Can Dirty power foog your foogers? aka gooey gooey gluedrops

[Croyote]

I've just realized that the sockets on the wall of my jam-room, which I use to power my amps and foogers are poorly-wired and poorly-grounded. I've been using this set up for months through a MonsterPower Powercenter Pro 1000 and have at various time perceived extra noise. Iwondered why the "Ground OK" wouldn't stay on when the power was running, and sometimes the "Reverse Wiring" light would come on.

My Mf-104SD and MF-104z --both brand new: SD was a uber-riche time-capsule hide-away; Z was of the last run and has very sloppy gooey glue-drops inside touching multiple components! (Please lay off the "water" dipped bliz-nunts while on the assembly line, guys!!! ) -- both have experienced the problems listed in this particular thread:

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopi ... 4+problems

I'm super-pissed cuz I bought the 104z as a back-up for the 104SD, after I heard that they were producing them with more precautionary measures. Therefore, fooger-rich and moolah-poor, owner of two dodgy delays (that sound wicked-sick once working) and needing an electrician.

I noticed that EricK listed persistent powering/wiring problems in other threads, in addition, to his continuing delay issues. (I promise I'm not a stalker, dude!)

Is the power the culprit?

or the Gooey Gooey Glue-Drops?!

I'm switching for the time being to a different, but highly inconvenient socket, which seems much more reliable. I'm quite concerned about the health of my delays, and pedals/gear, in general.

C'mon guys, Please get it right with the Cluster-Flux!

[Alien8]

In my experience, lack of electrical current, or low voltage does not affect the foogers in a permanent physical way ie frying something. It does impact the performance however.

Power spikes are bad, but the foogers can handle a slight spike, which is generally filtered out by the power supply first anyways.

Reverse wiring, ground shorts and things like this are not good. Definitely using your monster is a good idea. It also should help with power fluctuations cause by guitar / bass amplifiers from burst demands when you push them.

[Croyote]

So I imagine I came off as a mega dick/be-otch with this post.

I have been trying the foogers with a grounded properly wired outlet, and the delays have so far cooperated with no hitches! And they are both absolutely amazing, so glad to have both.

The problem must be . . . with the voltage conversion required for certain BBD chips?

So be careful folks that if you are using a Mf-104-? then make sure you have a grounded and properly wired outlet supplying your electricity.

As far as the "gluedrops" I come from a classical/flamenco guitar background, and if you look into the your guitar and see excessive glue, you have every right to call out your manufacturer on being a slob.

However, they sound great! I love how sensitive the Z is in comparison with the SD. The Z seems to react to a signal's output with more sensitivity and is more prone to oscillation, while the SD is so chill/warm/laidback and I have to push it into wild-ness.

Delay Heaven! The next delay I'm planning to acquire is a Fulltone TTE, anybody have a word on those?

[EricK]

he issue with my delay is SIMILAR to the issues people have been having with theirs. Some say that there is a jumper that is touching the chassis and causing it to ground out, eliminating the ability to self-oscillate. I didn't notice my jumper touching at all, though it was impossible to determine if any heat produced inside would cause the hot glue on the daughter board to expand and allow that jumper to touch.
Some have "fixed" this problem by placing a piece of paper or card between the jumper and the chassis and have claimed that this has totally solved their issues.

With mine, it was an intermittant problem added to the fact that I play music in spells of heavy production followed by lulls. So It was over a period of several months before i wised up enough to document the dates and nature of the problems.



This is a description of the issue and the dates they occured:
Intermittantly, the delay circuit will fail. It will have a few delays only, will not self-oscillate. Sometimes this is fixed by reapplying the power supply and sometimes it won't resolve. Sep 10: 4 echoes at most, had been on for awhile. Voyager vol, Phaser volume, delay drive max. 4-5 echoes max. Resolved by disconnecting and connecting the power supply Nov 30: same problem, 3-4 echoes max. Resolved by unpiugging for a seocnd. Dec 11: upon powering, few echoes. Delays at a low volume. unplugging and reattatching did not resolve the problem today. Dec 27. Delay failed after I tried to modulate the TIME with a sequencer. 6 delays at most. Had to disconnect and reattatch the power supply LOTS of times before it resolved. Worked temporarily then failed again.


THe first time they replaced an output resistor, and the second time they installed a protection diode. I had JUST gotten it back and I was considering selling it when they announced it would be discontinued.

I wondered if the reason they DC'd it was due solely to the limited supply of the BBD chips or the other issues, as I wasn't the only one experiencing them.

My knowledge of electronics is in it's infancy, so I researched a protection diode, and what i came across led me to believe that the protection diode protects against voltage spikes. I did notice that sometimes, the delay would fail when I hit the bypass switch. So I have a tendancy to hypothesize that it is the switch that is causing something to go out. Also, you can see that sometimes reattatching the power supply would fix the problem, and that it would fail regardless of if it had been powered for a long time or cold, so I don't think that it is a simple issue with the jumper grounding out on the chassis due to the glue on the daughter boards.

There you have it though. Since the protection diodes have been installed I haven't had issues, though I fear that a protection diode might be treating the symptom rather than whatever is causing said voltage spike.

I could be way of base. This is something that I would have loved to have discussed with the engineer who repaired it.

Eric

[Croyote]

Regardless of the removal of my house's ground loop, my MF-104sd has been acting up again. I'm having to replace the power supply during operation, and I am always careful to find one that fits snugly, because I have seen it shoot out a spark before (is that bad? I've never seen a pedal do that one before!)

EricK,

What are the settings on your pedal when you are getting so few oscillations and repeats?

It seems that I really have to push the heck out of the sd to get some long repeats, that is full-on feedback and almost full-on loop gain when I am on the internal loop. However, whenever I use my Murf, Ring Modulator, etc. if I crank the drive or the output I really have to watch the loop gain, because it can go really out of control especially in terms of volume.

My 104z is far more sensitive and I don't think it has had quite the same issues, it seems that once or twice the pedal wasn't responding and I had to switch the plugs, but the LED flashes don't seem to link up with the amount of oscillation and delay unless I really push it towards yellow.

Both pedals emit a nasty high pitch when on the longest delay setting, which may only be noticeable because I am using Fishman Loudbox amps ( a Performer and a SA 220) in addition to others, and these are very sensitive to high pitches. Should I be putting a LPf after each delay (yikes - - more foogers?) now or is there a factory mod/repair they can do to filter the clock noise.

I am wondering if I should send them in for the voltage protection diodes, and if they will even do it on the SD. Really I'm a-feared to let it out of my grasp!

[EricK]

The settings on my delay were normal until I noticed it wasn't working, then I intentionally drove it hard to see what the culprit was. My feedback, time, mix, everything was max at one point, including a hot signal going into the delay as in the description from my earlier post.

Id probably call them, but they might say that gain staging is possibly producing some of those highs. I had issues with a murf that they said was attributed to gain staging but as I demonstrated in a video and audio samples, it was just that a particular filter band was resonant or there was a 60 cycle hum associated with that particular filter band.

You need to hook it up to a scope to be sure what the problem is, so Id give them a call. I think they will service anything going back to 1992-93 as per their website service information. so your SD would be fair game.

Eric

[Croyote]

C/O a very gracious and informative member of the Moog technical team:

'There are two primary issues we tend to see with the MF-104. One is when the power section has been damaged by either a power surge, improper outlet wiring, or use of the wrong adapter. The symptom for this is that all LEDs will stay lit and the output will be distorted. This issue can occur with all Moogerfoogers. The other is specific to just the MF-104SD and 104z. It has to do with the output section and the demultiplexing IC found there. If a static charge or voltage jump occurs at the output, it has the potential to damage this IC. We have recently created a modification for the 104 which effectively protects the IC up to 40 kV. If your units do not have this modification, we strongly recommend getting them."

We shouldn't have to worry about the Cluster-Flux and future pedals:

'The MF-108 does in fact have some additional power protection built in. The two most damaging effects of incorrect power supplies (reversed polarity and voltages over 15v) have now been addressed using diodes."

So looks like it will soon be time to get those mods done.

Peace,

Croyote.

[EricK]

Thank you very much for that. I wonder if mine has the modification since they reported on the work order sheet that they installed protection diodes.

This is what I love about Moog, they totally work with you.

Eric