Power cable for Tascam M 520?

R

rito25

New member
I bought a Tascam M 520. I am missing the power cable though. I just want to hard wire a new cable. I've already read the one thread about it. Does anyone have a better and easier solution than just hardwiring the thing? Anyone know what the pin layout is.
 
Its a straight cable (I.e. Pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2, etc.). The pinout is in the manual.

It was a major adventure to find the parts when I did it several years ago. Worldwide search led me to canford in the UK and I bought most of what they had and then a couple years ago another fella came along and bought the rest.
 
I'm thinking that opening it up and wiring the connection across will be the easiest thing. Or would you recommend just doing the wiring from the jacks?
Also how hard would a broken pot be?
 
What do you mean doing the wiring from the jacks? Do you mean cutting off the Hirose connectors and splicing in wire vs. taking it all the way back to the PC boards inside the mixer and PSU?

Also, can you clarify what you mean with your question "how hard would a broken pot be?" To repair? Replace? Is it a stacked pot or single?
 
Ok. So I have both the PSU and the Mixer. I am missing the umbilical cord. I have 50 feet of 4 strand 22 gauge telephone wire. What I'm thinking would work would be to open the PSU up. Remove the connector and add in my own cable to the existing wires. I was thinking I could get one of those 20 pin computer molex power connectors to make transportation easier.
For the mixer half, How hard would it be to open it up? If it's one to one in wiring would it be easier to just go and solder the new umbilical wires directly to the pins?

The shaft of one of the panners has broken off. Is there an easy way to replace this?
 
OK. I got the unit to turn on. But I don't have any noise. Tried both a tape recorder and mic and a bass. No dice. How does this thing need to be hooked up to produce noise? Also I get a high pitch squeal if I press solo on any of the channels.
 
Any of the pots can be replaced by removing teh channel card and desoldering the broken pot and replacing with one in healthy condition. It is also possible to replace just the shaft but you still have to have a donor and you still have to desolder it to do the fix.

Do you have the manual and have you read it?
 
Yes, But the hookup's just looked confusing after a while. I tried plugging in a guitar, and a reel to reel machine. I also tried outputting to a reel to reel. With headphones plugged in I got zero signals. and all the faders were up and the channels turned on. Could a fuse have blown somewhere?
 
rito25 said:
Yes, But the hookup's just looked confusing after a while. I tried plugging in a guitar, and a reel to reel machine. I also tried outputting to a reel to reel. With headphones plugged in I got zero signals. and all the faders were up and the channels turned on. Could a fuse have blown somewhere?
Click to expand...
Yes, a fuse could be blown but a thousand other things could also be the issue including user error as you've essentially admitted you don't have an competent operational grasp on the usage of the mixer.

So you're going to need to sit down and patiently read through the manual as many times as necessary to get a grasp on the signal flow logistics of the board. Turning faders up and turning channels on, on a complicated board is often only part of the process. You also have to know how the monitoring system works as its possible to have turned and switched everything the right way except that you might be monitoring an aux system on the headphones instead of a program mix. So you really need to 100% rule out user error before you start thinking an evil fuse is the party poopper here. :D

Some other things to consider;

You bought the mixer without the power supply umbilical cord. So this means you bought the mixer without testing it or having the seller demonstrate that it worked. This is not good. What if anything did the seller have to say about the mixer's working condition prior to you handing over your money? M-520s in good working condition often sell for triple or more of you said you paid for it. So to me, that's a bit of a red flag as there's usually a technical reason behind a low price like that. I know you were working on a tight budget to get the mixer but you've got to know the pitfalls which I tried to warn you about in the other thread you started.

So first thing to get under your belt is knowing how to operate the mixer so that you'll know if you've pressed all the right buttons and still aren't getting sound, you can then suspect and troubleshoot technical issues.

Also, one other topic to cover with the M-520 is Jumpers. The 520 used them on the rear panel between the ACCESS SEND/RECEIVE RCA jacks. If those are not in place, no sound can pass through the channels. Are they there? If yes, then we can look at other things like program buss assignment buttons, buss faders and so on. If they're not there, then you'll need to get some short RCA to RCA phono plug cables and patch that in so the signal can pass through the channel(s).

Cheers! :)
 
Seller told me that it was working before he put it into storage. I contacted him when I said I couldn't get it to produce sound. He said he was surprised and tried to help me trouble shoot it. He said I need a pre amp or something for it get a signal. All the jumpers with the exception of one were in place. The missing one I put an RCA cable in it's place. He said the mixer was used for many years in a church before they got donation for new gear. They then gave it to the seller.

I also tried the signal generator and that was a no go too. I hope this wasn't a huge waste of money.
 
Ok. I went and tried plugging my base into channel one. Then I used the direct out to another 3 channel mixer. I got sound. I think I just don't have it set up or wired right. Sound was pretty distorted though.
 
The way the monitoring is setup on the M-512/520 is a little unique.

Let's start at square 1:

You plugged your bass into channel 1. Is it a passive or active guitar?
 
rito25 said:
Ok. I went and tried plugging my base into channel one. Then I used the direct out to another 3 channel mixer. I got sound. I think I just don't have it set up or wired right. Sound was pretty distorted though.
Click to expand...

Finally, a ray of hope! :D

OK, so like I said earlier, sit down calmly with the manual and go through the signal chain diagrams and text explanations and figure it out.

Getting sound from one end to the other requires assigning a channel strip to a program buss, turning up the buss master faders and then understanding the monitoring system so that you're listening to the section of the mixer that you want to.

It takes some time and trial and error but eventually you'll get the hang of it.

The distortion you were hearing may have been simply having the trim control up too high. Gain staging is also another concept to get your head around. So overloading one stage will pass along that distortion to all the other stages after it. Same goes for having one stage too low which then forces you to boost all the other ones after it to compensate, which would then induce audible distortion from that. Keep the levels optimal throughout and you'll end up with clean sound.

Cheers! :)
 
Yeah. The sound cut in and out. Probably a result of the Gain and trim being to high. I also got the meters to respond by pluging an external signal to the meters. I'm going to see if I can borrow a mic cable and really test things out. I need my snakes to arrive so I can hook it up to my reel to reel.
 
so you have the guitar plugged into the instrument input on channel one, and the source select switch set to inst right?
 
Correct.

Update. Turned down the trim all the way. OUtput to second mixer still cuts in and out and is distorted.

I tried putting a guitar into channel 1. Then pressing bus 1 button. Then turning on the monitor. Nada. Should I open it up and start poking around?

Also do it need to be hooked up to a reel to reel to function?

Tried againg with a reel to reel hooked into channels one and two, Direct out to an external mixer. Zip, nada. I'm thinking a part must have gone bad.
Does this model have fuses or is that only the M 512 that has that? Could I have plugged in the power supply wrong?
 
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rito25 said:
Any one have any advice?
Click to expand...

Wish I could step you though the correct mixer routing procedures but I've never used that model personally and don't have a manual to read through and re-create a "reader's digest" version here on line for you to follow.

Sweetbeats and others here have owned that board and I'm sure will be along to help you out as time allows for them...have a bit of patience.

About answering if you wired up the power supply wrong, who on earth could reliably answer that without seeing your work and having the schematics in front of them to check that? If you have a meter and can test for voltages with it, you could verify if you're getting the various voltages you need first inside the power supply where the fuses are and then in the mixer to confirm that they made it to the other end of your work. That would be the logical approach, I believe.

Also, I believe you mentioned using a pretty thin gage wire to make up that cable. Was that telephone wire you're using? If so, that might be too thin for the current being pushed through it. If the wire is warm to the touch, that would be a confirmation of that. But check the fuses and voltages inside the power supply unit first.

Cheers! :)
 
I actually didn't make a cable. I just went and unscrewed the plug from the mixer and put it into jack of the power supply. One of my friends works in a recording studio. I'm going to see what he can do.
 
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