!!!!! IMPORTANT READ THIS FIRST - you should always avoid doing what i am doing unless you are experienced in handling electrical components, it is also critical for you to understand the safety measures you have to take to prevent injury, any harm or damage caused to your own self, others or equipment is not the responsibility of the 66Khz Productions Limited nor myself as an individual, if you are unsure you should seek advice before trying anything this article !!!!!
(This article is being updated until the synth is repaired).
Such a shame to see so many synth’s that are broken, I decided to learn more about the kit I use by buying the broken ones (cheaply of course). And I will be trying to repair them to their former glory! I am starting with the Korg X5D. Made in 1996 if my memory serves me correctly, and buried in its broken lost chest it contains a personality and individual sound I hope to add to my sound arsenal, upon it’s resurrection.
What I will do is document the process as best as possible, with photos and so on…
Problems that were sold to me, sounds crazy… But they are as follows:
Broken Bank buttons, completely smashed into the keyboard, that’ll be the rattling sound I can here.
Shattered Key.
And finally the unit does no turn on, all for under £80 on eBay,’ he must be nuts’ I hear you say! A lot of devices can be repaired easily i am sure…
Well, lets see if i got lucky, will be updated later…
09-August-2011
And so it works!
Here is exactly what I had to do…
I first dismantled the synth as it would not turn on! I drew out all the screws after i turned the synth over with a ‘screw map’. A fancy term for paper and pencil 
Trust me for the 2mins it takes it can save hours later some synths have so many different sized screws and often the fault is buried behind multiple layers!
Step 1
With the screws off of the back I proceeded to examine what was in front of me (shown below).
Mmmm i checked all the cables first, after doing so i had all kinds of filth in there, hair food and er… No I won’t go there but seriously it was a bit unpleasant!! 
Next step is to go and get a universal power supply set it to 12v and see where i can go from there!
Unbelievably the power supply just worked!! So surprised that someone sold it to me but never bothered to get another power supply, looks like i got a great deal here.
Any, I still had a fiddly task of opening the synth to get to the two remaining issues:
A broken key.
And the broken navigation button, completely smashed inside the synth, hopefully the board was not damaged!
Images below show the damage…
And the retrieved part…
To be continued…
4 comments
google says:
August 21, 2011 at 8:25 pm (UTC 1)
I liked your article is an interesting technology
thanks to google I found you
admin says:
August 25, 2011 at 9:38 am (UTC 1)
Good glad you like it.
Do come back for more updates.
Jomar Valera says:
August 24, 2011 at 2:07 pm (UTC 1)
how would you fix it if the problem is the keypad? i mean the F1 dont make a sound and the “3″ 8th note after that with no issue on the rubber…coz the rubbers are in goodd condition..what might be the problem of my x5d?
admin says:
August 25, 2011 at 9:34 am (UTC 1)
Hi Jomar,
Thanks for visiting, hope I can help…
Firstly do you mean that you have opened the synth already?
If so, then perhaps you can get hold of a multimeter and test the connections.
I will be updating the post and one of the images has a photo of the back of the keyboard module, this can be removed completely.
Every key has its own resistance from memory, so it could be the keys that dont work may have blown.
Without correct testing it’s hard to tell though…
Can you get back to me and i can see what can be done.
Regards…
Omar