Phantom Power Voltage Issue on AATON Cantar X3 Mic Input

[softstar86]

Hello everyone,

 

I recently ran into an issue with my AATON Cantar X3 and was hoping to get some advice.

When I enable Phantom Power on the Mic input, I measured the voltage and it only provides about 8V, instead of the expected 48V.

 

I’ve attached a photo of my measurement results for reference.

 

Has anyone else experienced this problem before?

Could this be caused by a setting I might have overlooked, or does it sound more like a hardware issue that requires service?

 

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or proceed would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

— Chang PoSiang (RAM)

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I have no experience with the Cantar, but that sounds very much like a hardware issue to me.  I'll let others chime in if they know of a software-specific reason, but this is the kind of symptom that shows up when phantom power goes in other types of hardware.

One remote possibility is, if the X3 can supply AES power (again, I don't know, I haven't used one), it could be set to AES, not analogue.  But, in theory, that should be supplying 10V, not 8V ... 8V would be out of spec even for that.

If it were me, I'd be opening it up and testing components close to the bad input, especially capacitors and relays to see if their measured value matches the spec, and if it matches the equivalent components on other inputs.  The circuitry to supply Phantom is usually not that complex, so there's probably only 3-4 components to check once you've identified where to look.

[Michael Manzke]

You might want to contact Gilles from Club Cantar. They still do service and maintenance for the existing Cantars, but you have to pay an annual subscription. https://www.clubcantar.com/

[softstar86]

I got Gilles from Club Cantar to help with the repair.

 

Turns out the issue was caused by a broken transistor.