Is my FW-1082 fried?

[Musixz]

Hi all!

Started getting a loud high pitched hum in one of the monitor output channels of my trusty old 1082 and noticed that when I moved the power plug (back of 1082) around, then frequency would shift a little bit.

Both the 1082 and the monitors are plugged in to a UPS.

After unplugging everything to try and eliminate the noise, I powered down the 1082 and turned it back on. This made it worse....

Now:

There is this rapid (120+ BPM?), loud, pulsing noise in the outputs and headphones.
No input audio is heard
All the red "OL" LEDs are on.

All other functionality/LEDs seem to be working normally. FW, Clock, and D-In working as they should. Can change the EQ/Pan, etc. Switch between comp control and mon mix, etc. Computer recognizes the 1082.

Tried shutting it off and unplugging everything but the power and headphones. No change. Did a reset a couple times. No change. Tried another 12v C+ power supply I had laying around. No change.

Any suggestions? I cant afford to replace it and am hoping it might be something simple, or even a component that could be replaced? I can solder

Help? :0

UPDATE: Ok, so after letting the 1082 stay powered off for about an hour. The OL lights are off and Im back to the original hum - but with NO audio output of any kind (whether from analog or digital inputs) other than the WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

Then, after about 20 mins of being idle, the OL's all came back on again (but no pulsing noise) - just the WEEEEEEEE.

Seems almost like a heat problem, but its quite cool in the room and the 1082 doesnt feel anything above slightly warm (per usual).

Sigh.

 

[Jose Nuñez]

Hello friend, the problem is power supply, I had a similar problem,
the technician repair and everything works fine now.
regards!!
good luck

 

[Musixz]

Are you referring to the external power supply?...or the internal power supply board/circuit?

I cant really afford to have it repaired so I need to do it myself. Havent been able to find the schematics for the 1082, or any reference to the components like with the 1884.....so I'm going at it blind.

Guess I'll look for some bad caps near the power circuit in the mean time....

Thanks!

 

[Jose Nuñez]

Sorry,
is in internal power supply, capacitors are regularly those who fail, do not have the diagram and it was also not really component, but if the fault was on the internal power supply, (it said that the repair technician).

 

[acebanana]

Hi Musixz, did you get your desk sorted? Mine has exactly the same problem but I couldn't see any visible signs of bad capacitors. Wondering whether to take it in somewhere.

 

[tkay]

Two years late, but I thought I'd share my experience as well, for future googlers.

I'm selling my unit atm, had it since 2006. Since then, I've had two or three times a persisting issue with noise coming out of outputs. Each time the symptoms were similar: it only happened after cold starting the unit, first REALLY loud periodical noise pattern that soon gradually attenuated to high pitched whining. Turning the unit on without additional volume controller in the monitor line was impossible (unlike FW-1082's headphone output, monitor output has a digital control circuitry that clearly lets all PSU noise through). The problem always got slowly worse over time.

In my case, the problem originated from what I believe is the PSU capacitor C23, if my memory serves me correct. It's the one next to a KT-4602 transformer near the top edge of the attached image. I believe the original cap is a bit rare value, 330 µF, but you can use a higher capacitance replacement as long as the voltage rating is at least as high as the original one. Don't let the flawless capacitor appearance fool you, mine had zero visible bulging or leak! Replacing the cap completely fixed the issue for me.

Finally, the order of disassembly for those who wish to check it out:

1. Side plastic panels
2. Metal strip in the backside top edge
3. Bottom plate
4. Front arm rest
5. Front strip (underneath the arm rest) and right side strip
6. Back panel (there are a few screws with finer threading than others, they secure power and firewire connectors)
7. Main PCB
8. Power PCB

 

[Dave K]

Thanks for this very useful info since i just happened to have a similar issue with my FW-1082... i have no hum but my problem is that it does turn on normally for about half an hour then all of the lights turn off except the stop button light... it made me think about a power supply issue since i also noticed that the light on the external power supply was weaker than usual when the unit was turn on, so i'm wondering now if it could be the same issue...

 

[Peter Mayne]

I only stumbled on this forum entry this month and I thought it might well point to the problem I had with my FW1082. The unit powers up and then goes into a 'dance' mode where the sliders move up and down on in varied patterns every half second. Pressing some of the buttons makes the patterns change but the whole unit is clearly unusable.
Reading this thread I thought it might well be a similar power supply problem so I took the unit apart (thanks to tkay) and changed C23.
Unfortunately, my problem persists. Happy to hear any suggestions anyone may have.

 

[Dave K]

In my case, i did not change the C23 because changing the external power supply solved the problem. I had tendency to forget to unplug it from the outlet so i guess that it just became so weak that it wouldn't let the FW-1082 work properly...

 

[Peter Mayne]

Hey Dave K,
Your external power supply must have been really bad for it to take half an hour to warm up properly. I think my external PSU is OK but I could be wrong. I'll see if I can find a compatible alternative external supply. If this all fails then I guess I'll have to go and buy another control surface and soundcard

 

[Dave K]

Hi Peter,
I might have explained it wrong (English is not my main tongue) but what I meant was the opposite... My external PSU was already hot before i started the session because i always kept it plugged to the wall, so it was never cooling down. Therefore when the problem occurred, it only gave me 30 mins of use at the beginning of the issue (probably the time it needed to start overheating or something), but then I tried unplugging it after every session and managed to extend the use up to 3 or 4 hours when starting with a cooler PSU... so my conclusion was that I fried my external PSU by keeping it plugged to the wall even when the FW1082 was turned off.
Anyway, another thing you could try is to reset your FW1082 when powering it up. If I remember well, to reset you have to hold down the first row (horizontally) and third row of buttons on the upper left side (6 buttons in all) and power on the machine. Maybe that could help...

 

[Peter Mayne]

Hey Dave,
Ahh I understand and thanks for explaining further. The problem I'm having doesn't seem to get better or worse over time. I tried the reset idea -It's difficult holding down 6 buttons and switching the unit on . Unfortunately, it didn't make any difference.

I was going to upload a short video showing the dancing sliders - but the forum doesn't allow this.
I will try and find another compatible power supply to try. I would much prefer to get this unit working again than have to buy new equipment.

 

[Patsau]

Hey ! Huge thanks to you tkay !

Had the same issue of high pitch noise at the oupout, and with the informations you provided, i got the pcb power supply repaired at my local electronic repair shop. They replaced capacitors located at C23 and C24 locations, and the biggest one ont the board as well ( i guess it was on location L3 or L13, i don't remember, the big black one). They also had to redo the solder job ont the socket connector intended for the power switch unit. A second life for this amazing Tascam product ! Thanks again !!!

 

[pdeber]

Thanks for all the tips. Got same problem, but also on my computer where the 5 volts is sometime weak so the disk doesn't boot. I found that the ac in my home was moving from 215 V to 220 instead of 230 V. I plan to buy an AC regulator.

 

[pdeber]

lately and finally I replaced 7 chemical capacitors on the power board, now it works fine. The cost was 16.5 US$ for the 7 condos, the job takes me 1 hour. Many thanks to the team for help !

 

[shredd]

I loooove when there's a user/owner-possible solution to technical problems. Nothing more annoying than paying US$250 to ship a unit to a factory/mfg'r service center and back to have them replace a $0.50 capacitor.

I've done this a number of times - most recent example is opening up my ZOOM drum machines (all of which are old and had on-board CR2032 batteries that would normally retain settings, kits/patterns/songs, etc - but had batteries that had died, so the units would either boot with EVERYthing "gone", or not boot at all)...
Removed the soldered-on batteries; replaced them with a $0.40 battery holder and a $0.75 new battery; and now they ALL work as well as the day they were made.

 

[mister:jones]

Signed up for similar issues with my FW-1082's.

One of my boards has an issue similar to another poster's: We had a power outage last summer. When the power came back on, my FW-1082 stated making this "bumping" noise at about 130-140bpm through the monitor outs as well as the headphone outs. I'm one to leave my stuff on 24/7 and although this was switched on during the outage, it was connected to a fairly beefy UPS that should have handled any surge coming in.

Instead of repairing it immediately, I bought another one from Ebay. This one shipped with a proper Tascam PS-1225 power supply (the other one had some wall-wart type of psu with it) and worked perfectly until about Feb of this year. Since my recording rig is in my bedroom, I tend to have music playing through it at night as this helps me to sleep. I started noticing that the in the middle of the night the music would stop with some error about a missing device but would start right back up without issue. Eventually I noticed that the unit would stay on for maybe an hour or so before fading and then shutting off. If I turn it off for an hour or so I can use it again for a few hours, sometimes up to 5hrs but eventually the volume would fade slowly and it would shut off. I'm wondering if this sounds like an external PSU issue as it sounds strikingly similar to Dave K's problem.

I do have my older unit opened upright now and I'm going to replace C23 and 24 on the PSU board to see if that works, then I'll have a working spare.

 

[mister:jones]

So, I know the member @tkay posted pics, but I'm about to do this repair either today or tomorrow and thought I'd share this in the event there are other out there with the same or similar problems and they stumble upon this thread looking for answers.

First, there's actually three capacitors that need replacement even if they look like they're good: C23, C17, and C15. All three are green and are Samxon GF series electrolytic caps. These are known to be bad.



C23 is 330uf.
C17 is 1000uf
C15 is 4700uf.

For replacements, I have Panasonic FK-A series aluminum caps. I picked them up from DigiKey but you can get them from pretty much any decent supplier like Mouser, etc. The 4700uf has a slightly larger diameter and shorter in length but it should be fine for this application.

DigiKey part numbers are:

P124265-ND - 4700uf
P11184-ND - 330uf
P10225-ND - 1000uf



I have three of these consoles, and I'm testing this out on the last one I purchased from Ebay. Once I re-cap the board and test it, I'll report back to this thread. I'm thinking I'll probably record a video showing the before and after on the next one.