Smoking 828 mkII!!

mjarecki · Post by **mjarecki** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 11:45 pm

Hi

I've had my 828 mkII for about a year now, it having worked flawlessly. Until today that it is, when it started literally smoking! Obviously, this has never happened before. I had the unit connected to my Titanium Powerbook through the firewire port. The voltage switch was set to 230V (which is correct, for I live in Australia). I switched on the unit, the LEDs turned on as per usual. The diodes indicated that the sound device had firmware 1.01 installed. No cables were plugged into the unit, only headphones. I was going to use it for playback of audio files on the laptop. Normally, Audio Setup would show up when the unit was detected by the laptop. However, this time it didn't, so I opened the app. manually and got a dialog box saying no device was detected. Within a few seconds I noticed an acrid smell in the air; I rushed over to the unit and noticed that thin plumes of smoke were rising from behind the back face plate near the firewire ports. I quickly disconnected the unit from power and from the computer.

How or why did this happen? I've had the unit connected in the same way for about a year.

I'm angry, frustrated and panicking at the moment. As I really needed the unit for the weekend. Alas, it seems that is not going to happen. What are my options from here on?

I don't think it's covered by warranty any more.

Please help me!!!

Mark Jarecki

mothra · Post by **mothra** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:29 am

Well sometimes electrical gear just fries..
The warranty on MOTU stuff is sadly only like 90 days..
But call em and they can repair it for you for a fee.

Jidis · Post by **Jidis** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 1:42 pm

mothra wrote:Well sometimes electrical gear just fries..

..and some more so than others (bash bash)

mothra · Post by **mothra** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:08 pm

Well mines still going on strong after almost 3 years...

(we wont mention the LCD I havent been able to see since about 4 months after I bought it though hehe)

Jidis · Post by **Jidis** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:59 pm

mothra wrote:we wont mention the LCD I havent been able to see since about 4 months after I bought it though

My 424/2408mkIII's done well too (knock on wood for both of us). I just can't help feeling sorry for some of those in the many failure posts here.

FWIW, I just looked at an 828mk2 picture, and it looks like a 2x16, as opposed to some of the weird custom stuff some audio devices have. *Most* of the time, those are standard HD44780 chipsets with a standard 14 pin wiring scheme and 2 lines for the display. It can either be on a 14 pin header with 2 connections or wires for the backlight, or all 16 on a header, or just a row of holes or pads with the wires running directly to them. The headers or sockets are usually the standard 2.5mm(?) pin spacing in dual rows, just like you see for an IDE or SCSI drive ribbon. There's also usually a pin number or two, somewhere on the board, so you'll know the order. Could get lucky and just have to pull a small ribbon loose and unscrew some screws. It's possible the mounting holes are a standard spacing too.

I'd offer to give you one. I've got three new ones here, plus one I ripped out of an answering machine, but I haven't decided how many I'm planning to use for stuff I'm doing.

(I hang out in a DIY MIDI forum) Plus, if you look at some of the weird colored stuff out there, you probably won't settle for green, yellow or black.

Not that I'm encouraging people to rip their hardware open, but it might be worth a shot if it's getting on your nerves enough and you don't mind popping the cover to see how hard it is. Keep in mind that I guess there's still a possibility that the output circuitry from the board, or the BL power lines are screwed up, but a watchful eye in here may already have given one the impression that some of these panel parts aren't of the finest of quality.

If you decide to try it, double check that chipset (usually can see the chips on the back of the LCD's board), and make sure it doesn't use some weird external backlight inverter (probably not). Even if it's an oddball, somebody's probably got it. (2x16's are everywhere) A regular green 2x16 is only worth a couple bucks, so you might dig one up and try it, then decide on something nice. If you ever do any of this, some of the tweakers in here might be interested in what turned up.

Here's a cool "colorful" place a lot of those MIDI guys go to:

http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/index-std.html

and more:

http://www.optrex.com/products/char.asp

http://www.apollodisplays.com/

-then there's all the Digikey's and Mouser's (you get the idea)

-then good old eBay

http://tinyurl.com/92lf8

-etc.

Take Care!

digitalmuzak · Post by **digitalmuzak** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 10:41 pm

When they say fire wire, I thought it was just a term. Sorry about your gear man... could be worse- it could run on electricution wire.

mjarecki · Post by **mjarecki** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:00 pm

Boom boom.

Fire wire is such an unfortunate name - in this case especially. Or maybe the marketing people know something we don't. I've always thought firewire was flaky as a connection. Since my problem I've learned of other people having similar issues with other firewire devices. One suggestion was to have the laptop and firewire device connected with a firewire hub in between. But who knows really, would that make a difference?

Seems I'm gonna have to replace the unit. Thinkin' of going for a Metric Halo ULN-2 w/ DSP instead. During my state of panic I had a chance to try one out and it did sound real nice. Mic pres were much cleaner than my 828 mkII. Now to find $1700...

Jidis · Post by **Jidis** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:45 pm

mjarecki wrote:Thinkin' of going for a Metric Halo ULN-2 w/ DSP instead. During my state of panic I had a chance to try one out and it did sound real nice.

I guess it makes sense with a company who built a rep. on "analysis" software.

I've heard good things about them as well, but stuff like that and the revered Lynx cards are pretty far out of my usual budget.

Good Luck!

George

calaveras · Post by **calaveras** » Sat May 03, 2008 2:29 am

i know this is an old thread, just thought I'd chime in here. I have an 828MKII. It never caught fire or started smoking. But the display did go dead about 5 months after I bought it. I contacted Motu about this and apparently most of the early 828s had faulty displays. I was told I could ship it to them and they would repair it for free, even out of warranty. Well I moved about 5 times since then and was always working on some project or another. I finally got around to getting the LED display repiared by them just last year. And I bought my 828MKII right after they came out! So at least about that, I give MOTU credit for!
In fact they sent me back a brand new unit! At least it has a different serial.

mjarecki · Post by **mjarecki** » Sat May 03, 2008 3:07 am

I must add, MOTU did get in contact with me and offered a fix/replacement of the faulty/smoking unit. So all hats off to them for their customer service. Didn't end up taking their offer, as shipping estimates were too high in the time frame I needed it. I put the money towards getting a Metric Halo ULN-2 + DSP and am very, very pleased with my decision. Used it in the jungles of Cambodia to do some field recording last year, using a lead-acid battery and my Macbook's bus-power, worked perfectly.

Cheers

homebilly · Post by **homebilly** » Sat May 03, 2008 8:13 am

did you check your levels? maybe you were mixing TOO HOT!

sorry, i couldn't resist.......but i did wait until you got a replacement before joking

ron