Dead Surface. Ideas?

[Bruce Graham]

Hello All;
Now that Phil got his desk up and working it is my turn... again!

A couple months ago my desk died. Loud noise out of speakers then the Surface was dead. No lights. No VSU. Nothing. Monitor (GUI) was still working.

A month later, last week, it was working and working fine.

This morning, after having been on for about 4 hours it died. I had left the room and when I came back, the faders where not where I left them, and some of the fader motors where "clicking". No lights. No VSU nothing. The Monitor, as before, was working. Mouse and keyboard. All good (seems to points to surface, not CPU??).

I turned it off and counted to 10. Upon power up, (right after the trew the switch), no lights, no VSU, but the click of the fader motors.

I turned it off for about 30 minutes, turned it back on and away it went, EXCEPT, this time I noticed the Rude Solo Light and the VSU where flickering. Then it went dead and the monitor was stuck on the Mackie d8B, 5.1 page.

Fortunately when I left the desk I had turned off the speakers and disconnected the headphones.

Any first thoughts?

I have not replaced the dreaded rail caps as of yet.

Cheers and thanks
Bruce

Edit: Got home tonight, turned it on and it worked? There is a problem, but not sure where to start? Power supply?
Thanks for any help

[arjepsen]

This morning, after having been on for about 4 hours it died. I had left the room and when I came back, the faders where not where I left them

This is usually where I start looking around for the small green men with red pointy hats. Those elfs can be pesky buggers.
(Sorry - couldnt resist).

Yeah, Id say it sounds like a possible cap problem, though Im not sure whether its the rail caps.
If you have an atx pc power supply lying around, you might want to try to open up the cpu, and connect that instead of the normal psu in there. It powers both the pc parts, and the 12v line for the desk.
If you do, you do need to short two pins on the motherboard to start up the pc and 12v line.

[Phil.c]

Hello All;
Now that Phil got his desk up and working it is my turn... again!

Not quite Bruce as my problem desk is still down, but the other one is ok. I've spent too much time on the bad one, I'll have to send it somewhere, but good luck with your desk!

Phil

[LewisAlexander2018]

If you haven't had the power rails re-capped, re-cap them. A chap I knew years back from a service centre in London, had many years fixing these machines told me that the reason these consoles go completely off the rails, when made, Mackie went cheap on the caps for the rails and other components, the caps are lower spec than they should be. Ideally a higher resistance cap set is needed as these are known to fail, he's seen that many that he swore that if he saw another again, he'd set the little swine on fire and walk away. This when I was looking at buying a D8b about 3 years back as a spare console / older console setup. I was advised to avoid at all costs.

I've worked with and serviced to a degree a couple of these D8b's as I've had to work with them in a few studios, known the faults. some to do with the OS, some to do with the PSU / computer, some to do with the console itself, this machine can be a total ENIGMA! Yes, deoxit and isopropenol are amazing friends to have, just don't drink them otherwise it'll be an interesting party.

I'd check the rails with a multimeter, check the brain board, check ribbon seatings / ribbon condition for each lane, etc.

[Phil.c]

Good advice there however, to a lot of people, checking cap voltages etc is not easy because we are not into electronics, it's not difficult at all to do but one has to know "what" to do, which connections to test, what voltages etc

Not long ago, I modified an Altec 436c so that it gave 25 mls attack as well as the original 50 mls, luckily I had a friend on another forum that talked me through it with photographs etc...easy when you know how but not so when you don't

Phil

[Bruce Graham]

Hello All;
Not quite Bruce as my problem desk is still down, but the other one is ok. I've spent too much time on the bad one, I'll have to send it somewhere, but good luck with your desk!
Phil

Sorry Phil I though you where "good to go". Goo thing you had 2.

I have a spare CPU for the d8b. Perhaps I connect it and see what happens, before I start on the dreaded rail caps.

I also have 2 spare pats consoles (surface only). Perhaps I'll start by replace the rail caps on them.

It does sound like a capacitor but as Phil points out, unless you know what your doing then it can be daunting to go poking around a box that is full of electricity!

Cheers and thanks for the quick, good advice. I can always count on this forum for answerx.

Cheers
Bruce

[LewisAlexander2018]

lol, I'd never openly recommend the average person to grab a multimeter without knowing the functions, to then go and check the rails without considering the risks lol. nothing worse than a stunned mackie owner.

I've really been considering buying an HDR2496 with D8B, but considering the amount of issues, I'm really put off. to find spare parts I could ill afford is more than enough to worry me.

lew

[Phil.c]

Lew,

Myself and a few other "oldies" here have had D8b's and HDR's for twenty years, they are excellent, but can go wrong occasionally, luckily in the past with mine, the fixes have been simple, once we know what the fix is there are of course lots of different and probably better mixers out there now but not the same as these

Phil

[LewisAlexander2018]

Lew,

Myself and a few other "oldies" here have had D8b's and HDR's for twenty years, they are excellent, but can go wrong occasionally, luckily in the past with mine, the fixes have been simple, once we know what the fix is there are of course lots of different and probably better mixers out there now but not the same as these

Phil

Hi Phil. Glad to find you're near my neck of the woods, well, I say that, here for the last 20 years in North Wales, Yorkshire lad. There's a D8b with HDR2496 up for sale on ebay, would you be willing to check it out? whether it's of interest to you or me? I'm really considering it but my P.A has seen photos and isn't pleased with the condition of the CPU unit and console. it's a lot of money for me to fork out on.

lew

ebay link is here...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mackie-D8b-f ... rk:11:pf:0

[Phil.c]

Hi Lew,

It's about an hours drive from me, unfortunately, I'm still working and it's not possible with time etc.

Phil