Soundcraft PSU's

[Rik]

Hi, everyone,

 

I look after sound for a church and we have recently bought a Soundcraft Spirit Desk second hand. It came with 2 PSU's one supected faulty which had been returned from repair as "No fault found". This PSU after working well for 6 weeks or so has suddenly started to lose its 17v line (which results in a mind bogglingly loud noise like a plane is crashing through the place!). the other PSU seems to intermittantly cause crackle and fizz.

 

My questions are:-

 

Are these units generally troublesome

Are they costly to repair

Would it be a good idea to purchase a new one and get the others repaired for spares

 

any help greatly appreciated.

 

Also we have a Hill 12-4-2 desk and psu to get rid of and would gladly donate to another church

[gnomatron]

Which model spirit? We have 2 spirit 24/8s and 3 PSUs, because the company that use our venue over the fringe fesitval had one of the PSUs die completely during a big show and so bought a spare. Seeing as they have no use for it, and also seeing as we give them a bunch of stuff for free over the festival, they let us keep it all year.

 

I've also had trouble with the power on soundcraft folio desks, though the problem wasn't the PSU but the very poorly designed connector.

 

So, troublesome - occasionally

 

costly - not sure

 

new one - probably, they're not overly expensive as far as I know, and then you'll have a spare which is always handy. Cheaper than a whole new desk, anyways.

[chatterbox]

We had a SOUNDCRAFT SPIRIT 24/8 and the psu went down - it just started humming at an incredible volume, and the leds on the mixer all lite up. We sent it for repair, on the first gig after the repair it did the same again.

 

The second time it was repaired, and the engineer said that the PSU was not man enough for the job and was overheating. He put an extra fan and vent on it, but the hum was still there.

 

In the end we bough a second hand TAC power supply for it, and it seems to be okay - saying that we have never used the desk since for a gig - it just sits in the flightcase - so I should say that it IS FOR SALE - shame really because for a budget desk - the quality was not bad, and the facilities are pretty good. :)

[gnomatron]

that sounds exactly the same as my story. Except for the bit about not using it again, and it being for sale - we use ours all the time. Nice wee desks, one of them's pretty close to dying though.

[TomLyall]

Yes, they are troublesome in my experience, my old school is on their second spirt desk (due to a need for more channels) and their third PSU.

 

My local hire company send out spare PSUs with the spirt desks on every hire. The connectors they use feel fairly poor quality, almost as bad as the one on my brand new phone, which already requires the addition of LX tape to work. [/mini-rant]

[Just Some Bloke]

I've known this under-specing of PSUs before. Manufacturers send out the smaller sized PSU for a desk, then have to admit that it should have been the bigger sized PSU when the small one goes down. Wouldn't it have been better for Customer Service reasons just to always err on the cautionary side and send out the bigger PSU whenever there's a doubt?

[robloxley]

PSUs seem to be the most unreliable bits of all desks - many desks come as standard with dual PSUs - which can't be said for much other equipment.

The Spirit Folio connecters are particularly bad, best replaced with a decent connector (I think Orbital have changed all their's to XLRs).

[gnomatron]

yeah, we had major trouble with our old folio's power connector. Got to be sure it's not a 3 pin XLR! Never underestimate the numpty factor...

[jamienip]

The Soundcraft Ghost we had often went a bit weird, it had 3 PSU's, and kept changing its mind on what the fault was each time you powered up. Got replaced by two Behringer desks (shudder).