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Problem with Alto Maxidrive 3.4 speaker management
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    Posted: 07 August 2009 at 7:15pm
I've got a problem with above speaker management.  I purchased second had about 3 years ago and never been a problem 'till now.  It's fairly expensive new (maybe £350) and sounds fine for my purposes.  But just recently it's taken to switching itself off and rebooting without warning.  Of course I lose everything for a few seconds.  Rackmount is the same so no reason for it to be getting hotter than normal etc.  Anyone else had the same experience and better still, did you solve it??????
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Maybe the battery from the battery back-up is empty?
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Maybe worth putting it in for a service, or having a look yourself for dry solder joints or loose wires.
 
I have the maxidrive 2.3 and this has been a really good unit, ideal for installs.
 
 
I'm not an animal, I'm a human being.
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Originally posted by MusicXtra MusicXtra wrote:

Maybe the battery from the battery back-up is empty?
Has it got a battery????!!!!  Nothing in 3.4 manual about one being in there.  Are you thiking of another model?
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Points: 5 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote keyboards Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 August 2009 at 3:11pm
THere is no battery in the Maxidrive 3.4.  All params are stored in EEPROM.  I use one of these units in my live sound rig and it sounds great.  No issues with it rebooting on me.  I do have another issue that has been ongoing.
 
Originally I had it configured for the RS485 data link so I could control it from FOH.  It would fall offline on me for no apparent reason.  Connections were solid, cables changed, connectors cleaned and/or replaced.  CHecked the RS485 chip internally (I'm also an electronics tech and do servicing for Yorkville, ART, Alto, etc.) and replaced it to no avail.  Even the factory folks couldn't come up with anything for me.  Even contacted their China support people and still nothing.
 
I decided I'd try something that shouldn't work...run 150'+ of mike line using the RS232 port (max suggested is about 30').  It worked all the way up to 56.7 Kbaud.  I doubled the mike line (300'+) and I was getting reliable communication at 38.4 Kbaud that didn't drop on me.  Been using it like that for months now without a hitch.
 
S&P, to try to determine the problem, does EVERYTHING (LCD panel, LED's, sound) go out or does it just reboot?  Of course if it just reboots you'll lose the sound but not necessarily the LCD backlight.  Sounds like it could be a power supply problem.  THat's just a module inside the unit that could be replaced.
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keyboards - when you say mike line what do you mean??
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used to work for proel,

think your find this is a PSU issue-
could be one of two things, based upon experience.....

1) is the unit in a rack with high current items such as amplifiers? tests showed that if the Maxidrives/ Altodrives were starved of power (high voltage swings) this would upset the PSU and it would drop out for a second-
Again in the same scenario, but if used with "switching" powersupply amplifiers, again the maxidrives didnt always like it, though with exceptions to the rule.

2) The unit could be getting too hot- after theyve been on for a while they do get warm, and can become unstable- only had a few that had this problem, though was more common with maxidrive PC.

Its a fairly cheaply designed unit, along the lines of behringer, id suggest pulling it out of any amp racks, to narrow the problem down.If you still have an issue, return to proel and have a new PSU fitted though id suspect that would cost more than you paid for the unit, so id then go for a DCX, which is friendlier, and touch wood, not had a problem with the 20 or so ive installed:)

Dan
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Points: 5 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote keyboards Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 August 2009 at 3:54pm
THe mike line I referred to is just plain old single pair audio cable with the XLR's on the end.  My drive line is 150' long and I added (3) 50' XLR mike cables in series, so the 38.4 Kbaud was being driven the 300'+ without errors.
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hi there , on the topic of the Maxi drive, I am trying to link 2 of them together (using the 485 input/outputs)  following the manuals instructions, and controlling them from a laptop thru the rs232 lead.

My issue is I can get both online but one is dropping off line or both of them are dropping.

Can anyone suggest the process to link them properly?

DO i have to update software and firmware at all ? 

Thanks

Ryan 

N.Z
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Points: 5 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote keyboards Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 May 2010 at 2:35am
Ryan;
I had some major issues with the MaxiDrive 3.4 RS485 link.  I couldn't get it to stay online after I had it for 7-8 months.  I even went as far as checking the MAX485 driver chip and eventually replacing it on the processor board.  It didn't do any good.  I finally got disgusted with the whole mess and decided to test the RS232 link on my 130' drive line.  It worked perfectly, so I tripled up the drive line (looped in back through 3 times - 420' total) and kicked the baud rate up to 38.4K baud and it worked perfectly on the RS-232 port of my laptop.

Now in your situation of trying to link them together, it's a bunch trickier.  It doesn't do any hardware handshakes and it uses ground (pin 5), received data (pin 2), and send data (pin 3).  The problem is linking the two so they feed through to the other.  That is going to be an issue because the only way of doing RS232 is a one-to-one proposition.

I am a service center for Alto so I will try to get some detailed information on any possible way of linking them via the RS232 link.  I wouldn't try to be too optimistic though; they didn't help me at all when I was trying to troubleshoot mine.
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BTW, Loooooooooove your country down there!  Wife and I were down there about 4 years ago and spent 26 days through NZ and Australia.  If it weren't for the grandkids we'd move down there permanently!!  Beautiful land and beautiful people!
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Thanks heaps for your knowledge and words of wisdom KEYBOARDS and props on N.Z, I am lucky to call this place home.

Yes I find the maxidrive a wicked processer, never had prior issues of keeping just one online, but when I made the call to run my system 5 way stereo with mono sub I had to purchase another Maxidrive, which it was a exciting move.

After 3 nights of trying everything ten times over last night I managed to crack the code and link the 2 maxidrives together. They have both been online now over night so around 8 hrs so far, which is positive

Now what i did to solve the of a issue was take a friends advise and get a 120 resistor and connect that to pins 2 & 3 in the back of a xlr (rs485) female plug. I then inserted the plug into the rs485 out put of the last linked processor (my 2nd processor) and wham bang 0, problem solved ! Cheers to Paul Melon, sound nerd !
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