I have just successfully straightened a warped body on a new OP-Z. When looking for information on how to do this, I could not find anything. This worked for me.
The unit was working fine but bowing down in the middle almost to the ground. The bottom right corner was also more bent than the rest.
I dismantled it as much as possible down to exposing the keyboard membrane (torx 4 screwdriver needed). When separating the membrane between the main unit and the keyboard, it’s a straight pull out, not down, like a plug. Be aware, it’s quite tricky to get it back in when your done. It is not necessary to remove the keyboard membrane. I then bent the body over a couple of playing cards. Before adding weight to hold the ends down to the ground, I used a hair dryer on full heat for a few minutes, focusing on the sides to make it more pliable. The weight was added to create an opposite bow over the cards. More heat was added from the hair dryer, about a few minutes two or three times. I don’t know how close I was to melting the components inside but there was some heat retained in the top of the unit. I then left it overnight, about 10 hours. The unit is now perfectly straight. I don’t know if this is a fool proof method or I just got lucky. Try this at your own risk! And good luck if you do.
Very impressive!! It is good to see you actually find a way and fix it when most people seem to just complain in this day and age.
Thanks William
It shouldn’t be the customer who has fix these know issues though.
↑ this.
TE have form in shipping instruments that don’t survive the rough and tumble of music-making.
Yes but every single te product has had terrible build quality… Even lately there has been like three new op1 units that just died when the users quit using it for a month, then on power up it just was dead… the op1 connection board fails constantly… the modular things have had awful power supply problems and questionable build quality issues… TE just build crappy stuff… either you see it as charm and work with it, or give up and see it as hipster trash and use more of a real musical instrument companies products… they are a design company, not a musical instrument company and that is a important destinction. Yes everyone knows they should make better stuff… at this point their build quality is legendary… In not in a good way…lol.
At least you can fix it though… Their ethos is for the operator to work on the product themselves so… Get to work!!! Lol!!
I’m kidding, but seriously… it helps if you just don’t have expectations of build quality. Because they are the worst.
haha, so spot on!
(although they do seem to have got it right with the recent OB-4 so maybe there is hope)
Wow, that’s brave - nice result. To further prevent warping: The main issue is the position of the rubber feet, that’s why I glued the foam from the original packaging (the thinner 2 mm part) onto the underside of the unit, with cut-outs for the rubber feet and the bluetooth button. Now the unit rests solely on the foam, the rubber feet just don’t touch the surface anymore. Also prevents sliding better than before and now any pressure from the top is better distributed across the whole body. I like it so far.
Nice idea using the foam packaging. That’s recycling at it’s best.
I had some rubber feet left over from guitar pedals so I used those. I agree this should help stop further warping, but to be clear this is not the root problem, it’s something to do with material they use for the body. My OP was brand new in a sealed box and it came out warped.
The fibers curl up… Kind of like a tree, or how a wood board warps… the same thing can happen with fiberglass and carbon fiber.
is that right? wow. Do you think humidity plays a role in that? Malaysia (thats where these get made I believe) is a bloody humid (and incredibly beautiful) country.
mine has twisted width-ways as well length-ways.
It has more to do with how the fibers are laid in the plastic, and most important, the way the product is cut to form the product. It has to be cut with the fibers perfectly longway. If they are not perfectly straight it can warp, but also, it can just warp anyway because it is nature and you can’t really control nature… actually a certain amount of carbon fiber and surfboards for instance, are thrown away because of this even though they are new… it is just the nature of the product and nothing you can do… you can Google that, look up a certain amount of surfboards warp or something… it is just how it is… sad but also, those fibers make the product also incredibly strong too… much stronger then material made from formed products without a support like that.
So you removed the keyboard membrane?! I was told that can’t be removed/ replaced? Is just in the sense that TE won’t sell you a new keyboard membrane, and not that it “can’t be removed”? How has your unit been functioning after this?
It can’t be removed, or rather, it can be removed but can’t be put back unless you resort to some trick that nobody has explained before.
TE may as well include this in their instruction manual “how to unwarp your OP-Z” in the package. Or they can sell it for a couple 1000 bux and it comes with a TE hair dryer and a timer for 10hrs
Okay yeah that’s what I thought, Punji