Fixing failing/failed buttons?

Hi,

in a thread below someone hat similar issues and there seems to be some kind of spy mode, that might help.

„Kemper Stage bank up button not working“

Sorry,

I‘m out. Never had any problems with buttons. Neither on the remote nor on the stage. In contrast to line6.

I have a Stage (around 2 years old) and Performance #1 button was misbehaving badly. I saw this post about Spy Mode and searched it and discovered that you just hold the INPUT and BACK buttons down at the same time to enable/disable Spy Mode.

In my case, I found that button #1 was registering about 5 out of 10 pushes with a finger. The 5 fails were all together in a block. Like it works a few times then dies a few times. Although it sounded like the switch below was clicking on/off, the LEDs and function did not respond. I tried cycling the switch a few hundred times but no real change.

I used a cocktail stick to add a tiny amount of silicon lubricant to the barrel of the metal button, then rotated/pushed it repeatedly to distribute the lubricant. Hey Presto the button does not fail anymore!

I've now similarly lubricated all the buttons and they all feel really smooth and reliable.

I understand why the button travel should feel better but not why the switch functionality improves.

Quote from Grinch

I'm on my third Stage because of failing buttons. Google says this is a common problem.

I'm not here to rant about it, it is what it is, but I have a gig this weekend. My current Stage has three failing buttons that I've been procrastinating on. One of them sometimes works, the other two are mostly dead (if I spam them 50 times I might get a response, but I can't do that on stage). Previous if I had a dead/dying switch, I'd move a less important function there, but I need these two.

So my question: doesn't anyone have a trick for fixing these, other than sending it for repair? This guy opened one up and found non-standard switches, so we can't just swap them out. Has anyone analyzed the failure to determined a root cause? Is it the spring? Maybe I could swap that out? Is it the actual button under the spring? Given the design, it doesn't seem like contact cleaner would help, but has anyone has any success with that?

I have a Quad Cortex I could switch to, but that's (1) going to be a lot of work to set up (finding profiles that match what I use on the Kemper, dialing in effects, etc.), and (2) the Quad Cortex has extremely limited button mapping support, so I effectively get less than half the buttons I do on Stage (because of Kemper's brilliant two-state buttons).

I tried to call their Littleton, CO office to see if anyone around here could fix it, but it always goes to voice mail and they don't call back.

Any tips welcome.

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The button under the switch is called a tactile.

The tactile is soldered onto the board on four corners. Any tech that works on keyboards or any music equipment can unsolder the tactile and solder in a new one in less than 30 seconds.

Quote from Guitartone

The button under the switch is called a tactile.

The tactile is soldered onto the board on four corners. Any tech that works on keyboards or any music equipment can unsolder the tactile and solder in a new one in less than 30 seconds.

While strictly true, getting the unit apart and in a position to properly reflow the joint, and then putting it back together will take a *helluva* lot longer.