Machinedrum turning off and back on on its own ;(

Elektron Gear Machinedrum
#1

hi everyone!
I’m experiencing a strange behaviour from my machinedrum mkI and I’m worried by it.

Since a few days the MD is turning off and back on again on its own.
The machine can work for hours without any issue but sometimes it happens, even a few times is a row.
Test mode shows that the hardware is ok, I tried moving around the power supply in order to check bad connections but I couldn’t recreate the issue. Changing power socket was useless.

Recently upgraded to x04

have been suggested it might be a power switch issue, how could I verify it?

Ideas? did anyone of you experienced something similar? thanks in advance

#2

MK1 or 2?
MK1s were more prone to PSU issues.
Also, have you verified the power supply (brick) itself?

1 Like
#3

mk1, that’s a bad new.

I tried moving aroud the power supply cables, connections to the power socket and machinedrum to check for bad connections, which I couldn’t find. I didn’t open the power supply to check it inside.

#4

It might be the connector between the two motherboards that is slightly disconnected. Open the machine after having carefully removed the encoders, then make sure the connectors are not loose.

You should contact Elektron support, if you haven’t done so yet.

To assert that it’s a PSU problem, a solution could be to track a MD, MM or OT mk1 in your surroundings :slight_smile:

Edit: oops MD mk1 is a different beast

#5

Yea be really careful opening it, noting where the screws go etc, if you are not experienced at this kind of thing. I did it once and found it quite challenging and plenty that could go wrong!

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#6

I’m going to contact elektron asap…

what do you mean by tracking other gear? I have a Octa mk1 but it seems that the power supply is different between the two machines. If it was a joke I’ afraid it went over my head :sweat_smile:

#7

I mean test the power supply with a multimeter. It’s an AC power brick, so you’re not gonna find anything in your house to plug it in to try.

Does it actually power off, or does the display just go out and keep making sound?

This forum is full of threads with this issue.
Elektron won’t service MK1s anymore, but have been known to sell parts if they are still in stock. Not really a repair for the faint of heart.

Might be able to take it to a local electronics/pc repair place and have them test the power on the board. They’d also be able to replace the board if you can still get one from elektron.

You also said in your oringal post “changing power sockets was useless”. Please tell me you didn’t try a different power brick that was from something else and was a DC brick…

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#8

I think OT mk1 and MD mk2 PSU are the same, but I might be wrong.
Btw, there is a frequent case of PSU swapping, so that might be the problem here :wink:

I’m no native English speaker, sorry if my message was unclear: I just meant to invite you to look for other owners of MD, OT or MM to try another PSU and check if yours is defective.

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#9

OT mk1 and MD/MM (MK1s) are different power supplies. MD/MM MK2 and OTmk1 are same brick.

2 Likes
#10

The OP’s MD is a MD MkI, which has an AC input. They should definitely NOT try the power supply of a later model of Elektron instrument (which have DC input) on their MD MkI. I suggest that you delete your post(s) in case anyone else in the future reads what you wrote and tries it.

4 Likes
#11

if you gently touch the rocker switch does it trigger the reset?
if not this sounds identical to an underrated dodgy PSU issue i had.
it got solved with one of the below, but that price is from a few years ago and seems to increase annually.

#12

Had something similar with my MKI, i made a factory reset and worked fine again

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#13

nope, if I move just a bit the switch the Md keeps working fine, I have to push it almost half way in in order to switch it off.

Thanks for the link!