pro control issues

[wjurgens]

Hello

I'm having issues with our pro control main unit. All the faders on this unit are acting strange in that they won't hold their position after a move. Specifically happens when moving the faders up. They tend to move back down to about 1/2 way or all the way where they were.

they are linking up to pro-tools OK, and you can see the change happening

interestingly you can make the same move on the computer with the mouse and the fader will stay in position.

for a while we could get things working again by powering down and back up. but that is no longer doing the trick

any ideas what might be going on?

thanks!

Warren

[YYR123]

So when you do the utility program, and do the touch test does everything look normal? The readings, do they look normal?

Probably wouldn't hurt to take the top off and check the power cables that go into the board...

[wjurgens]

Well, I ran through the utility tests for the faders

Sine looks good
step looks good
cycle looks good
group is good, but if I make a move on the main fader bank I get the problem described below with faders all returning about half way back down after an up move
recall... fader scribble strips show values ranging from CAL 1208 - CAL 1229, faders 1-8 & fader 9 on the 2nd pack are all in a various positions from -7 to +6 dB, faders 10-24 are all at +1.5 dB

[wjurgens]

Also on the "Touch" test on the main pack faders, I get the same result with faders returning part way back down to varying degrees after an up move

faders on banks 2 and 3 hold there position after a move as expected

[YYR123]

Possible to post a video on YouTube?

Also did you pop the top and check your connections and your plugs ? For the faders?

[wjurgens]

haven't attempted that yet.

does that entail unscrewing the 14 tiny allen head screws?

[wjurgens]

should be able to get a video posted showing what the faders are doing later today

[mrhappy1997]

I'm relatively new to PC and have been going through the old threads... someone had a similar problem and named it the 'gravity effect'... don't remember what the fix was but perhaps you can dig that up and message the user?

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by wjurgens

does that entail unscrewing the 14 tiny allen head screws?

Yep....easy stuff

[Delta Music Belgium]

Something you might want to try: on the Fader Utilities pages press 'Calibrate' 100 times. Then relax, sit back and take a coffee because all connected ProControl units will perform 100 calibrations in a row. Maybe this will fix your problem as I used this method a lot to fix various fader problems on different ProControl setups.

I also would advise to pop the top and disconnect, clean (deOxit) and reconnect all connectors anyway. After probably more then 15 years of service (ProControl was released in 1999) this is always a good idea (maybe you would want to lubricate the faders too).

Especially clean the large 12 pin molex type power connector on the power supply board. This connector is known to cause problems because corrosion builds up after time. This is caused by incompatible metals used for the busses inside the 12 pin molex connector and for the pins on the power supply board.

Actually this might also explain the problems you have with your faders. The power supply supplies 5V for all LED’s, buttons and electronics (the red wires) and 12V for powering the motors of the faders (the yellow wires, all black wires are common ground). If one or more pins are corroded and make unstable connections the result can be flickering LED’s and/or flickering scribble strips and/or displaying random characters on the scribble strips and/or irratic fader movements and/or faders moving down (partially or all the way down).

As a matter of fact: a lot of ProControl users simply remove this 12 pins molex type connector and hard solder the wires straight onto the pins on the power supply board (I did this too on all my ProControl units and this solved all my power supply problems that occured from time to time)