Doepfer

kevin,
thats good to hear.
my brown goo came from inside the power inlet transformer part and 
has left the very interesting odour in the room.

received this response from doepfer earlier which is comforting in 
that it should be easily and cheaply rectified.
i will add that that it is slightly worrying that it seems to have 
happened to a few people and while i admit that 6 years is a long 
time, with the exception of the doepfer and a nord lead, all my 
other synths and drum machines were made before 1984 and thankfully 
none of them have melted (touch wood).

message from doepfer:

---> Please refer to my answer (sent to Bakis and published in the 
Yahoo A-100
forum).

Probably not the transformer but the EMC filter in the (old) mains 
inlet caused
the problem.

copy of my message to Bakis:
_____________________________________________________________________
___________
_____________

The description of the customer tells me that the system was 
manufactured in
1997 or earlier. Until end of 1997 we used a combined power inlet/EMC
filter/fuse holder and a separate power switch instead of the 
combination of
power inlet/fuse holder/power switch used for all systems 
manufactured in 1998
or later. After the EMC compatibility test in the EMC lab to obtain 
the CE sign
(EMC compatibility) it was recognized that the expensive EMC filter 
is not
necessary. So we changed to the new mains inlet without EMC filter 
end of 1997.
The two version can be distinguished very easily: If there is a 
separate power
switch (not integrated to the mains inlet) it is the old version 
with EMC filter
(manufactured until about end of 1997, maybe even still some systems 
or frames
were sold early in 1998). If the power switch is integrated to the 
mains
inlet/fuse holder it is the new version manufactured 1998 or later.

Obviously the EMC filter (probably the electrolyt of one of the the 
high voltage
capacitors inside the EMC filter) has become defective and has to be 
replaced.
It is available as a spare part from us or the representative/dealer 
where the
customer purchased the device. It would also be possible to use the 
new mains
inlet but in this case the complete rear panel has to be replaced as 
the holes
for the main inlets are different for both versions.

Of course we test each power supply before we ship it but for each 
electronic
part it may happen  that it becomes defective after 6 years (or even 
more) in
use.