Lectrosonics Bob 88 Breakout Box Strange Power Behavior

[jawharp]

Hey guys,

 

Anyone here use the Bob breakout box?  I just bought 3 of them and they've been performing very strangely to say the least.  When I powered up the first one it turned on no problem, then I placed it down on my cart and saw a spark.  After that it didn't turn on again.  As you could imagine I wasn't thrilled, but thought maybe something was weird with my MEON?  It's 12 volts and the unit says it requires 15, but it turned on and worked fine prior to the spark.  Not sure if that's what did it, but for the next 2 I figured I'd actually give them the right voltage cause yeah, I'm an idiot. 

 

I used the 15V DC power adapter from my Cooper mixer.  It gives out 15V DC at 2.4 amps which is plenty for the Bob.  It only uses 800mA.  I plugged in the next one and it worked fine.  I connected it to my dante network and configured it.  I powered it off  to test the third one and plugged that one in.  It didn't turn on.  I went back to the one that was working and that one wouldn't turn on anymore either.  After much cursing and plugging and re-plugging i got the third one to power on reliably, but the second one, which had just been working still won't power on when given the correct voltage.

 

If I fried the first one, that's definitely my bad, but the other 2 received nothing but the correct voltage.  I'm not sure what would cause these things to turn on sometimes and not other times.  The light on the power switch that turns on when you flip it on isn't even coming on.  I double checked the output of the power adapter with my multimeter, it's giving out 15 volts as it should be.  I did get these used from someone, maybe they did something that messed them all up?  It's just messing up in the weirdest way, I've never really seen anything like it.  I got them for so little I don't mind sending them out for repair if it won't be insane.

 

Has anyone dealt with this before?  I'm planning to call Lectro on Monday to see what I can do, but in the meantime was just curious if the Bob units have any known power issues?

 

Thanks

[jawharp]

Well, this is weird.  They can all power up now but only 2 of them sometimes.  I've traced the problem to either the power switches or the power jacks.  I noticed that some were plugging in with alot less resistance than the one that was working, so I used a pair of tweezers to gently pry the pins inside to make them fit tighter and now I can get them all to power on.  It's still temperamental.  Sometimes I have to flip the power switch like 5 times to get it to power on.  I'm almost positive it's the jacks.  Maybe the guy was jamming a different sized connector in there or something and he stretched the pins out.  

 

Either way, this problem seems pretty cheap to fix now.  All can connect to my Dante network and work as they should when powered on.  whew