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Recap guide

Recap the Roland Sound Canvas

Mid-90s surface-mount electrolytics have leaked on some Sound Canvas units, and the SC-55mkII has a corrosive factory glue. Inspect first, and check the CR2032 battery too. We could not confirm anything for the SC-88Pro.

Open the interactive checklist Tick off each capacitor as you replace it. It saves in your browser.

Check first. A recap is not always the answer here, so look at the guides before you order parts.

Which board do I have?

Boards changed during production. These notes come from the linked sources, and many are only partly documented, so check the board in front of you.

  • SC-55 (mk I) (Low confidence). How to tell: Original model; VOGONS posters say it went through several firmware and hardware revisions and has an internal battery. Capacitors: Posters report battery leaks and mid 1990s Japanese caps failing; no cap list. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • SC-55 mkII (Low confidence). How to tell: Front panel reads mkII; it has more polyphony (28 against 24) and a different DAC than the mk I. Capacitors: One owner found corrosive adhesive and a leaking cap near the large 2200uF 16V cap, damaging traces and vias. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • SC-88 (Low confidence). How to tell: Separate model with 64 voices and different effects and DACs. Capacitors: A repair thread found leakage on SMD caps and a main cap on the analog board that ate a trace; all electrolytics were replaced. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source

Where to start

Clues from write-ups and forum threads, not a diagnosis. Low confidence means one thread or one repair; high means several write-ups agree.

  • Leaked SMD caps (Low confidence). One SC-88 repair log found five 10uF and one 100uF surface-mount caps had leaked, along with other faults. It gives only a few values. Source
  • Corrosive glue (Low confidence). In one thread, the epoxy under the SC-55mkII's large 2200uF cap turned corrosive. Look for brown glue and leaky caps near it. Source
  • Battery leaks (Low confidence). A long thread about CR2032 leaks also mentions two leaked 47uF 6V SMD caps on a sibling SC-33, cleaned up with vinegar and then isopropyl alcohol. Source

Tips, tales and maybes

Found in write-ups and forum threads. These are other people's reports, not tested by us. Check part references and values against your own board.

  • Tip: Coin cell battery leaks (Medium confidence). Posters in a Sound Canvas thread say the backup coin cell commonly leaks onto the board and recommend removing it even if it still works. They note some later units have the battery tied into the circuit, so check before pulling it. Source
  • Watch out: Damage hidden under the solder mask (Low confidence). A repairer in the thread said a board can look only mildly marked on the surface while the copper beneath the green mask is badly eaten, so inspect closely before calling a unit saved. Bodge wires were used where traces were gone. Source
  • Tip: Undersized 9V adapter looks like a fault (Medium confidence). A Sound Canvas thread says an SC-55 MkII wants about 600mA at 9V and a 300mA adapter caused random reboots and distorted audio. Rule out the adapter before opening the unit. Battery removal only causes a brief low-battery warning. Source
  • Story: Static and failed DRAM test cured by caps (Medium confidence). A poster revived an SC-88 with loud static and failing memory self-tests by replacing all electrolytics on the digital board and repairing a trace eaten by leakage. Others said the problem is widespread on SC-33, SC-88 and DS-330 era modules. Source
  • Story: SC-88 Pro crackle that grows after warm-up (Low confidence). An SC-88 Pro imported from Japan and run on 120V developed audio that starts clean then crackles as it warms. Posters pointed to the glued caps C125, C126 and C127 but also to cracked joints or a thermal fault, and advised rewiring the transformer tap by cutting and resoldering the wire instead of desoldering it. Source
  • Maybe: Custom NEC chip IC27 as a failure point (Low confidence). On an SC-88 with a blank LCD and no response after a repair, a poster suspected the custom NEC IC27 as a common failure point with no known replacement, and advised cutting leaked caps off without lifting pads and checking caps with an LCR meter before replacing working ones. Source

Before you start

  • Boards changed during production. Check your board number against the guides before you order parts.

Guides we used

This page and the interactive bench are built from these. They have the photos and the full detail, so please read them and support their authors.

The capacitor list

We have not checked a capacitor list for this machine yet, so none is shown. Follow the guide above for your board, then add the capacitors in the interactive checklist and it builds a shopping list for you.

Skip the sourcing

While you are in there

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Steps, tools and safety

The steps, the tools in top, middle and budget picks, and the safety list are the same for every machine, so they live on one page: How to recap, step by step.

Values are shown as published in the guides above, and boards changed during production. Check the board in front of you. A recap involves hot tools and, on some machines, dangerous voltages. You do it at your own risk.

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