Using DeoxIT to bring back life to an old Mackie 1604-VLZ-Pro
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- čas přidán 25. 01. 2018
- What do you do when you have channels causing popping and audio drop outs on an older mixer? I was told to give DeoxIT a try to help bring back those channels. Does it work? I tear down a Mackie 1604-VLZ-Pro and clean and lubricate the faders and pots to see if I can get more use out of this old and very abused mixer.
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This video helped me a lot. Thank you. I had only two functional channels when I started on mine. Now I have twelve that are solid. In addition to cleaning the sliders and the pots, I also cleaned the connectors for the ribbon cables. That actually gave me back two more channels.
Here is the trick to fix most all intermittent/staticy sliders and switches! - first use CRC Electronic cleaner (Flush the part with it and move the part through its whole movement area, (for example) A pot, all the way left to right and and back as fast as you can, MANY times while it is still full of contact cleaner! Then blow it out with an air compressor. Do that 3-4 times on a bad one's and 1-2 times on one's that aren't very bad. Then use the deoxit. It works wonders, you'll be amazed at the results!!!
I just blasted my 45 year old 22 Faders present in my Soundcraftsmen PE2217 Preamp - Equalizer, with Deoxit D5. The Faders were sitting up right such that any dirt flushed during the cleaning will at least drop to the bottom area, where the pot is at zero ohms. This fixed all intermittent problems along with fixing several Faders which were making no contact at all. The big job was re-lubricating the Faders with a silicon lubricant. WOW! The Faders now slide easier than they have in over 40 years. These Faders are of a unique style where the internal contacts are located on the sides rather than on the bottom, and they are made of two pieces of plastic that are held together with two metals clips. And so lubricating them is somewhat different since you have to lubricate both on the inside and externally as well. But, once done, they slide with sooo much ease. Next I have to fix(clean) pots and switches on my 1978 AKAI GX -630D reel to reel tape recorder, which has the famous Glass X'tal Ferrite Head.
Mackie gear used to be really solid, years ago it looks like build quality started to suffer though. I still use my mackie today and it sounds great.
Thank you for the honest, and clear video. Most helpful, and low nonsense.
Thanks for this video. I just did these steps on every fader and pot on my Mackie 1460. It’s a great sounding board using as a protools interface, but many of the pots were cutting out. Everything is working 100% correctly now. Like a new mixer.
Great to hear!
I have a MACKIE Micro Series 1202 VLZ. It looks like it might be a little older than this, and has Gain knobs at the bottom (instead of volume sliders). I was unsuccessful at getting to the top of the green circuit board to access the pots directly and want to share what ultimately worked for my situation.After removing all the screws, nuts, washers top bottom and sides, the top would only loosen and NOT drop away completely from the circuit board. So I cut a short (1-1/2") straw that just fit over the potentiometer stems and placed it over each pot stem and gave each a small shot of the De-Ox. Then cleaning any excess immediately from the board with a dry paper towel and then Pledge Multi-Surface cleaner (not the anti-bacterial stuff), and twisted the knob stems along the way. Every one of them immediately loosened up. I replaced all the hardware and everything now works as intended. I suspect that this straw truck would have also worked ,not taking the board apart at all, but by all means, if you can get your board apart, disassembly would ultimately be much better. I used DeoxIT Gold G5 (for gold surfaces (because it's all I had on hand), and Pledge Multisurface (NOT the anti-bacterial). Thank you for this video.
Thanks for this - I've got the same mixer that I just pulled out of years of storage and have similar oxidation problems - albeit mostly in the bus assign buttons. Otherwise, full working order. I thought DeOxit might do the trick - as it does on electric guitar pots and switches - so great to see how to take the board out in order to get to the actual places that need the spray. Much appreciated!
Did you clean your bus assign buttons? how did it go?
Great video, Man! Gonna crack my VLZ Pro just to look around.
same problem.. Thank you!
I have a 20 year old Mackie 1604 VLZ Pro that I've been wanting to try this on.... I picked up a can of the gold contact enhancer and the clerk warned me, "you're just using this on gold connectors, right?" I said, "I'm cleaning out an old Mackie" to which he replied that the gold stuff would ruin the Mackie, get the fader lube instead, so I did. Looks like you're using the gold stuff...hopefully this deoxit fader f5 will work as well
It worked for a while, and several of the channels work great, but a few of the channels are acting up again. It is different for each channel. I will look into the fader lube. The major issue was this poor unit had sit in a production room, and mainly used as a lunch table for so many years, much of the damage is due to neglect and all kinds of food that built up. So far half of the channels are acting up. I am going to give it one more try, but I with how loose several of the faders and pots are, I am not sure how much is left in this old girl. I don't doubt that several of faders and pots need replaced.
AudioCraZ yeah I really appreciate the video, yours was the one that gave me the confidence to open it up. It wasn’t that hard at all, though I found another vid... ack I don’t have a link but it was “replacing pots and fader” on a 1604 VLZ... he had links to full compass for spare pots and faders, $5-$10, and showed the procedure to de-solder with the wand and pump, and replace the fader and pots. With your tech ability and patience maybe that could be worth your time. I have yet to re-assemble mine and test, we’ll see; I’ll let you know. Funny, kitty found the bowl of knobs and thought it was pretty amazing once it hit the floor lol
Yeah, I want to. The preamps on this thing sound amazing. I love my digital mixers, but the preamps on this guy make it almost impossible to replace it.
AudioCraZ i was using the mackie’s direct outs as preamps for my drums for years, direct outs on 1-8 into line level inputs on the sound card. Once they started having dropouts entirely I got a Scarlett octopre and WOW it was like having the right Rx glasses on for the first time. The clarity... I had to work on my drum sound!
My reassembly went pretty well... there’s improvement... but I lost the headphone jack! Maybe something on it came loose I don’t know but my quick test on channels 1-8 routing through the subs and out the main sounded great! The mains hadn’t been clear in years. Still need to wire it up fully and do a more thorough test but so far I’m happy. A couple channels I had previously marked as the worst ones are MUCH better, though they’re just a little fuzzy unless the gain is super low and the faders are way up I get a better signal/noise ratio but anywhoo. Cool talking to ya man
I would use the green can (fader cleaner) and fader lube from deoxit for the sliders... The D5 is fine for the pots.
www.parts-express.com/caig-deoxit-fader-f100s-l2-spray-100-solution-2-oz-(57-g)--341-254?gclid=CjwKCAiAp5nyBRABEiwApTwjXrAbU42tDe4taqvl0AXJrgnyFlOeCBsvrsOfzMIoTxBPNOgVRUl79BoCIl0QAvD_BwE
I am probably going to dig that board back out. I still have it, those preamps prevent me from tossing it. But I want to get it going again, but a few pots and faders need replaced.
The main output fader on the one I currently have to checkout/fix is missing. Any ideas?
good vid. worthy box to rejuvenate and not too difficult (painful maybe) to get into. I hate the monolithic PCB model but still a nice little board. better than a lot of their stuff (Mackie). I don't know if it would work but you might check out deoxits faderlube f5 (i think) to smoothen the fader sliders.
This is "old school" mackie, why I have held onto it. The preamps sound so good, so much better than their current offerings. But then again, Mackie has been sold 1-2 times since this board was built.
I thought the Gold Deoxit was for gold plated contacts and tracks? Also spraying the pots from the shaft dissolves the greese that gives it that tight feel, dont know whether those potetiometers have an access hole underneath, if not they should be pulled apart or a small hole drilled for access
Cheers
I just used DeoxIT F5 (the stuff made for faders specifically) on half of my CR-1604 VLZ (bought new in 1998), applying it to every pot, fader and switch. It alleviated some (not all) of the snap-crackle-pop but had a side effect of completely ruining the smooth, damped motion of the knobs and faders, leaving them feeling scratchy and choppy. To be fair I used MG Chemicals Nu-Trol on the other half of the mixer to the same effect, so who knows. I guess I'm happy with the lower noise when I turn a knob and push a fader but boy does turning those knobs and pushing those faders feel dreadful now. When you say you hosed it off do you mean with water?
The loss of that smooth action is likely because Deoxit strips away fader lube/grease, which is usually what gives faders 🎚 that smoother resistance. Deoxit also makes a fader lube you can apply to get that back in there if you want to.
What tool did you use to get the front cover off - that which goes over the circuit board? I’ve got the VLZ Pro
Mine were all small screws, just a ton of them. Then lift the cover off. Small torx bits, can’t remember the exact size.
I'm having an issue where all of a sudden the sound coming out is distorted....doesnt matter what channel, tape in, etc....just suddently started distorting the sound..very frustrating
I would have thought the standard advice was to use DeoxIT D5 for the pots and side faders for cleaning (and pot lube), then specialized F5 for the faders (lube) only. Perhaps the red micro straw tool for better application too. I'm new to DeoxIT so I could have this wrong. My usage is for noisy/twitchy micro servos on UMX RC planes.
You can even go as far as use the fade lube on the pots and faders, as I could of done. I wanted to do a follow up video, but unfortunately it would only be a temporary fix for my board. Due to the abuse it suffered sitting in a mixing booth for so many years being used as a lunch table, many of the pots and faders are just too far gone. Far too much play in them for any lube to help for any meaningful amount of time. I have been trying to find replacement pots and faders, but due to the age, has been a bit of a challenge. A few places I have found the price was more than I can afford currently, so the board is in storage with the hopes of a repair in the future.
Thanks for the video man. quick question, how did it hold on the long run? 2 years later did u have any issue... i just cleaned mine with contact cleaner and is woking fine... but I know I need to lubric
First off, this mixer had sat in a small "DJ Booth" for I don't know how many years mounted into the desk. Being as they had not had any DJ's in to use it, and it was used as a luncheon and talk booth for a AM station for several years, the faders were badly abused and had a ton of buildup of food and what not in them. For what it is worth, this clean up did an amazing job. That being said, about 2 months of use after this and a few of the bad faders and pots started acting up again. They already had far too much play in them, so it was a miracle they lasted that long. I used this mixer for about 6 months and eventually got myself a digital mixer. I was bouncing it in and out of my car, and having a mixer with onboard processing was more feasible than carrying around this mixer and a bunch of mic processors. It is currently sitting in my kitchen, where I want to eventually order a bunch of new fader and pots, but the faders are a bit pricey, and I have a ton of other projects that are currently eating my bank account. I will pick this one back up, but not sure when. The pre amps in this beast are far too buttery for me to toss this mixer, no way I can bring myself to do that.
At 6:39 you mention "hosing it out" Can you talk about this? I've got a very dirty mixer and I'm thinking of cleaning it all with mild soap and water before cleaning the faders are pots. Is this a good idea? bad idea? I've never cleaned a mixer. I know that if you let it dry thoroughly for several days most electronics are fine after being exposed to water. I may give it a bit of a hit with the girlfriend's blow dryer to speed it up a bit first though.
"Hosing Out" is kind of a loose term I use. When it comes to electronics, if I use soap, it is only a few drops of mild dish soap per gallon (roughly). Rinse it out as much as possible to make sure no soap is left behind, then I put the board in the oven on low (120 F or so) for about 15 min, then let the component sit for 2 days to make sure all water/moisture is gone. This is only for extremely dirty electronics. Then I go to town with electrical cleaner spray and electrical cleaner pens to get get the rest as needed. Then proceed to lube where necessary.
What input jack do you use for in-ear monitors? Thanks.
Sorry, Its A Mackie 1604 VZL3
Shouldve mentioned wearing the gloves at the beggining of the video...my hands are crusty lol. Also feel like i got mildly high working on mine haha
Yeah, I was the same way. But after working with all of the solvents and chemicals I normally do, I didn't even think of it...
I just got one of these from my job's fire sale and sometimes inputs are static-y do you have any idea what that is?
There are typically two reasons for static. 1. Oxidation and dust/crap buildup on the contacts of the faders or pots. Typically spraying the faders will help. 2. The contacts in the faders are badly worn from heavy use. This a lot of times requires replacing faders or pots.
@@AudioCraZ ok thanks, the faders seem pretty decent so I will clean it up
is it safe to play with the knobs with the case open....?
As long as you are not putting excessive force or torque on them, you should be fine.
I just mean, if you were to slip, couldn't you shock yourself...?
Yes, if you touch the PCB, but it is mostly low voltage. You probably won't even feel it, just run the risk of shorting out something. The shaft of the pot is plastic, so just gripping that and being careful not to touch anything else should keep you safe.
why did you not change the pots when you had it open
The point of this video was to see if the DeoxIT would work. In all honesty, it is really easy to take this console apart, and the idea of replacing components is something I want to do. it just comes down to time and money at this point (also the ability to source the faders and pots, as so far I have only found the faders).
we use lube-a-trol don't know if it is still made from tech spray
Good~^^
the gold deoxit is absolutely not made for this! take the d100L in seringe
I am working on a follow up video. Needless to say, this poor console is beyond lubricant help. She was badly abused.
AudioCraZ the deoxit gold is made to enhance conductibility for gold plated surfaces... if i can do a funny comparison, its a bit like trying to use wd40 as flux hahaha
Spery name plz ?
Spery name?
@@AudioCraZ yes u know spery name
AudioCraZ Yo, I think they mean, “spray name”...like what is the name of the spray you’re using. Although I could be wrong and it’s possibly a curse upon you and your household? I hope it’s the former and not the latter...
Really a bad idea ! Not cheap solution