Dead Machinedrum

Hey all, tragic news here, hoping for a few ideas.

My machinedrum UW mk2 died. Won’t power on.

I’ve checked the supplied PSU, it seems to be working fine.

This machinedrum is a bit cursed, its got ghosts in it or something.

I purchased it through guitar center as part of the last run of MDs back in 2016. It arrived half-dead on my doorstep. It freeze with black pixelation across the screen when powered in.

So I shipped it to LA for repair. Repair summary noted “Replaced UI-CPU Connector Assembly”.

Everything has been fine until then. Hadn’t used the thing in several months as life gets in the way of being holed up in the dark playing with blinking lights.

Flicked it on and nothing.

Considering it’s died once before I suspect it is something related, or maybe not?

Anyway, will likely open a support ticket and see what happens. But I think its out of warranty and even if it isn’t, I doubt I can afford to ship it all around again.

What a shame. Don’t need to tell anyone here how awesome the thing is. Too bad mine is haunted.

Any ideas?

Cheers!

You warranty should still be good as it’s a three year warranty.

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Without warranty I would disassemble and check flat ribbons.
Maybe not dead, just sleeping.

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Resurrecting thread as the saga continues. Received unit back from L.A. Repair tech noted that they were unable to reproduce the problem. It worked out of the box for several hours (3-4), then as I was inputting trigs into the sequencer I noticed the LCD screen would flash in response to my inputting trigs. It eventually gradually dimmed before powering down. Would not boot back up. Left it switched on and it eventually came back to life and I have been unable to reproduce the problem again. Reopened ticket to Elektron. This would be my third time sending the machine out for repair…vast majority of its 3 year warrant has been spent sending it back and forth for service. But I won’t let it go, easily my fav drum machine.

Any ideas? Its not the PSU as it drives my OT mk1 fine for hours and hours no issue.

Sad.
Same problems with OT PSU?
Could it be the PSU socket?

Was unable to reproduce issue with OT PSU, had it driving the MD while I frantically recorded my patterns into Ableton for about 2 hours and had no issue.

I would love a swap for another MD but doubt they have anymore around these days…also not particularly interested in switching out for a digitakt as individual outputs are essential features of drum machines imho.

And so the story goes on…leads me to believe something is loose in there, problem appeared as i was using the live record to drum in a percussive pattern with the trigs…lcd would flicker with each trig press and then eventually powered down.

Another three month voyage looks inevitable, sigh.

Although I do feel a lot less sheepish now than when the tech said he saw no issues with the unit and I felt like an idiot…

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I had a loose power socket problem with my OT. It was obviously worse on the bed. Solved by bending the metal part with a little flat screw driver. I hope it is as simple as that…

It would explain that :

Good news no? Maybe the OT is slightly different, maybe the tech used a similar PSU or didn’t really played with MD.

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I had a similar trouble once, I think it was on MM. Turned out the flat cable between the two motherboards was a bit loose… No problem since I fixed this.

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By all means take advantage of your warranty service if you purchased your MD less than three years ago.

If not, try loosening up the flat cables connecting the two motherboards and spraying the male ends with a good anti-oxidizer like Caig DeOxit. (You’ll need to remove the faceplate and top motherboard, but all you need is a single screwdriver and patience.)

I don’t know if it will solve your particular issue. But FWIW it has brought my MD back to life repeatedly. Two of those times were when the authorized repairman–per one of Murphy’s Law’s better corollaries–could not reproduce the issue.

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They both use Elektron PSU-2

Yes but maybe the ghost is in MD’s. :thinking:

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Sooooo, it works fine with OT PSU or am I missing something?
If so you just need a new PSU, no? :thinking:

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If that were the case I would have expected that my MD PSU would cause issues when powering my OT mk 1. I have not experienced that after using the OT for an hour or two with the MD PSU so on that basis I assume the MD PSU is not the problem. However I suppose that it is still possible as the repair tech told me NOT to send them my PSU. Will try that in the interim…

Optimism! Great thanks for the advice everyone, got my weekend plans now giving the MD a workout to try and exorcise the demons. That 808 and 909 sysex kit that I found floating around these forums for the MD really slam hard, love it! Cheers

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Spitting out the demons…
Coming in the good times… :smile:

I think I would die a little inside if my MD gave up the ghost. Got my fingers crossed for you.

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