Casio CZ-101 synthesizer OLED display retrofit

Published on Apr 10, 2019 2kB of Fun

"The Casio CZ-101 synthesizer has a display that can be dim or missing pixels nowadays. Also the original display is hard to read in the dark because it lacks a backlight.

If you want to replace it with a LED backlight LCD, you run into 2 problems: most LCD's are on smaller boards, and the frame is thicker because there is a backlight under the screen.

Today I replace the LCD in a Casio CZ-101 with a nice new OLED display that exactly matches the original dimensions, works straight out of the package, and has a nice unlimited viewing angle and stellar contrast. You can get these screens in various colours, but I chose yellow because I think it matches the yellow waveform and CZ-101 logo print on the case.

Used Display:
Electronic Assembly W162-XLG in greenish yellow 84x44mm."

Update:

Reassembling a Casio CZ 101 after repair

Published on Apr 12, 2019 2kB of Fun

"I bought a 'for parts' Casio CZ-101 and hoped for an easy fix. It wasn't. Luckily someone reacted to my classifieds ad with a request for a new main PCB. Then I swapped the main board and got sound. But things were not that easy. The screen was missing lots of lines and pixels. And 3 buttons and 6 keys weren't working: it turned out a PCB trace was broken, and that 2 wires in the flat cables were broken. And off course I did a thorough cleaning.

But finally I got everyting to work, and I managed to install a nice new perfect fit OLED display in a nice yellow colour matching the print on the case. The result: a near mint working Casio CZ. This awesome sounding synth deserves to be preserved and repaired! Don't bring them to recycling but fix it or share parts to others trying to keep their CZ synts alive!

This video is a quick montage, I left out the full transcription I usually make because of the length of the video. If you want to see all the details, watch on a big screen, I recorded 4K to grab all details."