The Ekdahl FAR - Service
General service & maintenance
The Ekdahl FAR requires periodic maintenance just like any acoustic instrument. One key difference from traditional instruments is that the firmware can to some degree compensate for changes and variability in the hardware, meaning one can sometimes simply change a few software parameters instead of having to physically open up the instrument.
Periodic maintenance
Things like changing the bowing wheel and changing strings are very commonplace and aren't really considered maintenance. However, changing either of these may necessitate things like changing bridge heights, lowering or raising the mutes or bowing jack and changing the pickup height.
Less frequent maintenance and repairs
The firmware inside the Ekdahl FAR is periodically updated, new versions may include bug fixes or added features therefore it may be recommended to update the firmware at certain times. New features in the instrument may necessitate an updated version of the Configuration Utility in order to take advantage of them.
Because the Ekdahl FAR is electro-mechanical, things will eventually break or get worn out. An effort has been made to find a middle ground in between durability, component availability and cost and standard parts have been used as much as possible inside the instrument. All 3D printed parts can be downloaded and printed using a regular SLA printer. Most hardware can easily be bought online and any specialty components can be gotten from Knas.
Updating the firmware
The easiest way to update the firmware is by installing TyTools and upload a binary of the firmware using Teensy Commander.
After installing,