DISASTER!! My Virus C has died a cruel death!

[BlueSwan]

I've just moved to a new house. All of my equipment survived the move, but my beloved Virus C did no survive my own stupidity and thoughtlessness. Carelessly I plugged the wrong power supply into the Virus - instead of inserting 12v into it, it got a good dosage of 30v! After I discovered this I changed to the correct power supply whereupon the Virus started smelling like burned plastic!!

I have now mailed it off to the danish supplier of Access products, but I have little hope that it can be fixed... :cry:

[Juho L]

*gasp* That's nasty. If there's no separate circuit board for the power suplly your Virus is 99% dead.

[DIGITAL SCREAMS]

Does your Virus come under your household insurance policy? I dunno, perhaps u could claim insurance and buy a Virus KC instead hehe

DS

[BlueSwan]

*gasp* That's nasty. If there's no separate circuit board for the power suplly your Virus is 99% dead.

Yikes! This sounds very unsetteling! :cry:

[BlueSwan]

Does your Virus come under your household insurance policy? I dunno, perhaps u could claim insurance and buy a Virus KC instead hehe

DS

I have thought about this briefly. I very much doubt that any insurance would cover this, but if it's comepltely destroyed I'll try to find out for sure!

[Juho L]

Yikes! This sounds very unsetteling! :cry:

Sad but true. Modern devices have so many components that it would be just waste of time to start looking for broken components.

[Tomer=Trance]

well im sure access can point out what happends in this kind of cases and know exacly what is broken

[Juho L]

...and know exacly what is broken

And for that task they need a medio. Maybe with extreme luck only the AC filter caps are broken and the extra voltage didn't had enought time to cause damage.

[twister6]

...and know exacly what is broken

And for that task they need a medio. Maybe with extreme luck only the AC filter caps are broken and the extra voltage didn't had enought time to cause damage.

Well, unless they have a fuse protecting the main power supply trace from oversaturated current flow, than you probably did some hefty damage in there. I'm sure they probably have some dc/dc to step down for DSP (most likely +3.3V), op-amps, and other miscellanious ICs - those could be replaced easily. But, if you burn traces inside of your circuit board (pwb), then everything will need to be replaced and can't be repaired.

[Juho L]

Well, unless they have a fuse protecting the main power supply trace from oversaturated current flow, than you probably did some hefty damage in there. I'm sure they probably have some dc/dc to step down for DSP (most likely +3.3V), op-amps, and other miscellanious ICs - those could be replaced easily. But, if you burn traces inside of your circuit board (pwb), then everything will need to be replaced and can't be repaired.

"After I discovered this I changed to the correct power supply whereupon the Virus started smelling like burned plastic!"

There are fried components. The IC's are the easiest parts, but if you have dozens of resistors and caps it's impossible to know which of them are burned/damaged.

[twister6]

"After I discovered this I changed to the correct power supply whereupon the Virus started smelling like burned plastic!"

There are fried components. The IC's are the easiest parts, but if you have dozens of resistors and caps it's impossible to know which of them are burned/damaged.

Yeah, resistors are easy to check with multimeter (burned one will have an open), but caps - forget about it. You need to know the exact value, and the only way to fix it is to replace it. But, pwb traces are unfixable.

[Juho L]

Yeah, resistors are easy to check with multimeter (burned one will have an open),

Heehee. Ever tried to find a broken resistor from a PCB without detaching it? You'll have to detach the resistor to get a reliable measurement and then solder it back. Troublesome with basic components? Very. Troublesome with SMD's? Don't even bother.

but caps

Juho's tip of the week: Coping with broken caps. Ever wonder is a cap broken or not? You only need a DC power supply with current limiter LED. First discharge the cap and then just recharge it with the power supply. If the led blinks the cap is ok. This works only on bigger caps. On smaller ones it's best to use basic resistor-cap-AC source circuit. Just pick a resistor that is ok for the cap and then just measure does the voltage over the cap lower on higher frequencies.

You need to know the exact value, and the only way to fix it is to replace it.

Well anykind of component is only fixed by replacing.

But, pwb traces are unfixable.

Yup.

I can say from experience that no-one will fix SMD devices. If there's trouble with it, you'll have to replace the whole board. There's so many components that troubleshooting the device is waste of time.

[Hollowcell]

eek!! thats sounds horrible blue swan! i really hope it can be fixed! let us know how it goes!

[scottyp]

To quote the great Martin Lawrence:

"DAMN GINA!!"

that sux dude. tonight I'm going to label all my power supplies.

[udenjoe]

I'm sure Access is smart enough to have made a separate fused power supply. But it aint gonna be cheap.

[BlueSwan]

Arrghhh!!!

Today I've just been contacted by a record company who wants me to produce and write tracks for an artist they're going to launch in the UK. I can't believe the timing of this...

I NEED MY VIRUS!!

I shipped it off to the danish distributor of Access products a few days ago, but haven't heard anything yet.

What you've all said in this thread doesn't sound encouraging. But if the whole board has to be replaced, surely that's still significantly cheaper than buying a brand new Virus C, right? RIGHT?? (getting slightly desperate!!).

[Hollowcell]

good luck there blue swan! who knows, it could be cheaper to buy a new virus because of the labour costs to replace the board. but on the other hand....

i really hope it works out for you, what ever you decide to do! good luck!

[BlueSwan]

Arghhh! No good news yet. Apparently the repair service has ordered home some burned components which will arrive in a week, but they can't guarantee that it will be sufficient to make it work.

All the while the record ompany is breathing down my neck wanting me to record tracks as fast as possible. ARGHHH!

[DIGITAL SCREAMS]

Write the tracks youve been asked to do. Then contact your local synth shop.....get a Virus C and use it to do the recording with ....then send it back within 21 days (or however long you get to take back unwanted goods).

In the meantime wait to see whats the score with ur burned Virus. It must be really frustrating for you right now..

Trust me, if all else fails just do that.

DS

[Juho L]

That's a very good idea, DS!

[BlueSwan]

Not a bad idea, although I guess I would feel I'd be cheating the shop...