Nord fuse holder question

[Funkademic]

Hello all

A month ago, I blew the fuse on my NS3 at a gig because of a faulty power situation. Thankfully, my Electro 6 was nearby so I was able to swap out its fuse into the NS3, and the gig could continue.

I ordered a new fuse to put into the Electro, but for some reason it won't start.

I tried putting the new fuse into the NS3 and it works fine. I also tried putting the Electro's old fuse back into it, but it still won't start.

My best guess is that the Electro's fuse holder may have gotten damaged in the rush to swap fuses at the gig. It seems a little bit misshapen in comparison with the NS3's fuse holder, so I wonder if it's not making contact with the right parts inside the keyboard. Anyone have any advice?

If this sounds like a job for a proper repair person, I'm an hour south of Boston, MA (USA) and would be grateful for any suggestions for people who work on Nords nearby.

Thanks!

[Funkademic]

PS: I've ordered a replacement fuse holder from Syntaur. Hopefully that will solve it. If not, my next guess is that the "fuse house" (i.e. the thing that the fuse and the cap/holder slide into) might have some damaged contacts inside. Apparently one can also find replacement fuse houses online. If anyone knows if it's possible to just replace the fuse house without changing the whole power board, let me know! I wouldn't attempt this myself, but if I know that it's possible then I could suggest it to a repair person.

[23skidoo]

The fuse holders are pretty "dumb" - it should be pretty obvious how they work: the fuse contacts two spring-loaded "cups", one deep inside, one at the lid end. The lid end shorts to one contact, the deep inside shorts to the other. A few minutes with a multimeter should show, with a loaded fuse, if there's a short across the two body contacts of the fuse holder itself. If, with a fuse in it, there's a short, then the fuse is closing the circuit properly. If it's an open circuit, then there's either no contact on one or the other end of the fuse, or the fuse is blown.

Perhaps one of the spring loaded contacts fell out or got bent, as you say. It should be pretty obvious by inspecting it in comparison to the NS3's holder - they should be identical for all intents and purposes.

[Funkademic]

Thank you @23skidoo. I fixed it!!

Here's the solution, in case it's useful to others.

I peered inside the fuse houses of both the NS3 and the Electro 6, and saw a difference between the two. Here are some photos.

Photo 1: Nord Stage 3 fuse house

NS3 fuse house

PXL_20230808_195234720.jpg (2.86 MiB) Viewed 1776 times

Photo2: Electro 6 fuse house

NE6 fuse house

PXL_20230808_195950227.jpg (2.54 MiB) Viewed 1776 times

As you can see, it looks like there was a piece of plastic debris inside the bottom of the NE6 fuse house. I don't know how it got there. I'm guessing that it might have happened when I was trying to get the empty fuse holder out of the NE6 to put a replacement fuse in. When there's no fuse in the holder, it can be a little tricky to get it to come out, and I may have pushed it in too far and turned it, leading the metal tags on the holder to shear off some of the plastic inside the fuse house. (By the way, the easiest way to get an empty fuse holder out of the keyboard is just to turn it on its back and give it a little shake; it will fall right out).

Anyway, back to the fix. I got a toothpick and inserted it very gently into the fuse house to see if I could shift the plastic debris. It disappeared immediately! Must have fallen inside the chassis. I popped the fuse in, plugged in the cord, turned it on, and it came on immediately.

Phew. Thanks for the info, @23skidoo. This forum is a godsend.