version has the same pins but more current draw which will likely exceed the design of this board and the speakers.

If there are no scorch marks, then C112 is probably keeping 5V from getting to the amp. Check the plus side of C112 for 5v (ground on IC102, pin 4), if there's wiggle room. My problem was C112 failed closed (a short) and was what finally fixed my board.

So, if you've read this whole forum and think that we're all guessing, please know that it's not true. Everyone's comments over the years in this thread gave me a strong bias towards dead caps. I looked at nothing else. I wonder how many other jobs would have worked if I'd considered that the caps might be dead. Yes, I had to spend over two hours reasoning about how the circuit worked and just as much developing tests. I've recorded some fundamental tests here that should help narrow down where your failure is at. Let's imagine that you had no voltage on resistor R112 while the metronome or music were playing. I'd go back in the circuit and see if the input to to the AM board had anything. This would be a check on R101 and R201 and no voltage on them would be a failure on the digital board. But failures around the op amps and inputs would likely only affect one channel which narrows your choice of caps too. Total failure is something that affects the whole system.

For those of you who harped on failed caps, I thank you. Someone early on mentioned an ESR tester and I'll probably get one the next time I have a repair but no schematic. I am so proud to have fixed this. I groaned with pain at the waste that would go from an instrument that's in otherwise fantastic shape. Reduce, re-use, (repair,) recycle.
 

eleven01

Joined Aug 21, 2021
1
Adding my experience... Success after replacing c216, c217, c404, and c408. I was planning on replacing all the capacitors of the same type, but the store only had 4 in stock, so I decided to try the most likely offenders based on the recommendations in this post.

Interestingly, c217 failed the continuity test (meaning it gave me a continuity beep so it must be shorted), BUT it showed success via the ohmmeter test whereas c216 didn't, so it was weird that the results didn't match up.

Regardless, I tried and was going to go back in and replace the others after ordering more capacitors if needed, but this was successful.

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and advice.
 

dsky

Joined Jul 22, 2022
2
My daughter's P95 stopped suddenly working. After a quick search I found this topic and I joined the AAC forum to download the service manuals (the schematic is only in the P85 one, so download them both). I started troubleshooting the issue in a "professional way" but then I accepted the initial suggestions to check C216 and C217 (where I found a different voltage) and indeed one of the two capacitors was shorted out. Luckily I already had similar parts in the box with "spare parts from previous projects" and in no time I replaced both of them (if one shorted-out it is logical to expect that the other will follow the same path).
It is also possible to verify the capacitors for short circuit using a multimeter with the continuity check function.

I have to say that the intelligent discussion in this forum saved me a lot of time.

Thanks to all the people that posted here. I added this report of mine to keep the topic active, because it seems that more and more people will encounter this problem sooner or later.
 

megc33

Joined Sep 4, 2021
3
My daughter's P95 stopped suddenly working. After a quick search I found this topic and I joined the AAC forum to download the service manuals (the schematic is only in the P85 one, so download them both). I started troubleshooting the issue in a "professional way" but then I accepted the initial suggestions to check C216 and C217 (where I found a different voltage) and indeed one of the two capacitors was shorted out. Luckily I already had similar parts in the box with "spare parts from previous projects" and in no time I replaced both of them (if one shorted-out it is logical to expect that the other will follow the same path).
It is also possible to verify the capacitors for short circuit using a multimeter with the continuity check function.

I have to say that the intelligent discussion in this forum saved me a lot of time.

Thanks to all the people that posted here. I added this report of mine to keep the topic active, because it seems that more and more people will encounter this problem sooner or later.
Great to hear! I'm a bit hesitant and still haven't made the jump to try and replace my capacitors after the same has happened- did you remove C216 & C217 and then test them with a multimeter out of circuit? I'm just unsure as to how to test them before removing them. Very new to all of this / have minimal experience.
 

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,845
did you remove C216 & C217 and then test them with a multimeter out of circuit? I'm just unsure as to how to test them before removing them.
If the caps are shorted, you can test them in circuit. If they've opened, you won't be able to measure that, but you can put a known good capacitor in parallel with the one you have suspicions about. If doing that helps, then you know removing and replacing that cap will help.

Blindly removing and replacing components is just guessing. When I was a technician, we called that technique "shotgunning".
 

dsky

Joined Jul 22, 2022
2
If the caps are shorted, you can test them in circuit. If they've opened, you won't be able to measure that, but you can put a known good capacitor in parallel with the one you have suspicions about. If doing that helps, then you know removing and replacing that cap will help.

Blindly removing and replacing components is just guessing. When I was a technician, we called that technique "shotgunning".
Yes I confirm the above. A short-circuit is a short-circuit so you can test them "in-circuit" (with power removed). Interesting enough, when power is applied, if you measure the voltage of each capacitor terminal with respect to ground, you will see different values. The circuit in that section is symmetrical (L and R channel) so the values should read the same: this was the first thing I did.
 
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