Tascam M520 Story...
- Thread starter sweetbeats
- Start date
Gotcha. Although I would hardly call Cory's cable "homemade"
I have one currently unplugged. Give me the weekend and I'll photograph it.
Im a little unclear on why you need to do one. Was yours missing, and you lucked into finding the right connectors? (almost impossible to find)
Either way, I'll post pics of an original unmolested one soon.
I have one currently unplugged. Give me the weekend and I'll photograph it.
Im a little unclear on why you need to do one. Was yours missing, and you lucked into finding the right connectors? (almost impossible to find)
Either way, I'll post pics of an original unmolested one soon.
Thank you. Read my first two posts on page 52. I was missing a power cable and I tracked down all the correct connectors to build one. I'm trying to solder as few wires as possible and wondering if a 20 conductor cable is really necessary for the umbilical. Many of the pins in the power supply are soldered together (one of them is even empty). I want to use an 11 or 12 conductor cable and I have a suspicion that Tascam did just that. Sweetbeats cable is beautiful, a work of art. Unfortunately I'm not quite as skilled and soldering with almost half of the pins together would be much easier.
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sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Dipstah thanks for the kind words about my cable.
It was tedious, borderline frustrating work. What I would do is strip enough of the jacket back on the conductor I was going to solder so I could clamp the end of the wire to the base of the post with a pair of hemostats, and then try and wrap it around the post a time or two and then weld it on. Then slide the heat shrink over it. Like I said it was tedious.
It really helps to have a clamp you can hold the connector in. I have a vacuum-base rubber-jaw clamp that can be adjusted into just about any position. It's helpful for stuff like this.
Your alternative of using less conductors and soldering terminals together should be fine. I would advise the conductors in the wire you use be larger than the factory 22AWG if you're going to double up. Maybe 18AWG...20AWG would probably work too.
I think this is actually what I ended up doing for the cable I made for my prototype Tascam 12 X 8 console...because the mixer frame power connector only has 12 pins. I found some really great CNC stepper motor wire with enough conductors and braided shield...the factory M-520 power cable is supposed to be unshielded though.
Anyway, good luck. You'll get it.
BTW where did you find the connectors??
It was tedious, borderline frustrating work. What I would do is strip enough of the jacket back on the conductor I was going to solder so I could clamp the end of the wire to the base of the post with a pair of hemostats, and then try and wrap it around the post a time or two and then weld it on. Then slide the heat shrink over it. Like I said it was tedious.
It really helps to have a clamp you can hold the connector in. I have a vacuum-base rubber-jaw clamp that can be adjusted into just about any position. It's helpful for stuff like this.
Your alternative of using less conductors and soldering terminals together should be fine. I would advise the conductors in the wire you use be larger than the factory 22AWG if you're going to double up. Maybe 18AWG...20AWG would probably work too.
I think this is actually what I ended up doing for the cable I made for my prototype Tascam 12 X 8 console...because the mixer frame power connector only has 12 pins. I found some really great CNC stepper motor wire with enough conductors and braided shield...the factory M-520 power cable is supposed to be unshielded though.
Anyway, good luck. You'll get it.
BTW where did you find the connectors??
Sweetbeats, thanks for the great advice on building the cable. And thank you so much RFR! My suspicions were confirmed! It looks like 12 conductor cable with 20 or 22 gauge wire. This makes things waaay easier. And this adds more info to the great M-520 library.
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Master A / B
Hi,
I just got my 520 finally. I was looking to one in Spain for quite some time cos shipping for that beast would kill any budget.
Now... There is no sound comming out of master a or b. If I solo any Chanel then I got signal. The seller tells me that that is typical in this board and that I just should route desired channels to Bus 1/2 and patch them to the monitor input. That's a story right?
I mean... That can just not be the case...
...any ideas where technically to look for the problem. Seems like the Sum of the channels are not connected to Master A/B.
Or maybe he is right and the 520 works that way :-/
Let me know what you think guys.
Hi,
I just got my 520 finally. I was looking to one in Spain for quite some time cos shipping for that beast would kill any budget.
Now... There is no sound comming out of master a or b. If I solo any Chanel then I got signal. The seller tells me that that is typical in this board and that I just should route desired channels to Bus 1/2 and patch them to the monitor input. That's a story right?
I mean... That can just not be the case...
...any ideas where technically to look for the problem. Seems like the Sum of the channels are not connected to Master A/B.
Or maybe he is right and the 520 works that way :-/
Let me know what you think guys.
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Greetings!
That is how it works. That is one of the reasons the M-50 and M-500 consoles are sometimes criticized. You know how on most consoles with subgroups you have group assign switches as well as an assign switch to route a channel directly to the main buss? Like the assign switchrack on an 8-buss console might look something like:
[1-2]
[3-4]
[5-6]
[7-8]
[L-R]
The M-50/M-500 consoles have no dedicated main L-R buss to which you can directly assign inputs. You can only assign to the 8 subgroups, and then you can monitor those groups (in addition to those outputs having their own output jacks) via the monitor mixer, and the output of the monitor mixer is the STEREO A/B outputs or headphones.
That is how it works. That is one of the reasons the M-50 and M-500 consoles are sometimes criticized. You know how on most consoles with subgroups you have group assign switches as well as an assign switch to route a channel directly to the main buss? Like the assign switchrack on an 8-buss console might look something like:
[1-2]
[3-4]
[5-6]
[7-8]
[L-R]
The M-50/M-500 consoles have no dedicated main L-R buss to which you can directly assign inputs. You can only assign to the 8 subgroups, and then you can monitor those groups (in addition to those outputs having their own output jacks) via the monitor mixer, and the output of the monitor mixer is the STEREO A/B outputs or headphones.
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
I’ll answer your question with a question:
Why do you need to clean the pots? What is happening that tells you they need to be cleaned?
Outside of that I’ve always removed the cards in order to access any holes through which I can jet and drain cleaner.
Why do you need to clean the pots? What is happening that tells you they need to be cleaned?
Outside of that I’ve always removed the cards in order to access any holes through which I can jet and drain cleaner.
When I turn the knobs they cracke and do noises. Not all but some. I stared taking a unit of 4 cards out but from there on I need to unscrew more to get to the single cards. So before I start that I thought that maybe there is a better way maybe opening the 520 from the downside and access the Potentiometers slightly easier.
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Turn up the gain on the mid or hi frequency band on the EQ section of a channel that has crackly pots, then pass some signal through the channel and drastically sweep the frequency control from low to hi (clockwise)...If you get a howling or squealing feedback type effect when you sweep the EQ frequency knob with signal passing, I suspect what your console needs is a recap. Sometimes the crackling/fitzing/popping is dirty pots, but they have to be really dirty...those symptoms are also brought on by DC current in the signal path. The DC current is often normal with opamp designs, but its supposed to be blocked by all those coupling caps in the signal path. When the caps start to dry up/go out of spec you start getting crackling or even the above mentioned feedback effect in the EQ section with drastic frequency sweeps. Do you have that problem?
I'm just trying to save you the time/trouble of tearing your console apart to clean pots and still have the problem.
If you really think its just dirty pots, try exercising them with a shoelace...pull the knob off, wrap a shoelace once around the pot shaft and rapidly sweep the pot from hard left to right and back and forth a bunch of times by pulling the wrapped shoelace back and forth. Does that help?
Ultimately if that doesn't help it may be time for a recap, or if you want to try cleaning the pots, to do it right you really need to pull the channel modules apart so you can get to each card, because of the problem you've already identified: the challenge to get to an access point to jet/drain the cleaner in the body of the pot.
I'm just trying to save you the time/trouble of tearing your console apart to clean pots and still have the problem.
If you really think its just dirty pots, try exercising them with a shoelace...pull the knob off, wrap a shoelace once around the pot shaft and rapidly sweep the pot from hard left to right and back and forth a bunch of times by pulling the wrapped shoelace back and forth. Does that help?
Ultimately if that doesn't help it may be time for a recap, or if you want to try cleaning the pots, to do it right you really need to pull the channel modules apart so you can get to each card, because of the problem you've already identified: the challenge to get to an access point to jet/drain the cleaner in the body of the pot.
Hi... So nice. Thanks Sweetbeats. I will try the shoelace trick and see where it goes 
I just cut some new wooden side panels for the desk and ordered a set of light bulbs. Today I noticed that the Master A fader is working terrible. The guy that I bought it from told me to never use it since it's really worn out. Any ideas where to find a replacement for this small faders?
I just cut some new wooden side panels for the desk and ordered a set of light bulbs. Today I noticed that the Master A fader is working terrible. The guy that I bought it from told me to never use it since it's really worn out. Any ideas where to find a replacement for this small faders?