Weird behavior

[ZymosParticipant]

I’ve used this for a few hours, most of the time it works great. Then weird stuff starts to happen.
For example, when I press the Note Mute button, a bunch of tracks will immediately change from muted to on and vice versa.

I wonder if it’s a hardware problem? I’ve also seen the LED dots around the knobs moving on their own when I’m not touching anything, and the note name drifting on the display.

[ZymosParticipant]

Also, sometimes when I am trying to adjust, for example, scale type, the display will jump from showing OFF,1,2,3,etc to OcnA,AlnA, even though I am not touching the Note Display knob.

[alien_brainParticipant]

its your hardware

[ZymosParticipant]

Now I’ve been using it for the past two hours with no issues at all! Like I said, weird…

[ChristianKeymaster]

Hi Zymos,
this sounds like a lot the multiplexer error described here:
https://zaqaudio.com/forums/topic/sticky-hardware-issues

If you´re handy with fixing things, maybe that link will help you:
http://ricardo-dias.com/2013/07/19/repairing-a-behringer-bcf2000/

I´m sorry there is nothing we can do from the firmware side.

If your BCR is behaving too weird to reasonably keep using the Zaquencer on it, please write us to: support@zaqaudio.com

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by  Christian.

[ZymosParticipant]

I don’t know if it is just a placebo, but after I did the re-initialization, I stopped having these issues. Before trying that,I did go back and forth to the original BCR firmware, but without a reinit. I see that part in the manual about “garbled pattern info”, but don’t know if that even applies here.

Also, when I did the reinit, I saw the cool LED patterns while it was loading. I had never seen that before- should I have, when I installed the Zaquencer firmware the very first time? Just wondered if it’s possible it hadn’t loaded correctly before. Or would it have been completely nonfunctional in that case?

Anyway, seems stable now, I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks!

[ChristianKeymaster]

Thanks for the update!
Yup, the flash init LED patterns should have been there at the first startup, right after authorization as well. If the Flash init wouldn´t have happened you would most likely have had no output at all. It does not really sound connected to the behaviour you describe in your first post. A bit hard to say though.
Well, let´s hope it´s fine now, great if you´ll keep us posted here.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by  Christian.

[ZymosParticipant]

When I first authorized, it didn’t quite do what was described in the authorization instructions. As soon as I entered that last number, it started authorizing, but it literally started while I was still turning the last knob- I briefly saw INIT, but it went away as I was turning the knob.

It started counting up on each of the knobs, but only got up to the 3rd LED on each. Are they all supposed to light up eventually? I waited several minutes to see, then restarted the BCR.

Don’t know if that all means anything. Of course I’d rather have a faulty installation that I could redo, as opposed to faulty hardware!

[on_airParticipant]

From this week I’m a new Zaquencer user. I just make a few tests in past two days (note pitch, seq length, steps number…only basic). And I detected this weird things probably described as a multiplexer failures or something like that.
I saw the “Repairing a BCF” from Ricardo Dias and he tells finally the problem may be the display segments. In my display I do not notice any failure but I’m not sure at all.
The problem I have are in 3 or 4 buttons:
- Clock Divider (14): No active when pushing normally and jumps to other button activation. But you can activate it if you hit them a little bit hard and no causes a strange or weird “artifacts”.
- MIDI Ctrl Alpha and Beta (6 & 7): wow! here is the bigger failure… It’s impossible to get access to those functions. It jumps to other buttons when pushing every time, and it goes beyond, it causes dramatic changes in ALL sequence parameters and MIDI controls randomly (pitch, aftertouch, prog change…all), and the sequence becomes in a “something” impossible to work.

So, I’ve a question for repair it. Are the entire upper board compatible between BCR and BCF? Can I replace it the one for the other “as is” and fix all the multiplexer errors in whole BCR system?. I don’t use my BCF and maybe can use it for parts.

Thanks!!

(sorry for my english… I try to explain better as i can)

[ChristianKeymaster]

Hi on_air,
sorry to hear that you are experiencing hardware problems.

This sounds like a severe case of the multiplexer error.

Unfortunately I can´t say anything about the BCF as we don´t have one here and I also never tried to exchange parts between BCR and BCF. I have successfully transplanted upper boards between different BCRs though. If you decide to try please post back here, it would be very interesting.

Should you decide to get a new BCR and need the license transferred, please write to support@zaqaudio.com in this case.

Maybe you can also try Zymos´ approach above and reupload the whole firmware and then trigger a flash reinit.

Cheers,
Christian

[on_airParticipant]

Thanks Cristian!

I try to replace the upper board this weekend, if it does not work or is incompatible I’ll make a second try removing the BCR display and mount the new one from BCF… Let’s see

I post the results here when I finishing.

Thanks again!

[ChristianKeymaster]

Sounds good, but before you desolder your LCD, make sure to measure it with a multimeter first like Ricardo Dias described. If you apply a diode test to every segment when it´s still built in, defective segments won´t light up. This way you can tell if you really need to desolder etc..

[on_airParticipant]

That was no success, I tried to replace the led display but the problem persists.

I think I’ve a final solution. The last try to fix it, and I think maybe it’s a logical solution: change the CPU board between BCR and BCF (my BCF works well) and then replace the OS chip. Both CPU boards are the same…

Maybe my BCR CPU board are causing this problems, maybe don’t work correctly.

This are my last attempt to fix all the errors on BCR, if it does not work I don’t know what to do (I’m desperate…). I think it seems a locical solution.

Thanks again Christian for your support and comments!!

I’ll post the final result this week

[on_airParticipant]

definitely there is no way, does not work. I tried lots of combinations and replace lots of parts, even the CPU board. I think there’s no easy solution, and i don’t want to spend more money in to another BCR… it’s very frustrating to me.

It’s a shame, I really love the idea of this sequencer, and it’s an ideal tool for my music.

[ChristianKeymaster]

Thanks for the update!
Too bad exchanging the parts did not work like expected.
Which parts did you try exchanging?

I would be interested, did exchanging the CPU and upper LCD board with the BCF generally work and just not get rid of the error? Or didn´t it work at all?

Anyway, please write a quick mail to support@zaqaudio.com with your order number and details, and we´ll see if we can do more for you in this case.

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