The first question of course is why am I repairing an almost brand new instrument? Well, I was at a jam last week and I was getting ready to play so I picked it up by the strap like I always do. However this time the strap (the stock Roland one that came with it) came off one of the buttons allowing that end of the unit to fall. As it did so it of course, rotated the other button out of it’s strap slot allowing the whole unit to fall onto the floor.
Fortunately there did not seem to be any damage other than a very slight crack to one edge of the clam-shell case of the unit. At least it seemed to play ok and indeed has continued to do so since then.
I did notice however that the tremolo bar, that’s the one that you squeeze, not the touch bar, just did not feel right after that. It still worked but it seemed ‘loose’ is the only way I can describe it. So finally I decided to heck with it, lets take it apart and have a look.
So the first task is to separate the two clam-shell halves. To do this you need to remove all the LARGER screws from the rear of the case. There are 14 around the edge and five along a recess in the center below the keyboard itself. You do NOT need to remove the smaller screws at all.
Once all the screws are out you can separate the two parts quite easily but be gentle, there are cable connecting the top and bottom parts together on the left side (where the grip is) and they are not very long. I quickly decided that I could not really even see inside there without fully separating the two halves so I disconnected the cables.
Three are connected with clips that go into sockets on the circuit boards fastened to the top part of the clam-shell whilst one is a ribbon cable that simply slides into a connector. To disconnect the clipped cables just pull gently on the top or sides of the clip. Do NOT pull on the wires that go into the clip, use a finger nail or small screwdriver if you cannot grip the clip to help remove them. They are not too tight. For the ribbon cable, securely grip the cable near the bottom which is reinforced and just pull it out of the socket on the circuit board. With the cabled disconnected you can separate the two halves of the clam-shell.
The touch pad and vibrato bar are mounted on a sub unit circuit board fastened to the top part of the clam-shell. The board is fastened to the clam-shell by four screws, one in each corner (yellow circles in the picture below). There are two other screws (red circles) that fasten the touch pad to the circuit board. I also removed these although I now know that I didn’t have too.
There’s also a plug (black circle) that connects to the circuit board that I disconnected. With all that done I could remove the sub assembly.
Once I had the sub assembly out it became clear what was wrong with the the tremolo bar. In the center of the sub assembly in the picture above there is a small spring that is circled (light yellow). This is the return spring for the vibrato bar. It hooks onto a couple of small clips, one end onto that metal piece above the assembly and one end onto a small plastic projection on the vibrato bar. The fall onto the floor must have dislodged the spring so the bar did not return at all when released and just rattled loosely instead. Two sec0nds to reattach the spring and all was well.
Put it all back together and it’s as good as ever and the vibrato bar does feel a lot better too now.
As for the straps, I got a couple of Dunlop Ergo Guitar locks. A cheap and quick fix to the strap problem.
By the way, if you want to replace the strap buttons with some sort of ‘real’ locking guitar strap system then be aware that the strap buttons are BOLTED to the metal frame inside the lower clam-shell case half. This means that to change them you will still need to separate the clam-shell halves and the cables as you cannot really work with the cables still connected, they are just not long enough to get enough separation of the case halves.
Branch on Maybe 
September 17, 2020 at 8:58 am |
Hi!
I have a Roland Lucina that would turn on, and after a few seconds it would lock up and stop working.
Now I did a Reset “Factory Settings” and simply, in addition to continuing to block, it has stopped playing.
I think it is a problem with some integrated circuit, I don’t know if it has happened to someone else and if you have any clue about the fault, which would be very helpful… Thanks!
September 17, 2020 at 9:20 am |
Contrary to popular belief, electronic circuits do wear out. It’s usually something like a capacitor on a circuit board that ends up shorting out. Even if you could find it, replacing the surface mounted components by hand is not for the faint of heart. It ‘might’ be the power supply components which are usually somewhat bulkier and easier to work with but the fact a factry reset changed the behavour tends to make me think that it is not that. Roland themselves or an authorized repair service might be able to service it but you have to weight the cost of that against either trying to find another one that works or going with something else.
It’s a shame they stopped making it, I thought it was a pretty cool instrument. I still play mine from time to time.
December 18, 2017 at 9:34 pm |
I dropped my AX-09 White Lucina keytar (Again). The volume button is still intact. However, it isn’t functioning now as it should. I have to turn it about 3/4 of the way up and jiggle it to hear audio. When I let go, the audio is gone. Sometimes it locks in audio if I leave it completely still while playing. I disassembled it and looked around for anything loose but couldn’t find anything. I reassembled it and have no idea where to go with this. I’m bummed out. Should I try to pull off the button and hopefully straighten something out? It looks okay but I’m thinking I knocked some connection loose that I can’t see. I saw that the Roland Lucina AX-09 37-Key Keytar Synthesizer – Pearl White is no longer available. Thanks.
December 19, 2017 at 8:44 am |
Hard to say what the problem is without seeing it but it ‘sounds’ like the shaft or contact on the volume potentiometer has come loose.
You can probably replace just the pot with a new one but I would not recommend unless you know how to solder small electrical circuits. Probably easiest to get a complete new board with the potentiometer on it and swap the boards over.
You may be able to get a board from Roland themselves but I have no idea of a part number nor price. Best option is probably e-Bay or Craigslist.
And yes, they have stopped making the Lucina. I knew I should have bought a 2nd one when everyone was selling their old stock off cheap a couple of years ago!
June 6, 2017 at 8:58 pm |
Thank you!
June 6, 2017 at 8:57 pm |
I’m not sure the instrument is a clearance, when I got it and play it one time that was it. Out of tune it became
September 14, 2017 at 1:12 pm |
Same thing with mine….i sent it back got a replacement one that did the same so i sent it back also and said F&$^ Roland Ax 09 and got the korg rk100s
June 6, 2017 at 8:53 pm |
Hi everyone I have a Roland AX-09, my issue is that the keyboard will not stay in tune for some reason don,t know why can anyone help????
June 6, 2017 at 9:08 pm |
I was going to say it ‘might’ be the clock circuit that controls the frequency of operation of the digital circuits and hence the playback speed of the sampled sounds but those circuits are a) simple and b) pretty robust.
The touch slide bar in the grip can be configured to control tone shift so that you can get a slide effect on notes. I would suspect that, or the associated controller board in the grip before anything else. If it’s the board, not much you can do except find a replacement, ditto the slide bar itself, otherwise look for loose cables or connectors.
February 26, 2014 at 10:40 pm |
On my Lucina, two of the screws were shorter and had a different screw pitch than the others. I have deduced that they were the two for the handle area, as the others didn’t want to do in there. SO a note to future readers: double check all your screws before you throw the 19 into a pile because they look almost the same. :) Also, I replaced the built in strap holders with schecter style strap locks, and they are working great so far.
October 20, 2013 at 4:17 pm |
Those ergo locks were ‘ok’ but not great, they would come apart sometimes so the strap would still come off unless you kept checking them. In the end I figured they were more trouble then they were worth and went for proper guitar strap locks.
Of course the buttons for the ‘proper’ guitar locks did not qite fit in the molded locations in the Lucina so I had to file them down a little. Worked great though and I’ve had no problems since. Well worth the effort to do the job properly.
October 20, 2013 at 10:51 am |
Separate the clam shell halves as described and you should be able to get a pair of pliers or small wrench on the nut to hold it in place while you tighten the screw.
October 20, 2013 at 11:48 am |
Hey Thanks for the reply! That is what I ended up doing and yep, it worked!
With the Dunlops ergo locks, I just placed those over the regular button straps? I bought dunlops straplock, system, but im not goingto go through that trouble to replace them. LOL :)
Thanks agian! We might be abke to share tips in the Lucina.
October 20, 2013 at 10:29 am |
I wish I had read the article before trying to remove my strap buttons. I loosen one of them, and now I can’t tighten it agian. What do I use to tighten the bolt?
October 20, 2013 at 10:12 am |
I wish I had read the article before trying to remove my strap buttons. I loosen one of them, and now I can’t tighten it agian. What do I uwe to tighten the bolt?
December 27, 2012 at 10:44 pm |
Thanks a lot man! Because of you I have the courage to unscrew and open up my Lucina. Now, my strap-lock can attached firmly on my keytar. This article is really helpful
September 19, 2012 at 3:21 pm |
Hi there, I understand that this blog is a little old and you might not reply but may as well give it a go. I want to give the Lucina a “respray”. Spoken to a Car Garage that are willing to do it, but they need the “body” only (without the insides). Is it possible to remove the electronics and keys safely so they can be reapplied in full working order after respray???
Sorry for weird question, thanks for taking time to create the article :D
September 19, 2012 at 3:44 pm |
As far as I know it should be possible although I have not done it. I would expect that everything will just unscrew. Just be careful not to over tighten screws when reassembling as it is easy to strip the holes in the plastic that the screws go into. They are not intended for repeated use.
February 27, 2012 at 2:35 pm |
Not on the Lucina but it’s a totally different beast to the AX Synth so there could well be a battery in that. But batteries last a LONG time. I’d be surprised if the battery (assuming it has one) had died. The one in my Yamaha EX7 lasted about 10 years. The battery is really only there to keep things like the system clock alive while it is powered off so it knows what the date/time is when it turns back on (assuming the architecture is very much like a computer because it probably is!). When the devices is powered on, the battery does nothing so I just cannot see it affecting the ability to save patches but as always, this information is probably worth what you paid for it, so I could well be wrong. Hope you get it sorted.
February 27, 2012 at 1:35 pm |
Hi, Thank you for taking pictures of the inside, I am having problems with my Ax-Synth, and as they are very similar I ended up here…
I am unable to save patches, I tried a Factory Reset but nothing changed so I was considering to open the keyboard and look for BIOS battery or something, but looking at your Lucina I almost cannot see components, the electronics design seems incredibly simple… did you noticed a battery of any kind? Thanks
December 31, 2011 at 2:20 pm |
Hi there, thanks for posting this. Do you happen to know if the Lucina and the AX-1 / AX-7 keys are interchangeable ?
December 31, 2011 at 3:26 pm |
No idea, sorry.
June 6, 2017 at 8:59 pm
Thank you sir!