Replace fader banks – AVANTIS

[Anders]

Hi, I am starting to have the issue of random stuck faders on our AVANTIS and after talking to the service departement and gotten the recommendation to replace both fader banks, I have ordered two of them with the intention to replace them myself (to avoid sending the console cross country and shorten the down time).

From the internet and the service tech I’ve gotten the impression that it is a fairly easy procedure if you have some kind of mechanical skills.
But I haven’t found any instructions online for doing this, so my question is:

Is there anyone who have done this and would be so kind as to give a short step by step instruction or give some pointers to where something could go wrong or what to look out for?

Unfortunately the desk is well over 3 years old, so no warranty…

[Brian]

Obviously this post is from my own personal experience and is not an official “how to” from Allen and Heath. Our board was already out of warranty, so I didn’t mind swapping the boards out myself. If the board was still under warranty, I probably would have sent it in to be repaired by an official repair facility. All that being said, it is super easy to replace the fader banks on the Avantis.

There is a panel on the bottom of the console which will give you access to the fader bank boards. That panel does have some fans installed on it, so be careful not to pull on the wires too hard. I just flipped the panel above the access port and didn’t bother trying to remove the wiring. See picture below – the fader bank boards are right there at the bottom at take up most of the space.

There are a couple of wires connected to each fader bank, but they have quick release connectors which make removal super easy.

The boards themselves are held into the chassis by the screws above and below each fader on the front of the console. There are 24 for each bank – 12 above and 12 below the 12 faders. Simply remove the screws and the board will be free from the chassis. In the picture below, I have started removing the screws.

Installation is the reverse of the removal with one additional and very important step…..

The fader bank has a solder pad on the rear that needs to be joined to assign the fader to a specific “side” in the console. These solder pads are not connected when new and you simply need to use some solder to jumper the correct pads based on which fader bank you are replacing. You either fill in the JS1 pads if you replaced the left bank, or the JS3 pads if you replaced the right bank. See the pictured below.

It really is an easy fix. I’d be shocked if it takes someone longer than 30 minutes start to finish – even getting out a soldering iron to join the correct pads.

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[Anders]

Thank you so much Brian! That was really detailed and just the info I was looking for. Now it feels like this should be an easy fix.

[jrns]

Hey Brian,
Looks like I might have to undertake this pretty soon. Could you give me an idea of how much the fader banks cost?

[jrns]

Hey again Brian, Ignore the previous question but could you tell my if it would be straight forward to replace individual faders rather than the whole bank?

[Will]

Hey ya’ll, I’ve experienced similar sticking issues with the faders. After some trouble shooting I found that obscene amounts of compressed air and hitting the calibration “Calibrate Motors” numerous times finally allowed the board to respond and recognize the fader again. In some instances when the console says to not move the faders, sometimes giving it a little nudge to get it to move again helps significantly. Attempt to do the “Calibrate Motors” calibration religiously every time you go to use the console and I know from experience that it dramatically reduces the amount of “Sticky Faders.” Hope this help!

[Brian]

Hey again Brian, Ignore the previous question but could you tell my if it would be straight forward to replace individual faders rather than the whole bank?

The fader bank is clearly designed to be replaced as a whole unit. You would have to desolder the individual faders and resolder new ones on if you wanted to replace individual faders. I honestly didn’t look at how hard that would be when I replaced ours and I have no idea if you can even acquire the individual faders someone. My guess is you can’t get them from A&H, and would therefore have to figure out their source of parts and see if they would sell a small quantity of them to a private individual. I doubt that is going to be easy to do.

That being said, I did keep the “old” fader bank board just in case we ever wanted to try this ourselves.

[AdamsFlys]

Hey again Brian, Ignore the previous question but could you tell my if it would be straight forward to replace individual faders rather than the whole bank?

Hey jrns, I just wanted to say that yes, it is possible to replace a single fader, but I honestly wouldn’t recommend it. It’s fairly straight forward, but it seems that A&H used some really high temp solder that meant I had to use both a high temp soldering station as well as a reflow gun in order to get the solder to flow. There are 8 thru-hole solder joints that you will have to desolder, clean the socket, and resolder the new fader in its place.

While this is doable, I think it’s probably just best to replace the whole fader bank, especially given that if one of the faders on the bank had issues, there’s a good chance that more end up having issues later on down the line simply due to the fact that they were from the same batch and likely suffer from the same defect that causes the issues in the first place.

If you do decide to go this route though, you can get the individual faders from full compass. You’ll have to call their support line in order to get the right part number as it is not available on their website.

[Riodigital]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the great detailed information. We are in the same situation. We have 2 Avantis consoles and one is acting up. The RMA / repair process is over a month according to A&H and I would like to replace the fader boards myself.

Can you point me as to where you ordered the parts?

Thanks again for your help.

[Brian]

We purchased our Avantis from Sweetwater and have gotten the replacement boards from them each time. (I’ve had to replace both sides now, although we did it one at a time). I’m sure most of the larger online shops (Sweetwater, Compass, etc) can get the parts in. I do think we had to wait for the part to come in each time however, so I don’t think Sweetwater keeps them “in stock”.

[Riodigital]

Thank you Brian. We got our consoles from Full Compass. I’ll reach out to them.

[Bruhawk]

I’m wondering if anyone can share the part number for the fader bank? Our Avantis needs both replaced as well and I am trying to source the parts in Canada. I plan to replace the boards myself (38 years Canon Technician experience). TIA!

[Author]

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