Hey all! Recently got an Optigan, model number 35002 where none of the chord buttons or switches worked. I figured it was something as simple as cleaning the contacts, but it turned out to be a bit more involved. I posted some pics of the process to possibly help out others in case people are in the same boat.

First, taking the Optigan apart and getting to the circuit board was a task in itself. Once I got that far, I noticed a couple things...
1. The circuit boards was not the same as the circuit board which was sold (and now sold out) at the store. The plastic piece used to create the contact was not present in my model. Thus, the depression of the buttons themselves coming into contact with (what I will call) copper 'lines' that hover over the circuit board, was what made sole contact to the circuit board.

2. It looked as if between the plastic piece on top of the board, and the copper 'lines' that hover over the pads to make contact, there was some type of wax paper. This paper, over time, looked to have dried out and broken in many pieces as well as wedging themselves between the 'lines' and pad, thus getting NO contact what-so-ever.
3. The previous owner of my Optigan must have started to experience troubles with these keys and figured out that wiggling the keys would make a better contact. To my luck, he completely scratched away the gold coating to the pad. Not that much of a problem...but since the circuit boards are sold out, I had to repair this one.


So...being that I just couldn't buy a new board...I set out to fix this one. I first vacuumed out the broken wax paper and tweezer'ed out anything that was still wedged. It didn't seem easy to remove the plastic piece from the circuit board being that they were pressed together with some type of O-ring and I didn't want to break it. I then, carefully, pulled each line to the side of the contact and rotated it 90 degrees. These were corroded and I used a sharp pointed knife to scrape away the corrosion.


As you can see, every pad had been scratched, so now came the tricky part. I got my soldering iron out and 'tinned' each pad with a thin layer of solder. This was tricky because you don't want the solder to catch the copper line and become permanently soldered to the line, and you also don't want to put too much solder on the pad, thus making a 'fat' surface where the line would be easily succeptable to making contact. So, with a steady hand, I soldered over the scratched part and made sure the surface was thin and smooth.


The result...? A fully functional Opitgan with all the buttons working. There are a few times where the button doesn't catch the line directly (being that the copper lines are much thinner than the button) but wiggling the button a bit will make the contact. With the lack of circuit boards out there, I figure this could help out some people that may find themselves in the same situation.


Hope this helps some of you guys out!


Also...as a general question...would there be any interest in circuit boards? I'm an electrical engineering myself, and designing some exact same boards wouldn't seem that hard.

i think if you were to make new chord circuit boards for the optigan, the key would be to make something that works much more reliably than the optigan. i have had old stock circuit boards available on this website off and on, and there generally hasn't been a huge demand for them. but i think if you had something with proven reliability, many folks would probably want to upgrade, as cleaning the chord contacts is one of the most common AND most annoyingly difficult service jobs on the optigan.

Hey Pea... Great site and nice to hear from you.

If I were to create something my idea would be to use what most electronics manufacturers are doing now-a-days with electronics that have contacts which is the silicon/rubber mat that sits on top of the circuit board similar to what is found in remote controls for TV's. The board would have to be redesigned compared to the old ones and then one of those mats would be designed to sit on top of that. From there...the chord buttons would push the mat to make the contact instead of the metal-to-metal contact.

But yeah...it all depends on if people would be interested. How many boards have you had in the past? If they're sold out, it seems that they were in demand?

i never had many spares to begin with. my guess is i've sold 10 or 12 of them over the past few years.