Dying LED Screen

[timmdrumm]

I've got a dying LED on one of my 2424s. Any ideas as to where I might find the part? Tascam parts says it's been discontinued (though they do still have some 2424 parts around). There are a couple auctions on ebay with 2424s at a good price, but I'd like to avoid picking up an entire machine.

Thanks!

 

[witzendoz]

Did you check the power supply cabling? I know back in the first years of these machines a dimming LED display was sometimes the power supply connections.

Alan.

 

[timmdrumm]

Not yet, Alan. I've been in the middle of a mix and keeping fingers crossed until tomorrow. I've got a feeling it may be a power supply issue; ALL of the lights started dimming shortly after my post -- meters, too. Rebooted and that went away, though the LED did it's thing again shortly after.

Interestingly, the LED is more of a contrast issue. The light stays fqairly bright, but the letters become virtually unreadable. Too bad they didn't fully integrate the menus with MX View. Luckily, the few things I do with the LED (X fades, master/slave switching are about it) the key presses are second nature.

I'll update the thread as I find answers.

Good to hear from you again! Hope things are well in OZ!

 

[MBIStudio133]

Yes, I have to agree with Alan, however my issues were with the main power supply connecter to the mother board. The cure is to remove the cable, desolder the pins and solder the wires directly to the power supply and the motherboard-a fix I believe I saw on the old forums. The LED screen was much better after the mods. Also, I installed an additional auxiliary power supply, fans and heat sinks to cool the unit down. Heat was a big issue before that. These things are pretty much bulletproof now, although somewhat slow to respond on big sessions/files/track count.

 

[timmdrumm]

Thanks for the info. Have I seen your posts about the power supply mods on another forum? Sure sounds familiar.

At any rate, I've still not had a look under the hood. The machine is working well right now (save for the main LED), and I've got too much on at the moment to stop sessions and pull it from the rack. I've found I CAN access virtually everything I would ever need the screen for via the various menus in MX View, so that gives me a temporary workaround.

For the record, the power supply was replaced about 5 years ago and I do not use internal drives at all. I'm going pull the cable and clean the connectors once these sessions wrap up, but I don't think I'll go through the trouble of soldering it directly. I've been slowly moving toward working more in the box (Cubase, Ableton, Nuendo, PT) and will be moving to the UK within the next 2 years, so I'll be selling off my beloved MX2424 rig (and a few DA88s as well!) before I leave the US. I'll be sure to post the gear for sale on the various Tascam forums so my fellow 2424 users can have first shot at it.

I'll up date the thread here once I've cleaned things up as Alan sugested. Thanks again for the info!!