Mackie DX810

[Tommy077]

I have a Mackie DX810 at my church that we use as the room eq and the crossover for the subs. Wed. night when I got here, my new recruit showed me that we had no sound. We could see the inputs to the DX, but there were no outputs. We loaded the software onto our overhead projector computer and after many attempts, finally got access to the program in the DX. The DX had dumped the entire program, so we had to reload the program. After talking to someone else, they asked if the battery had been changed in it yet. The unit is at least 7 years old and I know that it has not been done since I first started attending here 6 years ago. Has anyone tried this before?

[Brad Weber]

The DX810 was one of those products that as a result of ownership changes was at various time a Mackie, Mackie Industrial and eventually EAW Commercial product. Information and software can be found at ftp://ftp.eaw.com/EAW_Commercial/Dig...roducts/DX810/.

The DX810 does have a replaceable internal battery and if you are powering the unit down a worn out battery could fail to hold the programming. I have not encountered that situation with that particular device but have run into it with other devices.

[Tim Padrick]

Originally Posted by Tommy077

I have a Mackie DX810 at my church that we use as the room eq and the crossover for the subs.

Do you have a protective high-pass on the subs?

What are you using to high-pass the tops?

[nevmoor]

At my job, we have several of these units installed in multiple locations. THey had been working great for about 5-6yrs, and they are ALL starting to fail. There was something about the type of capacitors that were used on the circuit boards. If you have the opportunity to replace the mixers with something else, I would do so unless you are tech enough to replace the caps.

[daver2]

The manual specifically mentions an internal lithium battery to retain the configuration data. It is highly likely that the battery is failing and requires replacement. Before the battery dies completely, it is likely that voltage spikes will corrupt the memory thus making the unit become unreliable. I would suggest contacting the manufacturer to identify what type of replacement is necessary - or opening the unit up (if you are confident about this type of work) and identifying it yourself. It may be similar to a PC BIOS battery and can easily be relaced with a simple screwdriver - or it may be a soldered unit which will require a bit more expertise.

As Nevmoor has stated, certain electronic components are also liable to fail as the equipment ages. Electrolytic capacitors on the power supply are the usual culprits - although there are other devices. I do not think that your problem is related to component aging though.

When purchasing any type of equipment - one thing you should alway do is to identify which components have a life expectancy and roughly what that is. You can then note these down and plan for aging and obsolescence rather than it biting you when you least expect it!

Dave

[Tommy077]

For an update, I went ahead last week and opened the unit and replaced the battery. The unit is nothing more than a computer inside and the battery looks like a CMOS battery in a computer. I have not had the issues I had since I replaced the battery so it looks as though that was the issue. It only required a $3.20 fix to keep us from spending more than we could afford to spend at this time.

[pdc]

Yep...that is what DSP units are...A/D, processors, ROM, D/A, etc.

The problem with ANYTHING digital that Mackie has made is that the projects were managed in-house, but the hands on digital work was outsourced most of the time. You get little to no support or parts for legacy products.

Consider the TT24 digital console. Yesterday I re-installed one that had a bad power supply. Mackie no longer supplies parts or supports this mixer (which Mackie said would continue to be developed, which is also what they said about all of the other digital consoles...) so parts had to be purchased from other service centers and customers across the country, with dead TT24s laying around.

NEVER BUY ANY MACKIE DIGITAL PRODUCTS....EVER.

To clear things up, EAW and MAckie shared products. The products were rebranded EAW so that consultants and contractors would spec them. That is the only reason. It was not that they were better since they had the EAW badge. They were all turkeys.
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[daver2]

Now I wonder how much that $3.20 battery would have been if you had sent the unit for 'repair'?

Dave

[Tommy077]

Hey Dave, it probably would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 plus shipping costs (both ways). It took 2 hours of my Saturday morning that day, including the round trip time to the battery store that had it.