pro control issues

[mrhappy1997]

Great advice Marc... thanks for the info!

[wjurgens]

Thanks for the tips Delta Music!

did the 100x recalibrate in faders utility, but still getting the "gravity effect"

things have gotten worse since my post a couple weeks ago

the first bank of faders will slam to the top and stay there on a power up

takes several power ups to get things to come back as they should... and seems to require power down and then back up the other fader packs before doing the main pack to get things going again.

also the LED's will fade and buttons stop working on the main unit after a few minutes to a few hours after power up

does this still sound like power supply and/or connector issues?

thanks!

Warren

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by wjurgens

...also the LED's will fade and buttons stop working on the main unit after a few minutes to a few hours after power up



does this still sound like power supply and/or connector issues?

Sounds like a power supply issue to me.....

I have one for sale...PM me for info.

[Delta Music Belgium]

Originally Posted by wjurgens

the first bank of faders will slam to the top and stay there on a power up

takes several power ups to get things to come back as they should... and seems to require power down and then back up the other fader packs before doing the main pack to get things going again.

This indicates a bad initialisation of the fader pack. Open the unit and check the four red LED's on the fader board. They should show the initialisation process of all the circuit boards, the sequence should end with the LED at the right hand side that keeps blinking. If it doesn't this indicates one ore more circuit boards do not behave as they should. The cause will probably be a bad connector, this could be any connector inside the unit, not just the power connector. The solution is to clean all connectors with deOxit.

Also beware that the main unit communicates with the fader packs by ethernet. All units are connected to the same ethernet hub and the main unit can control a lot of functions on connected fader packs and/or edit pack (for example initiate test routines on all the units). In my studio all units can be powered on or off with one main power switch. This is very handy because this makes it very easy to cut the power for all the units and switch them back one after 10 seconds. This is a real hardware reset and makes the main unit to reset all communication with all other units. When troubleshooting always power all units down and back on with one main power switch, or turn all units off except the one you are troubleshooting (= stand-alone mode, all units should initialise correctly in stand-alone mode with just a power cord connected)

Originally Posted by wjurgens

also the LED's will fade and buttons stop working on the main unit after a few minutes to a few hours after power up

A lot of people will think this is power supply that is failing, but in my experience this is just the large 12 pin connector loosing contact due to metal corrosion and heating up, causing the loose contact(s) to become even worse. Hard soldering the wires to the pin is the best and probably also the only solution. It is the 'after a few minutes to a few hours' behaviour that indicates a bad connector that expands after heating up and shrinks after cooling down (same goes for a bad solder joint actually)

Originally Posted by wjurgens

does this still sound like power supply and/or connector issues?

Connector issues? Yes. Power supply issues? Maybe yes, but:

- after providing support for Pro Control owners for more then 15 years now I have never encountered a bad power supply. I was always able to solve all problems by hard soldering the wires to the 12 pin power connector

- some years ago I came in contact with an electronics engineer (I'm not an electronics engineer, I'm a support engineer that is also handy with a soldering iron). This engineer serviced/repaired a lot of ProControl power supplies in the past. He told me not one of the power supplies he ever received was really broken and needed a recapping or something likewise. They all just sufferd from bad solder joints. It was just a matter of looking at all the soldering joints with a magnifying glass, find the bad ones and tip them with a hot soldering iron to repair them.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by Delta Music Belgium

This indicates a bad initialisation of the fader pack. Open the unit and check the four red LED's on the fader board. They should show the initialisation process of all the circuit boards, the sequence should end with the LED at the right hand side that keeps blinking. If it doesn't this indicates one ore more circuit boards do not behave as they should. The cause will probably be a bad connector, this could be any connector inside the unit, not just the power connector. The solution is to clean all connectors with deOxit.

Also beware that the main unit communicates with the fader packs by ethernet. All units are connected to the same ethernet hub and the main unit can control a lot of functions on connected fader packs and/or edit pack (for example initiate test routines on all the units). In my studio all units can be powered on or off with one main power switch. This is very handy because this makes it very easy to cut the power for all the units and switch them back one after 10 seconds. This is a real hardware reset and makes the main unit to reset all communication with all other units. When troubleshooting always power all units down and back on with one main power switch, or turn all units off except the one you are troubleshooting (= stand-alone mode, all units should initialise correctly in stand-alone mode with just a power cord connected)



A lot of people will think this is power supply that is failing, but in my experience this is just the large 12 pin connector loosing contact due to metal corrosion and heating up, causing the loose contact(s) to become even worse. Hard soldering the wires to the pin is the best and probably also the only solution. It is the 'after a few minutes to a few hours' behaviour that indicates a bad connector that expands after heating up and shrinks after cooling down (same goes for a bad solder joint actually)



Connector issues? Yes. Power supply issues? Maybe yes, but:

- after providing support for Pro Control owners for more then 15 years now I have never encountered a bad power supply. I was always able to solve all problems by hard soldering the wires to the 12 pin power connector

- some years ago I came in contact with an electronics engineer (I'm not an electronics engineer, I'm a support engineer that is also handy with a soldering iron). This engineer serviced/repaired a lot of ProControl power supplies in the past. He told me not one of the power supplies he ever received was really broken and needed a recapping or something likewise. They all just sufferd from bad solder joints. It was just a matter of looking at all the soldering joints with a magnifying glass, find the bad ones and tip them with a hot soldering iron to repair them.

Awesome info Delta

[mrhappy1997]

Originally Posted by YYR123

Awesome info Delta

I second that!!

[wjurgens]

Interesting news to report!

we spent the evening yesterday changing the molex on the power supply out to soldered connections and cleaning all the connectors with deoxit. I think we have the dimming LED problem solved, along with the issues with the buttons not working. Also, the faders on the first bank no longer jam to the top on a repower

Unfortunately this did not fix the "greavity effect" on the first fader pack.

We started playing around with the faders a bit, and pulled one out of the board. surprising the gravity effect only happens when the fader is angled as it sits in the console. If the fader is held level or angled away with the top down it works as it should with no "gravity effect"

I happened to have three spare faders that were given to me when I bought the board back in 2008 so we decided to try them out to see if there was any difference. The first and second behaved the same, but the third fader worked perfectly!

I'm not sure if these spare faders were new, used, good, bad or what. But one of them worked perfectly

So... Is it possible that this "gravity effect" is just a worn out/bad fader issue that could be fixed with some new faders?

all eight faders on my first bank are exhibiting the "gravity effect", but not all the same, it varies.... some are really bad, some are moderate, and one has just a tiny bit of return, and only at the top of its range.

Any chance there is a way to revive the faders that are exhibiting the "gravity effect"?

If not, is it possible to get seven good replacement faders to finish out replacing the faders on my first bank

If they are available, about how much do they cost?

thanks!

Warren

[mrhappy1997]

Not sure what your PC setup is but is sounds like you have an expanded system with a main unit and at least one fader pack? Maybe you could swap your working faders from the fader pack with the questionable ones in the main unit to eliminate them as culprits??

[mrhappy1997]

Originally Posted by wjurgens

Interesting news to report!

is it possible to get seven good replacement faders to finish out replacing the faders on my first bank

If they are available, about how much do they cost?

thanks!

Warren

You can still find faders but it would probably be cheaper to find another fader pack than to replace all the faders individually.

[mrhappy1997]

Originally Posted by Delta Music Belgium

In my studio all units can be powered on or off with one main power switch. This is very handy because this makes it very easy to cut the power for all the units and switch them back one after 10 seconds. This is a real hardware reset and makes the main unit to reset all communication with all other units. When troubleshooting always power all units down and back on with one main power switch, or turn all units off except the one you are troubleshooting (= stand-alone mode, all units should initialise correctly in stand-alone mode with just a power cord connected)

Was planning on a post asking if it was ok to power up all units simultaneously but I guess that is unnecessary now!