Hi, I already posted this on the st forum but it doesn't look like a very active place these days.
I just picked up a Sampletrak off of Craigslist and so far it seems like most of it works. However, not all of the pads work correctly. 5-8 seem to activate just fine, 2-4 you need to find the sweet spot, and often before you do it'll start to play the sample multiple times like rapid fire. Initially, pad 1 didn't respond at all; no sound or led light, but after exercising it a little I've managed to make it work a few times, it wasn't easy though. Has anyone encountered this before? Could this be repaired? The whole machine doesn't appear to have been beaten on, just a little dusty on the knobs.

Thanks, you guys have a great forum btw, very helpful when I was researching the 202, 303, and 224.

You need to take it apart and clean it. Remove the bottom metal panel it will expose the two main boards. You need to remove both boards to get to the pad connectors. Once You get it apart you will need a pencil eraser and a qtip with rubbing alcohol. Use the eraser and rub off all the gunk and carbon deposits on the board. Once it looks clean and shiny again wipe the board off with the alcohol. Also be sure to clean the back side of the pad mat, it will have junk on it too. Use the eraser to remove all the grime on the backside of the pads. Once agsin wipe it off with alcohol when yer done.

This is exactly how I fixed the pads on my 224. I'm sure I made a post about it somewhere on the forum before, but oh well.

Process should take about 30 minutes.

Nice, thanks for the tip formal! I peeked inside of it last night and already saw a rectangle of grime below the edit wheel, didn't check the boards though. I'm not very experienced with electronics' boards and such but this sounds easy enough to do. I'll post results later tonight.

That really did the trick! The pads are much easier to use now, thank you.

i didnt take mine apart yet, and dont use it much .
on the bad pads like pad 1 you can smack the other corner of
the pad. then it will work right.