SSL help several issues.

[Kprellz]

Hey guys sorry for the several posts I’ve made so far, gonna try and consolidate any issues to this one post rather than making a bunch of little posts.

So little backstory we got our SSL E series desk probably a little less than a year ago, and we’ve decided to start recapping he whole desk(center section and PSU had been done prior to purchase) so we started with the input and EQ cards and will be doing the group and VCA cards over the next week or so. The desk does not have a computer but we do have all the logic cards in the channels it’s a 32 channel desk with 7 82e01 Jensen cards and the rest are the 149 transformerless, also the Jensen cards are 82e02 EQ cards where the rest have the 242eq We also currently have an extended card so trouble shooting things has been difficult.

Issue 1) after recapping some channels are experiencing an issue where if you solo the channel it will also cut itself so that no sound comes out.

Issue 2) I’ve got once channel where the small fader isn’t picking up sound from the multitrack tape monitor  but will get small fader sound everywhere else in the chain, we’ve tried changing the input card and group card with known working ones with no change.

Issue 3) one channel now just has a red overload light and gets no sound. A buddy said it might be self oscillating somewhere  however changing the input card did not help. I pulled all the cards out of the channels And put them back in one at a time the light seems to come on only when the VCA card is in. Perhaps this issue will go away when we recap that card.

Will post more issues here as they arrive. I appreciate everyone’s help who has already help us so far, seriously the community is amazing and so appreciated.
We also just purchased 8 more 611 channels to have spares and make sure the desk is at 100% at all times.
Thanks again!

[Chris Simon]

Some of your issues, perhaps #1 and #2, might be due to a faulty '12 Logic card; try swapping that out as well. As for the overload LED, it's driven by the VCA card, so it's not surprising that it doesn't come on when you pull that card. Try probing VCA card pins 34, 36, and 38 to see if in fact there's an oscillation that's triggering the LED.

Chris

[Showcase]

I find the esiest way is to exchange cards on the module to known working ones until it starts working, then you know what card, then just send it to a service guy or go from there yourself, buy some spare channels to save downtime until its fixed

[Kprellz]

Some of your issues, perhaps #1 and #2, might be due to a faulty '12 Logic card; try swapping that out as well. As for the overload LED, it's driven by the VCA card, so it's not surprising that it doesn't come on when you pull that card. Try probing VCA card pins 34, 36, and 38 to see if in fact there's an oscillation that's triggering the LED.

Chris

Thanks Chris! Just wondering why the logic cards would be acting up now of all times. do you think that our shutting buckets on and off to pull and test channels could have caused this? and what I can do to remedy the issue if it is the logic cards.

[Kprellz]

do you guys think its better to hot swap channels with buckets on? or to kill the bucket each time we pull a channel. With recapping we've been turning th console on and off quite a lot and i dont think it likes it.

[Chris Simon]

You definitely have to cut the bucket before moving channel strips around. The logic card is going to govern the solo/cut logic. When you solo a channel, the Solo/Cut bus on upper line 59 goes high, which cuts the VCA's on all channels. The reason it doesn't cut the channel you're soloing is the logic card on that channel also receives a high signal from the Solo switch, which cancels the cut. This all happens on the Logic card, and it doesn't take much to disrupt 30 year old CMOS logic.

 Sometimes, it's not the cards' fault. Sometimes the Logic card doesn't get seated properly, which causes all sorts of havoc. Sometimes the wire from the Solo switch breaks. Sometimes the traces on the motherboard get damaged. Sometimes turning a bucket off and on will randomly set a weird combination of logic off (you'll see this particularly in the centre section). Don't turn the entire console on and off; get used to shutting buckets down individually.

Chris

[Kprellz]

Oh we definitely have not cut power to the center section just the buckets, I'm just wondering if theres a shut off procedure to follow to reduce the probably of issues on the logic cards from turning them off and on

[Chris Simon]

If you turn on and off the buckets individually, there's usually no problem.

[Kprellz]

So weirdly enough after recapping the VCA and group cards most of our issues have gone away!! I'm waiting on 8 more channels to come in the mail to our desk 40 chanels (woow!!) channels were originally in Electric lady so thats hot. Will update in the next few days as I finish up the last of the channels and take notes of any new or remaining issues. Thanks a bunch guys!