Faders not returning to position when switching banks

[Nicola A&HKeymaster]

@MartinM

I cannot find your email address in our Support database. Do you have a ticket number I can look up from previous correspondence, and was it through http://support.allen-heath.com/ or an A&H distributor? Your local A&H distributor should be able to assist regardless of where you bought the mixer from, and I’m happy to facilitate that if you reach out to my team directly at http://support.allen-heath.com/ and reference this conversation.

[MartinMParticipant]

Hey, Nicola! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you looking into this. A couple of things…

1) No, you won’t find me email there for a couple of reasons… First, the person I spoke to offered me two paths forward, neither of which was even close to an option. So, when he offered to open a ticket and start a repair request, I declined. Looking back, I wish I hand’t, because I can see now how that would have been helpful in establishing a history. Second, I’m using my personal email for this forum, but would use my work email for official communication with A&H Support.

2) I tried to find how to reach out to your team at support.allen-heath.com, but it wasn’t clear to me how to do that. I’d be happy to, I just wasn’t sure where to go after landing there.

Thank you again. It’s been great to hear from someone helpful.

[snwbrd830Participant]

@MartinM

Please let us know how this is resolved. I have been having the same issues on a 3 year old board used in a house of worship. And I mean the same exact problem; at least 2 bad faders we un unable to use at Walland then a hand-full more that act up occasionally. It’s honestly hard to keep track of them all. My contact with service about the issue received the same response; re calibrate the fader and if that doesn’t work(which it doesn’t) send in the board.

[MartinMParticipant]

Nicola A&H, snwbrd830, et al,

Our rep—through whom our integrator purchased the console for us—had me create a ticket through https://americanmusicandsound.freshdesk.com/support/home.

He said they will contact me, and, once it’s determined to be an issue with the fader motors, he can get the parts for us fairly quickly.

I will keep this thread updated, as this seems to be more of a widespread issue than I was aware.

[msteelParticipant]

I too have had problems where the dLive faders set the channels to incorrect values. In my experience, the dLive is particularly sensitive to problems when multi-surface setups have the same channel strip pulled up on two surfaces. It seems that a slightly sticky fader on one surface can cause a channel to jump back when an operator on the other surface is trying to change it.

One tool that some manufacturers use that I think would help with this issue is the use of touch sensitive faders. That allows the surface to detect whether insufficient fader movement is result of operator intervention or not. It seems that would allow more aggressive motor action (overcoming some small stickiness in faders) while not fighting an operator actively moving the fader. I think the actual faders used by dLive have a touch channel, but I am not sure the fader boards can read it.

But I’m pretty certain that other manufacturers successfully do without touch sensitive faders (I doubt X32/M32 have touch sensitive faders, for instance).

I would like to think that there is room for some firmware tweaks to improve fader movement errors – perhaps by running the fader motors more aggressively and/or a (longer) delay before resampling the fader position when switching banks.

[MartinMParticipant]

Hey, all! I wanted to give everyone an update on this. We were able to get the attention of one of the higher-ups at A&H’s US distributor. They shipped out 12- and 8-fader motor bank modules to us, and we should have those installed tomorrow. Once that’s complete and I have a few reps with them I’ll post another update.

[DaveParticipant]

FWIW, this issue is starting to affect me (using an S5000) as well. So far it’s just in Bank 1. The fader calibration is fine (meaning that the faders correctly report their level, they just don’t always move back to the level I set them to). Reloading the show doesn’t fix it, so hopefully the next firmware update will.

[MartinMParticipant]

I would HIGHLY recommend starting a support ticket with American Sound (A&H’s US distributor), as that would have saved us a TON of time and energy. They initially gave me the incredibly unhelpful options of shipping the console to Georgia or Mississippi or whatever, or packing it up and driving it to Buda, Texas (the nearest authorized service center). So, I declined, and, like you, decided to just deal with it. However, it’s a hardware issue, not a software/firmware issue.

By starting the ticket, you are establishing a history, which will help you escalate, and, ultimately, get a resolution.

Good luck!

[DaveParticipant]

Thanks. I don’t have the authority to open a support ticket myself, but by coincidence I’m meeting tomorrow with the person who does to discuss a few unrelated things. I’ll be sure to mention it.

[LennypazzParticipant]

We have had the same problem with our 2 C3500 consoles. The first time, in November 2021, I took one of them to a repair shop 200 miles away, and waited almost 3 months for the repair. They would only change the 2 faders, not an entire bank. Then I had to disconnect our DM64 and take it the 200 miles because the repair shop did not have any way to test without it. When he connected and tested, even more faders were failing. He did a firmware update, and they all started working. I updated the firmware on the other console, and they were fine for a while, but now both are failing again. I do a fader calibration on both desks before every service, sometimes having to give the faders a “nudge” to move from their extreme positions. Both consoles have been inside their entire lives and covered when not in use. American Musical says A&H does not recommend fader lube, but I can’t have these consoles out of service for three months again waiting on a repair.

[MartinMParticipant]

Yes. This all sounds very familiar, as it’s the same sort of run-around I got from AM&S, as well. All I can say is that opening up a support ticket, and screeching as loud as possible here, on Facebook, on Twitter, and to our sales rep got the attention of one of the higher-ups at AM&S. Up until that point, I had received absolutely zero help from the support team there, but he got involved personally and made things happen. I can’t guarantee you’ll get the same results, but that’s absolutely the tack I’d take. At the very least, it’s establishing a paper trail.

I wish you luck!

[DaveParticipant]

@Lennypazz Did they say why they don’t recommend fader lube? IME, stiction can pretty easily be caused by insufficient or dried-out lube.

[LennypazzParticipant]

No, they just said A & H doesn’t recommend fader lube.

[LennypazzParticipant]

Allen and Heath approved warranty replacement on all faders, because I reported it during the warranty period. I just have to schedule with the local repair facility to do the work. Thank you A & H!

[ChrisParticipant]

Hey guys, I am experiencing this issue on an s7000 surface. Per the convo I have reached out to AM&S to create a ticket. Haven’t heard back. I pulled an entire fader bank, cleaned it with compressed air and contact cleaner. I did find a bit of dust built up in them and thought this was the issue. I got them super clean. Installed the fader bank back, ran calibration and alignment with the fader bank exposed so I could see the motors move. No luck. 7 of the 12 faders wont return to their original position. Motors all work. I’m convinced its not a fader issue. I even took the belt off to confirm that the motor sprocket was spinning aka receiving the command to move and it wasnt receiving it. If I turn up 4 faders at a time, they work correctly. If I go to 8, still work. Add in the last 4 and it all goes to crap. I updated to 1.97. Didnt fix it. Im now downgrading to 1.83 to see what happens. Any thoughts from A&H staff here?

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