Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai CA95 step down to 110 V from 220 V?

Hello all, first post here.

I recently moved to the USA from Europe and brought my Kawai CA95 with me thinking that switching the transformer to accept 110 V would be easy. And it probably is, but I have not been successful at my first attempt. Inspired by this thread

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1778344/

I unsoldered the little metal leg that connected the mains to the transformer primary windings and moved it from the 220 V slot to the 120 V slot.

This is the before picture

http://postimg.org/image/jspvuqhe1/

And this is the after picture

http://postimg.org/image/3yy3g6kpf/

I thought that'd do it but no. The piano won't switch on. Now I think the connector cables (blue, white, black, brown) need to be swapped somehow, but I am not sure what the 110 V configuration is.

Has anybody gone through this before? Apart from the little soldering job I did, just changing the cables around and maybe the fuse ampage would be all that is necessary, wouldn't it?

If things are much more complicated I guess I will call an electrician. I initially thought that just moving the metal contact from 220 to 120 was all that was required, so I boldly took the step

Thanks!

If I were you I'd either buy the service manual to get full details, or have a Kawai tech do the work.

Thanks, that's sound advice. Do you know if the service manual is available for purchase somewhere? A google search did not help much.

I can't imagine changing the input wires is going to make the difference, but that does beg the question as to what power connector and plug you are now using? If it was me I would get a voltmeter out and see where the circuit is losing power or not creating DC from the AC. Suggestions to get help elsewhere are OK too, but I don't believe Kawai sell service manuals.

hechbah, please contact Kawai America to seek further assistance.

http://kawaius.com/nav_links/contacts2010.html

Kind regards,
James
x

Seems like it would be cheaper & easier just to get an external 110V -> 220V step up converter ... assuming Kawai America can't offer free service because you bought your piano in Europe.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Very kind of you.

Kawai James, I have followed your advice and have written to Kawai America. Hopefully they will get back to me and help me with this.

My situation is similar to yours. I purchased from Japan, the CA95 (not sold in China), transportation to China's Hainan Island, I saw in the user manual indicates that the voltage 110V, while China's voltage is 220V. I purchased a power transformer to solve the problem.

Just to update on this.

I contacted Kawai America Monady morning by email. As of now they have not yet got back to me. In the mean time, however, I sat down and drew a diagram of the circuit. It turned out that there was an additional pair of contacts for another jumper. These contacts shorted two big resistors which I presumed were probably preventing enough current to be drawn to some activation component which triggered the transformer at the lower 110 V. So I shorted those resistors by soldering the additional jumper. Switched on the piano, and voilá, worked like a charm. Problem solved.

If it was not working by now I would have called Kawai, but I am definitely not impressed by their availability over email. I hope I won´t have any serious problem with the instrument in the future...

You are a skilled craftsmen, congratulate you solve the problem. If I were not sure to take the risk. As far as I know, there are many electrical appliances, power has been configured to automatically adapt to various voltage. In my opinion, it does not appear to increase the cost of many?

Thanks for your information, I got a CA65 with 110V/50Hz and needed to convert into 220/50HZ.
My board is almost the same as yours except that it lacks of 2 resitors 3.3k Ohm that you had to shortened.

And it seems that you were lucky when just firstly changing the jumper from 220 to 100v because lower voltage wouldnt cause damage. But if I didnt see your picture of 220V board and comments, i would just change the pin and might damage it due to over voltage (100=>220 and missing 2 resitors).
However my father is an engineer and he helped me double check the board, we solder 2 additional resistors (3.3kOhm, 2W) and also replaced a capacitors (the original can only resist 100v, which in our calculate must be approximately 120v).

Total cost is about 4 cents (in contrary to almost 70$ as kawai suggested . Thanks alot