Hello everyone,
I’m playing this keyboard for years and was very happy with the Fatar keys. Unfortunately the mainboard crashed yesterday. I contacted the German support but I’am afraid they cannot help me because the keyboard is too old and there are no spare parts available. Does anybody know how can I connect the 40 pin contacts from the keys to an another mainboard using it as a midi controller keyboard as before? I cross my fingers😉
Best regards
Bernd
Hi Bernd,
Full Compass has one for $217US
EDIT - didn’t realize how old these units can be - all the way back to 2000
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Hey Bernd,
you could contact Doepfer in Gräfelfing - their LMK master keyboard range is built on Fatar keybeds. You might get them to sell you the electronics of their LMK keyboards separately - Doepfer have always been super-helpful in my experience.
Also, they have specific electronics to drive keybeds, wheels, pedals etc that you could use to drive your SL880, in case you can’t get an original mainboard. Unfortunately, their MKE module seems to only drive keyboards up to 5 octaves - not enough for a full 88 key master keyboard.
But I’d recommend you call them and find out how they can help you. My experience with them has been great - when I bought a master keyboard from them ages ago, Dieter Doepfer himself let me test his personal master keyboard so I could get a feel for the weight and playability ;-).
Cheers,
Torsten
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Funny you should mention that… I apparently managed to plug in the wrong power supply a couple months ago and fried mine. I wonder if it’s worth two hundred bucks+ to fix up. I really do like the keyboard.
Thanks for the tips, I’ll try today 
Hello,
My personal solution is to buy a used doepfer LMK2+ it is cheaper than changing the mainboard.
Thanks again
Bernd
Yes, the Doepfer LMKs have a nice playing experience as far as I remember. I tested it years ago but I had a Kurzweil K2500 at this time so I didn’t buy it.
or you could use something like a teensy and do your own matrix scanning (it is not horribly difficult, but some electronics/software background helps.