Hi Pino - sorry to hear that your D8B is giving you trouble, again!
To clarify, there's only 2 clock cards that work for the D8B:
- The Apogee Clock card (this card has 2 BNC connectors on it's panel... nothing else... do NOT try a different card in this slot, even if it might say "Apogee" on it, somewhere).
- The "stock" D8B clock card (the one from the ebay auction the doctor shared. These aren't always red, by the way... the can also be blue or green, as far as I know).
You have to have either one of those cards in the slot labeled "SYNC" in the back of the D8B.
If neither of the above 2 cards are installed in the SYNC slot, the questionmark (?) will come up in the right upper corner of the D8B's display, to indicate that the D8B can't "find" any clock signal... when that happens, no audio will come out of the D8B (except for in the "analog" monitor section... but the D8B still can't be used as a mixer, when that's the case).
...and if the clock card somehow went bad, you might see the same symptom (i.e. the questionmark "?").
What kind of clock card did you have in your D8B before? An "Apogee" Clock card, with 2 BNC connectors?
...or a "stock" clock card, that has no "outside" connectors and basically "disappears" inside the D8B, when the slot cover is closed?
If your clock card is in that slot, but the D8B doesn't find a clock signal, I'd do this, first:
- Make sure the D8B is turned OFF.
- Take the clock card out, and carefully clean its contacts with either Isopropyl-Alcohol, or good electronics cleaner, such as Caig Deoxit.
- With the D8B off (and maybe even with the contacts on the clock card still a little wet from cleaning it), insert the clock card into the D8B, then remove it again, and repeat that maybe twice or so. (The idea is, that the "wet" contacts on the card, would help to clean the contacts in the card slot a little bit... this is preferable over directly spraying electronics cleaner in there).
- Then remove the clock card from the D8B again, and wait for an hour or so, to make sure that any remaining cleaning liquid has evaporated and everything is completely dry.
- Put the clock card back into the D8B when everything is dry, then turn the D8B back on.
Did anything change after you do that?
If not... and if you used an "Apogee" Clock card... on one of the cards I have, some components just "fell off" of the card, when it was shipped to me, but it worked fine again, after I soldered them back on. Because of that, I suspect that more such clock cards may have had bad/cold solder spots, that could cause trouble, and that such components might just decide to fail (and maybe even fall off, like for me).
Here's a pic of the Apogee Clock card, where I circled the components that fell off (with notes for the seller in German - please ignore)... if you have an Apogee card... can you check if you have all these yellow components on the card, that are shown on mine? Can you carefully touch them with your fingertip, and see if you can move any of them, even a tiny bit? If so, I'd re-flow the solder points.
- Apogee_Clock_Card_s.JPG (Array KiB) Viewed 1509 times
Here's another link to a "stock" clock card, that is available over here in the US. Not sure if they'd ship to Italy, though:
https://reverb.com/item/25348774-mackie-digital-8-bus-d8b-ce-clock-cardI'd just google "D8B clock card" or "D8B Apogee Clock Card" to find one.
Be sure NOT to buy another "Apogee" card for your D8B, that has additional connectors on it. A card that says "Apogee" but has optical ADAT connectors and/or a DB25 (looks like an old printer/parallel port) connector on it, is NOT a clock card, and will not work for this purpose in the D8B (those are I/O cards... they're for a different purpose).
If none of that works... it's also possible that your clock card actually still works, and that the clock is getting lost elsewhere inside the D8B (e.g. bad ribbon-cable contact in the back of the card-cage inside the D8B, or with any other of the ribbon cables).
In short... there's a few different causes, and we haven't run out of options, yet... we'll just have to figure out, what is actually causing the problem for you. So, I'd start with the above... please report back what you find, and we can take it from there.
Best of luck in the meantime!
Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:43 am