DM4800 CF card unit

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William Kleinsasser

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Gear owned
DM4800 mixer
Background first

We have a Tascam DM4800 mixer. The CF card unit has died and after careful troubleshooting and inspection of the unit and cables, I think there is a problem with the CF card board itself. The easy stuff has been checked - no bent pins, no loose cables, tried three new CF cards (all 2GB). For several months I have gone back and forth with Tascam in CA. The short story is that replacement parts for the mixer's CF board are no longer available and it's not clear even if it can be serviced, repaired at the component level, or replaced.

The big problem is that this CF card unit is required for the memory and library to work with this mixer so without it, there's no preset library and no automation recording/playback. We'd really prefer to not scrap the mixer for this one board's malfunction.

The questions

1) Is it possible, and does anyone know how to fix this unit?

2) if not, does anyone know of a hack for the CF card board to convert it to either USB flash drive, SD card, or some other replacement storage so that we can get the DM4800 working again? Is there an Arduino project here, maybe?

I await the knowledge and wisdom of the experts. :)

Thanks.
 
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You probably checked this, but just in case: 2GB seems to me like a huge size for an SD card in the DM. Do you still have the original 32MB card? The biggest size I ever tested was 256 MB, but I always keep the original in place and don't touch it.
 
Curiously, who said that parts to replace the CF board are no longer available? The DM3200 is still being manufactured and according to RedBus, Tascam supports up to 7 years after a product is discontinued.
 
cmaffia, thank you for the information. We had been using the 2GB CF card for 4 four years without issue then suddenly it stopped working.

Here's the final email I received from parts@teac.com

On Nov 11, 2016, at 4:49 PM, Parts@teac.com wrote:

William,
We just received word back from japan concerning P/N E95198300A [the CF card unit board], unfortunately they were no longer able to get this board this has been discontinued with no replacement.

....

No replacement and I am not sure what our Techs would do in this case. You can call and check with them to see what other options as far as repairing it in component level maybe if the board is not broken maybe there is a chance on repairing the unit but they would most likely need to check the unit and see if they can trouble shoot it? Our Service center that would repair this would be Tap Electronics they are listed on our website.

I emailed Tap Electronics and they said they'd need to try a component-level repair that would require the entire DM4800 unit and it would be no better than 50/50 that it would work and it would be expensive plus shipping.
 
Perhaps it is not supported in the sense that its not stable. Have you tried a smaller card under 1GB as Arjan suggested?
 
Based your information, Arjan and cmaffia, in my old camera stuff I found a Canon FC-16M 16MB card, which is on their list of tested cards.

I also found a Lexar 128MB and a SanDisk 64, and they’re not on the list but also might work. I'll try them this afternoon.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if it is just the size/make of the CF card that has been the issue this whole time? Aargh.
 
I'm wondering if the DM3200 is just about to be discontinued and Tascam only has units in inventory for sale? If they were still manufacturing these then they would obviously have the part. What's more concerning is the DM3200 hasn't been discontinued yet and they don't have this part for replacement.... a part that would seem to cripple the unit if it's not working...
 
I've had problems with the unit as well. Quote from my posting of 2014:

I've also had lots of issues with the CF cards, even with new ones. I am not sure if the reader is the cause, but I guess it is.
- A card can only be used if it is formatted in the DM, not in the PC.
- Some cards are not recognized by the DM: 'CF card not available'.
- Some cards can't be formatted: 'Format failed'.
- Backup/restore only works with tpi files, not by copying files/banks on the PC.
- I've had 'Restore errors: Failed' and 'Out of SRAM Range' errors.
I now have a small set of CF cards that work fine, using the TMC.

The two cards that currently work are both 256 Mb. I tried to use several new cards, but they failed as well.
 
Curious if those who are having issues are up to the latest firmware on the board?
 
very peculiar.
 
I spent the week with six CF cards, some old, some brand new, all 128MB or smaller. Some on the Tascam list, some not. Nothing has solved the problem, though there is a new piece of information. I bought a new Lexar 64MB CF card (on Tascam's list) and when I put it in the mixer it was recognized with a message saying the formatting was not compatible would I like to format it?" When I tried to format it, I got the "Format failed" error and the utility window showed the CF card as "Unformatted" in the CF utility window. I tried taking it out, putting it in, pushing down on it, tried the format button over and over to the same result, all about 100 times over the course of about 30 minutes. Sometimes I unplugged the USB cable from the DM4800 just to see if that had an effect. I tried rebooting the DM4800 with the card in, with the card out... Nothing worked to get the card formatted.

And, interestingly, while I was doing this, sometimes the DIM and Talkback buttons randomly lit and unlit.

Maybe those bits of information will jar loose an idea for how I should proceed. My next step is to open the DM4800 and really give all the ribbon cables a close inspection all through the mixder including the monitor board with the DIM lights.
 
Headroom, which brand are those that are working for you?

cmafia, I don't think I can change firmware until I can use the software that requires that the CF card be working. Am I wrong? I'm not eager to factory-reset the DM4800 since it has in its one booted memory the settings we use daily in the studio (at least that is working still).
 
DM Firmware is update via the TMC utility not CF. firmware update doesnt affect board settings. This is also assuming you are not using firmware 1.70 already. This doesn't sound like a firmware will fix it. Have you tried cleaning the CF connectors? Check cabling if you have.
 
The one thing you didn't mention is taking the CF card to a PC with a card reader and format it there to FAT16 standard. Windows should still be capable of doing so - in this case select Full Format.
 
I am using 4 different brands and sizes successfully and never had a card that didn't work. To me this doesn't seem to be an issue of finding the right card. This sounds more like a hardware failure.
 
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