Picked up a secondhand Octatrack from someone here on the board. In all the time I’ve had it I had never noticed that the lower of the two main outs wasn’t plugging in all the way. Took a look in there and discovered that the broken off tip of a jack is stuck down in there. Checked every cable I own and none are missing a tip, so I figure the previous owner must have had something happen.
Since the broken off bit is conductive, the output works but isn’t plugging in all the way. Anyone ever extracted a plug tip before? I’m open to suggestions.
Small telescopic (magnetic) bitholder? Or use an small but long hex wrench, and set a supermagnet on it (making it magnetic as whole)?
Don´t know if it works.
There are no openings internally on the connector jacks at the other end, so no need to open the unit up as it won´t help in this matter.
I would have said try a magnet too. Other options: compressed air and gravity. Or a combination of any three.
If you are going to try superglue I would suggest simulating the environment. Buy a jack and mount it on something similar to the octatrack size. Jam something in the jack. You are going to want to rest your wrists on a table to steady your hands with the octatrack on or on the edge of the table.
Try everything else first. Superglue is obviously permanent if you f up.
For sharing only. Happened to me on my Roland MC-909.
At your own risk, find another same plug head as the one that got its tip stuck inside the machine. Use superglue on this plug (think about the area that would adhere then apply only to that portion.
Stick it in, wait for it to cure and pull.
I was so relieved to get mine out. The box still worked as before and lesson learned - would never use/buy a cheap plug on a machine I value again!
After doing a few simulations, I’ve found that a drill press solves a lot of the problems in terms of aligning everything without touching the sides. I’ll post results.
The lesson to us all: If you buy used gear, look inside every single hole. Don’t get someone else’s f*ckup pushed on you.
I’m the guy who sold the OT to Allerian. Someone bought it from me before Allerian and promptly returned it along with this little added bonus in the right main output jack. Somehow both of us missed it on inspection…
Anyway, Allerian’s good people and a fellow Brew City Elektronaut so I promptly offered to buy it back for what he paid me for it. (To prove what a cool cat he is, he even let me keep the 64GB CF card he bought for it!)
Took it home, scarfed down some McDinner, and then got to work.
10 minutes later…
I was elated to find that the offending jack tip was completely hollow, making it fairly easy to get a grip on it from inside rather than trying to use glue or pliers. I got it past the first metal tab inside the jack with a long self tapper cased in rubber cable shielding (to protect the jack), then carefully guided it out with a small screwdriver while gently nudging the second contact out of the way with an even smaller screwdriver.
Now the only questions that remain are:
1: Should I send the offending tip back to it’s rightful owner?
2: Does some cosmic force REALLY want me to have this Octatrack? Should I keep it? I already have Ableton/Push and a MPC-1000.
once I had this problem. After many experiments this one worked.
I used a screw and turned it in the plastic on the back of the tip. then I took out the scew, the tip came out with the screw.
this worked because of the place the jack was broken. Mine was broken on such a way, the plastic middle-part of the tip was still in, together with the metal front. there was a hole in the plastic tip. the screw fitted in this hole…
i hope its clear, i find out it;s difficult to explain for me.
[quote=“” natrixgli""]
I’m the guy who sold the OT to Allerian. Someone bought it from me before Allerian and promptly returned it along with this little added bonus in the right main output jack. Somehow both of us missed it on inspection…
Anyway, Allerian’s good people and a fellow Brew City Elektronaut so I promptly offered to buy it back for what he paid me for it. (To prove what a cool cat he is, he even let me keep the 64GB CF card he bought for it!)
Took it home, scarfed down some McDinner, and then got to work.
10 minutes later…
I was elated to find that the offending jack tip was completely hollow, making it fairly easy to get a grip on it from inside rather than trying to use glue or pliers. I got it past the first metal tab inside the jack with a long self tapper cased in rubber cable shielding (to protect the jack), then carefully guided it out with a small screwdriver while gently nudging the second contact out of the way with an even smaller screwdriver.
Now the only questions that remain are:
1: Should I send the offending tip back to it’s rightful owner?
2: Does some cosmic force REALLY want me to have this Octatrack? Should I keep it? I already have Ableton/Push and a MPC-1000.
[/quote]
You’ve owned the OT 2.5 times now. I think that’s a sign that you should just keep it.
