Read my earlier post, #48

So, it sounds like it's well documented that low voltage is problematic. Has anybody tried bumping up a few volts with a Variac? A 5 amp version is like fifty bucks, pretty fair investment for a $3k piece of gear.

I have an Avocet II that gave me this issue a couple years ago. My unit finally stopped working altogether after doing the random reset.

I contacted Dave about it and he pointed me to a couple of fuses on the main units board. They are little green things that don't look like a glass fuse at all. They are a 75A Pico fuse. I checked them out with a voltmeter and one was open.

I took the Avocet to our local tech and he sorted it out for me. The unit has been working fine since. What precipitated the event was an issue with my UPS not supplying the correct voltage to the control room.

Crane Song is correct about the voltage supply being crucial for this bit of gear. I have added a high amperage surge board before the UPS and another after the UPS as well. I changed all the batteries in the UPS and did a major clean internally of the UPS and have not had any issues.

Here is a pic that Dave sent to show me the fuse location. You will see red dots next to them by the transformer.

Hope this helps out. I know how frustrating it is when this piece of gear does not work.

Kind Regards

Hanuman

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but darn, build that thing without that digital CRAP in it and it will make it a product that will last 40 years.

Thank you for your contribution, I am in contact with Dave too trying to troubleshooting the situation, however I have an Avocet version I.
He said "some UPS devices have a low output voltage, this will cause problems".
Which is the high amperage surge board you added to your UPS and which UPS are you using ?

I am using a Siemans 3000VA UPS. This is a server grade unit that will run my control room for hours on batteries if need be. I am in Australia so our voltage is supposed to be 240v. The UPS puts out exactly that amount.

Say for example I measure the voltage from the wall plug before the UPS it usually measures 235v to 245v depending on grid loading. The assuring thing about the UPS is the steady supply voltage of 240v in my case.

I opted to get some Thor surge protectors before and after the UPS. One before the UPS to protect the UPS and gear in case of a lightning strike and one after the UPS in case when I power up the UPS and it has a fault it will not send over current to the gear in the control room.

That may sound a bit overkill but I have had many years working a trade as a Power Lineman working with substations, transmission & distribution lines. What that taught me was you can never be too careful with electricity and the kinds of faults that can and do happen on our electrical grid.

Getting back to the Avocet issue we are having I believe my issue arose from the UPS putting out around 200v for a period of time. Everything else in the studio was working fine and I did not think supply voltage was an issue. Some trouble shooting after I sent the Avocet for repair revealed the issue with the UPS. Two simple things, a bad battery and a build up of dust on some switching contacts inside the UPS caused the under supply. Live and learn. I check my studio supply voltage regularly now.

Thank you for your detailed reply. I measured my voltage which here in Canada is supposed to be 120V. Normally my wall plugs show a higher voltage, from 121.2 to 122 and more, but the output of my UPS (Tripplite SU3000RTXL2U 3kVA) is quite steady at 120.1 V - 120.2 V which, I think, is the voltage the Avocet is supposed to need. So I asked Dave about this. Unless there's something happening between the output of my UPS and the two Furman PL-Plus I use to distribute the electricity to all my hardware...

If anyone is still having this issue I spent the last 3 hours trying different power Cables and pluggin it into different power sources ie the wall a different furman conditioner and finally back into the normal furman conditioner it was originally plugged into along with the original cable. Nothing worked. Every time it hit near red it would reset a bunch of times until it blew a fuse. I finally just did a hard reset on the controller and now I’m bumping music in the red on my meter again like normal. So I’m on my fourth fuse and one hard reset and it’s working like it use to. Idk I feel like I might need to just sell this thing but I’m addicted to how it sounds. Below is exactly what I did if you’re in this situation.


By pressing all three output selection buttons at the same time Avocet will reset all of it's internal settings. This is the same as rebooting the remote. Do not change jumpers or adjust the trim pots unless you are sure of what you are doing.

Not sure if it can help you but after years of back and forth with Dave Hill we finally concluded all my Avocet reset problems were due to the VGA cable of the remote. I found a company here in Canada which makes high quality ones (infinitecables) and all the problems are gone. Hope it can apply to your case.

That’s interesting. I wonder why the hard reset fixed it in my case? Either way the cable I have is pretty long if I had to guess I’d say 20 feet. It also looks to be like the original cable and seems fairly old. I think I’ll look around for a newer one. Thanks for the tip!

It seems that a long VGA cable may cause a voltage drop and thus a reset.
Here's the (35ft) cable I bought (and Dave is testing it too) :

https://www.infinitecables.com/vga/v...cable-cl2-ft4/

The good thing about this cable is that it's using 24awg conductors

That does seem like a good cable. So far most of the cables I saw were 25 or 26awg. That also seems like a fairly cheap cable especially the 10ft which would be all I need.

Exactly, of course the shorter the better. Good luck, keep us posted (curious)

Will do. I’m in Texas but it seems like I should be able to order the one you showed me so I’ll hop on that and give an update. Hopefully I remember lol!

My avocet has been doing this too. But I think it’s the power to my building that’s the issue

Drops down as low as 105 volts sometimes which is when I’ve had the avocet reboot issues . My studio is in a funky waterfront area of Sausalito so I think it’s the surrounding infrastructure

Things are being improved steadily. I’m going to talk To my electricity provider and see if they can check out why I have so much voltage drop. It’s below their own allowable level so maybe they will do something

All my other equipment seems to deal with this fine

The Avocet is the only piece of gear in my studio that struggles and reboots with lower voltages

Strange that it is so sensitive! I used to do QA/QC on some pretty high end analog gear. Part of my job was performing occasional stress tests on units. The gear I was working with was perfectly happy operating as low as 70VAC, albeit with some decreased headroom...

Of course this particular piece was full of insane figures... like it’s ability to pass 4Hz @ +28dBu through its custom designed TRANSFORMER output stage while maintaining a THD+N of .0007%... after 24 hours, the resistors at the input of the transformer primary were charred black but the unit still measured the same...

Anyway, I run a falcon ups with selectable voltages. I can choose 115, 120, or 125V. It’s always within .1V of whatever it is set to. It’s for medical equipment so it has numerous fault protections. I have two of these units and they are absolutely reliable. They are a couple grand a piece but can power the whole studio including monitors if desired. IMO, anything less than a CONTINUOUSLY ONLINE UPS is a waste of time and surge protectors, no matter how good, are really only worth it IF you buy one with a warranty that promises financial restitution in case of failure... and keep the paperwork and are prepared to file a damage claim...

I’ve actually had more issues at the office with devices connected to cheap backup systems and surge protectors than devices we just plug straight into the wall so who freaking knows...