002R power harness

[JFreak]

hi there. i think i should share something i experienced last week, when i was doing a week-long live mix tour with my protools system (powerbook, 002R and a presonus lt). this might save a day for some of you. i was doing a FOH mix as well as providing the monitoring for the band, so i would have wanted my system being stable at all times. but it didn't, unfortunately.

at some point (was it tuesday or wednesday, i cannot remember but that is irrelevant) my 002R seemed to lose power every five minutes. luckily during a sound check anyway, i told the band to take a break while i fix the issue, so they went, and i first exchanged the power lines from 16A to 32A because i thought i had insufficient power to feed both the amplifiers and the protools rig. that didn't help, and i began to fear that the power harness was broken at the most critical moment one could imagine. so i boldly opened the 002R:s enclosure (a dozen or so little screws) and looked inside.

now i must say don't try this unless you know what you are doing, in other words, unless you haven't studied electronics, stay away of this! this operation voids the warranty if you do a single mistake. and please, use your brain and unplug the power cord if you open the case. please.

i found out that there are separate digital and analog boards, and a power supply unit. and the infamous power harness cable between the three. the harness feeds power from the power supply unit to both the analog and the digital boards, so it's a kind of a "y-cable". there are plastic connectors in the three ends of the cable, and several metal connectors inside each plastic plug. i thought that while the plastic plugs seem to be firmly in place, the little metal connectors inside might be loose, so i pushed each individual wire to fit tighter inside the plastic plug - notice that i didn't unplug the plastic connectors, so i think my unit still has warranty - and guess what? once i turned the power on, the unit worked perfectly and without a single hiccup for the rest of the week.

so... it might not be a faulty power harness cable after all, but a faulty installation of it. if you are in a desperate situation or cannot afford downtime, this is something you might want to try.

- of course i said to the band that we ran out of power and the issue was fixed by getting more of it. they don't need to know