Elektron Musical Instruments

My MD is getting old now and is very well-loved, so it's starting to show signs of wear and 
tear.  A couple of my parameter knobs are not working smoothly anymore, the values 
jump erratically and sometimes in the wrong direction when I twist the knobs.  It can be 
quite frustrating and makes live tweaking basically impossible.  I have seen this problem 
on lots of different kinds of equipment so I'm not shocked or upset.

My question is:  Does anybody have a trick solution for this problem?  (Perhaps a blast of 
compressed air or something?)  Or is it something better handled by the surgeons at 
Elektron?

Thanks for your help.

I bought a brand new Machinedrum last week and have only been using it
a few days so far. Today I was reading through this newsgroup and saw
that upgrading to version 1.19c of the MD's software fixed a lot of
bugs, so I upgraded it using MIDI-OX on my PC to send the MDos1_19.syx
file.

The upgrade took a few minutes but it worked. However now when I turn
on my MD I'm getting a "battery low" message before it boots up.

Is this a known bug with V1.19c mis-reporting the battery level or is
my MD's battery actually low for some reason? I've only owned the
thing a few days and have hardly used it at all so far!

-Stephen
-- 
http://www.skkatter.net

On Nov 16, 2004, at 2:10 PM, skkatter wrote:

>  Is this a known bug with V1.19c mis-reporting the battery level or is
>  my MD's battery actually low for some reason? I've only owned the
>  thing a few days and have hardly used it at all so far!

weird.  try downgrading to the non-beta OS (1.12) and see if the 
problem still
exists.  if so, contact Elektron because the battery should last for 
years.  if not,
then contact Elektron and tell them the new OS has a bug of 
mis-reporting a
low battery level.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Nov 16, 2004, at 1:46 PM, machinedrum99 wrote:

>  My question is:  Does anybody have a trick solution for this 
> problem?  (Perhaps a blast of
>  compressed air or something?)  Or is it something better handled by 
> the surgeons at
>  Elektron?

I don't know of any tricks and neither did Elektron when one of
my encoders wore out after a few years.  you'll most likely have
to send it in for repair.  if you're brave and know how to do it, they
may let you make the repair yourself.

the way to test for falty encoders is to press FUNCTION when
powering up and then select "test mode."  there's an array of
lights that should move smoothly back and forth as you turn the
knob.  if lights are skipped when you turn it (or it moves in the wrong
direction), then there's certainly something wrong.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Tue Nov 16 2004, machinedrum99 <machinedrum99@...> wrote:

> My question is:  Does anybody have a trick solution for this problem?  (Perhaps a blast of 
> compressed air or something?)  Or is it something better handled by the surgeons at 
> Elektron?
> 

I've got the same problem myself, but is hard to be without the MD when 
you are used to it. Even when living in G\ufffdteborg. :/

/Janne

On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 09:41:57PM +0100, jgb@... wrote:
>    I've got the same problem myself, but is hard to be without the MD when
>    you are used to it. Even when living in Goeteborg. :/

Elektron would probably repair it while you wait.  and maybe even
give you a tour of their facilities :-)

On Tue Nov 16 2004, Joe <jmelnyk@...> wrote:

> Elektron would probably repair it while you wait.  and maybe even
> give you a tour of their facilities :-)

Been there, done that. :-)

/Janne

This is what the knobs look like: http://bergenteknomafia.
com/pics/club/mdknobs.JPG

They're encoders, not normal potentiometers as such - anyone know if 
they're any different to clean than normal pots? Looks like a standard 
wash&lube job.

Need to get some encoders to play around with. :)

Sent a reply yesterday but it seems to have disappeared..?

Anyway, this http://www.bergenteknomafia.com/pics/club/mdknobs.JPG is
the knobs. They're encoders, not potentiometers, but they look the same
from the outside. 

Do anyone know if they're the same to open, clean and lube as any other
knobs and switches? Should be. Looks like any standard knob in music
gear, same metal prongs holding the two halves together and all. If
they're not something prohibetively exotic(which I highly doubt) it
should easy to fix for any electronic service person. 

When my knobs start breaking down I'll find out..


Cheers, 

andreas