Trying to fixed FaderMaster

[part12studios]

Hi everyone,

I know this isn't a synth but I think a synth CC controller still counts and hey it's pretty damn old.

So I bought this unit off someone locally, though they mailed it.. $40 for something like this seemed like a fair shake. the unit had (i learned later) been working for the seller but had been shelved for about 2 years. I got it home and this is what i found:



they didn't seem to know what i meant by backup battery so I immediately opened it up. This unity was incredibly easy to get into which was nice.. but sure enough I found at least ONE possible problem:



yes this battery was installed December 1994.. lol.. now the battery does look healthy at least.. but i'm going to try and replace it.

The seller has been cool and is willing to return the money if I can't get it to work again.. so as you can see it's a funky 2032.. I'm going to seriously see if i can figure out how i could install a user replaceable 2032 mount.. but i may just do bite the bullet and get a proper replacement.

Does anyone know of any other problems that might be going on? I am not familiar with these units.. but I take some hope in believing it could be the problem.. because my Peavey Spectrum Analog Filter was funky when I got it.. kinda worked.. but once i put a new battery in it.. it worked perfectly fine.. any tips / advice would be welcome.

[part12studios]

a quick update.. so the battery is a 2325.. and since i didn't have one i tried a 2320 with a user replacable battery holder.. no difference.

I also tested the original battery and it was registering at 3v.. from what i can tell the battery in there was fine..

are 2320 and 2325 close enough to work or is there something

no difference in behavior after installation of new batter.. or behavior when the battery was completely removed..

I'm thinking it's something else.

[meatballfulton]

Clean the sliders yet?

Dirty sliders making poor electrical contact causing values to jump around like that.

I seriously doubt the backup battery could be causing that.

[part12studios]

I have not and do not know the best way to clean them.. here is a picture of the motherboard. Any advice would be super welcome. I was going to buy some contact cleaner to service my binary bit encoder dial on my K2500R. Would contact cleaner be all i need? spray and slide? q-tip? I have no doubt the thing has never been cleaned.. at least since someone cared enough to write a date on the battery.. now that's some workmanship!



I can tell you that brown stuff is a kind of sticky substance.. the unit has been sitting for about 6 years.. the owner was not the first owner.. said it was in a smoke free environment but that's not to say we know it wasn't before then.. the look of those sliders reminds me of smokers tar.. but look the thing is old and I guess things like lubricant could do that too.. had to wash my hands after wiping some of it off..

it slides with reasonable resistance.. neither overly stiff or super slick..


Bonus question: I definitely would love anyone to weigh on on the 2032 / 2325 comparison.. I don't own any 2325's so should I go buy one? I think the user replaceable 2032 holder would hold a 2325.. but i'm just wondering if they are close enough to not matter? I'll buy the right part but i own a number of 2032's so it just seemed like a corner I could cut if it's not going to hurt the unit.

[synthroom]

Look up Caig Deoxit Faderlube.

And on button cell batteries, the first two digits are the diameter of the cell (in millimeters) and the last two digits are the thickness of the cell. So the only difference between 2320 and 2325 batteries is one should be 5 mm less in diameter.

[part12studios]

@synthroom ok so I got my hands on some Deoxit D5 but yea not faderlube. I'll see if guitar center has it.. i don't think they do have that specific one, but I can see it's online easy enough if they don't.

on the subject of this stuff (cleaning sliders).. I have a Rotary Binary Encoder that is dirty.. would it be better to use fadermaster for it or D5 contact cleaner? The knob is for my K2500R.





so the two batteries are basically the same "voltage"-wise.. just different shapes. that's good to know!

Thanks!
Caleb

[streamingtheatre]

@part12studios: Hello, I´ writing from germany. Did you solve the problem with the blinking LED´? I have owned the same fadermaster and it shows the same issue.

Best regards
streamingtheatre

[part12studios]

i'm afraid it's an IC chip somewhere.. not dirty contacts. there was no solution I could find. the only thing i would say to do with it is find ways to "embrace the chaos" and explore ways of using the jitty CC messages to do cool stuff..

I called TC the company and yea given the massive age of these units they have no advice / support to offer.

[part12studios]

Another idea that comes to mind to work with this unit with a DAW would be perhaps quantizing the data that comes in if that's even possible with the software. The data comes in and simply fluctuates a little bit based on the point at which the slider is at. This problem becomes magnified as it gets closer to 127 but still it seems like if you could quantize to the nearest quarter note for eighth note or whatever resolution then clean up would be pretty minor. I have never tried applying a quantize function to CC data but it's all just information so I don't see why it's a big deal and I could certainly see how that would be convenient.

[part12studios]

Ok I can't let this go.. I'm "unresolving" this to see if someone else might be able to help. I recently restored an old Oxygen USB controller that had rotary knobs for CC.. they were all showing the EXACT same kind of behavior.. as the knob increased the behavior of the values would get more and more chaotic.. I opened it up and cleaned it and it works perfectly now.

I feel like maybe I just don't know what side of the slider (as seen above) is where the contact really happens. The slit in it is too narrow for a Qtip to fit into.. so other than spraying and sliding inside there generously.. nothing has helped. sliding the fader up and down is not enough..

I know it could still just be something else, but after experiencing the problem and resolution with cleaning I can't bring myself to throw it out knowing it could be easily fixed with just a little know how and well focused cleaning.

[micahjonhughes]

You could get something smaller. They sell tiny brushes for cleaning between teeth next to the dental floss. I bet you could get one of those in the gap. Also, you could de-solder the sliders and then open then up to clean them. If that did not work, you could just replace the sliders.

Have you checked to be sure that you are getting a constant voltage from the power supply?

[part12studios]

I haven't checked that about the voltage. I could try that out tonight.

yea i may just have to do that.. take one out completely open it up and dissect it. Hopefully it goes back together nicely.. finding the exact replacement given it's from the late 80's or early 90's is a long shot I'm guessing.

but yea at this point maybe it's just time to let it become learning fodder..

[Soldertraining]

By using the new option from the track menu you can create a new stereo master fader. You will see the leve meter on the master fader that changed into the red color. Now bring down the master fader until it stops clipping and you will heat that the tone stops being destorted.

[part12studios]

So I was unable to fix mine. in fact it got worse and i don't know why, but I did make this video showing what the slider looks like taken apart. at least this can help someone before they dive in

cleaning it might do the trick but my messing around in there made it worse, but I think its because of something else.. the sticker came off the rom chip exposing it to light and that might have messed it up.. bummer but it was a good learning experience.

I hope someone else has more luck with it than I did.

[hageir]

I was stumped for a few days repairing my JL Cooper Fadermaster. Pay close attention to the one fader that is reversed.

I disassembled all of them (had to do it a few times, because the tightness has to be just right when putting them back together). I finally measured each and one of them to double/triple check their values. Finally realized there's one that's reversed to the others, seems to carry some other/important information? Anyways, they're all serially connected and the strobing goes to s**t when you only have in the unit or a faulty fader.

I finally got it up to spec, did a factory reset and also slowed down the Strobe Speed Setting (it's in the manual).
And it's working quite well! It's super touchy about the faders tho' it's probably best to replace the poor bastards...