Roland Blues Cube Artist: kaput and irreparable

Danny1969

randella said:

Danny1969 said:

I actually rented my TV and video from Radio Rentals .... as buying those 2 things cost around £850 when wages were £90 a week 

Would you say, to the best of your knowledge, panels are less, more, or about as reliable as old CRTs from back in the day when the rental companies were king?  Genuine question, as I know my experience is anecdotal.

It depends on the quality of the panel and the power supply, but there's not many flat panels go 10 years with no issues ... some may still be running but I bet internally some components are on borrowed time. Old Trinitron sets could do 10 years or more in most cases but I still looked at some faulty ones less than 5 years old. In the schools it was all Ferguson and those were generally OK for 8 years of school service for TV's and about the same for the videos with a few belts changed here and there

 When I first got involved in TV repair everything was pretty much discreet so you had as many as 9 PCB's in some TV's, some which used to hinge out so you could get at them, some demanded the whole TV was taken to bits before you could access them. Heat was the main culprit to failure with bad joints being the most common thing. The only item which would render a TV beyond economical repair was the tube. If anything else failed it was repairable. Over time all the fly back ramps and sync circuits became available as single I.C's and CRT TV's then generally had one single reliable PCB. These became cheap to manufacture and prices fell. 
Modern flat screens have 2 points of failure, the address bus joints of the LCD, screen fails with lines, missing pictures etc and the internal SMPS unit fails because the caps only have a finite life in that hostile application. When things fail depend on what components were used. A high quality capacitor designed for high temperature SMPS operation can cost twice as much as a lesser brand. When we buy goods we have no knowledge of what's inside and you can't even trust a brand name as many brands are built by third party OEM's and rebranded. 

It saddens me though that we do chuck things away rather than repair. I personally don't throw any electrical item away as a complete part, if the item really is fucked then there's still something I can generally salvage and use again, be it the transformer or other electronic components. 

p90fool

impmann said:

I'd also get independant repair techs who would get incredibly stroppy about the company's postion of not releasing schematics to third parties - I can see both sides of this argument but ultimately, its a business decision. You are welcome to your own opinions on that, but as you didn't create the IP, its protection isn't really anything to do with anyone else. 

This is cynical and should be illegal IMO, they're using copyright laws designed to protect authors and photographers to starve everyone of service information and to force customers to pay them inflated prices for repairs.

The current Triumph motorcycle company is the same, and is the reason an awful lot of people won't buy them.

Good companies know that a thriving aftermarket is good publicity and helps to future proof their own products.

As for Roland, I'm happy enough with my potentially disposable Katana because of the price, but the Blues Cube costs more than a Princeton and should last accordingly.  

randella

@Danny1969 - thanks for taking the time to type that, very interesting.

Those display busses are horribly delicate, they fill me with dread whenever I see one.  Makes a change from the old CRT sets - I remember a family friend's old set, wooden box and all.  It had that horrible whine from the line flyback transformer, for which the accepted ( ) fix was of course a good, sharp slap on the top of the set with the palm of the hand.  This unit endured such a leathering over time that the positive lead to the power switch eventually came off.  I soldered it back on for them and it worked fine again.  I wonder how long my LG panel would last under those conditions.

impmann

ICBM said:

impmann said:

I share the OP's frustration on this though - I used to be the repair manager for Line6 UK, and I managed all the repairs/spares for Europe. There were some units that we genuinely didn't have the replacement boards for, as the cost of spinning them vs the potential return in repair revenue just didn't add up. You can genuinely have £20,000 tied up in boards that will take years, if not decades to shift. Therefore you had to have difficult conversations with musicians who could ill afford their unit to be scrap, in the same way that the manufacturer could ill afford to have so much money tied up in spare parts. There were work-arounds for some scenarios but in some cases, there wasn't a huge amount I could do other than offer a discount on a new unit as a direct sale.

I'd also get independant repair techs who would get incredibly stroppy about the company's postion of not releasing schematics to third parties - I can see both sides of this argument but ultimately, its a business decision. You are welcome to your own opinions on that, but as you didn't create the IP, its protection isn't really anything to do with anyone else. Screaming obscenities at me like one did (I won't name him - and yes, he's a "well respected" repair tech) won't change that. Releasing those schematics was a sackable offence... my bosses took it that seriously.

Wasn't me . I don't know if it was you the shop I work for dealt with - it was never me who actually made the call - but on the occasions we needed to call Line 6 they were very helpful. I was sorry they closed down the operation in the UK. (As I'm sure you were!)

It doesn't even have to be anything to do with 'company policy' either - sometimes the spare parts simply get used up and then there aren't any more, and that's that. Yamaha have run out of a particular preamp board for some of their older electro-acoustics for example, even though for years they had stock - they now can't be repaired. If I remember right you said something similar about the first-series Spider Valve.

To be quite honest, discounting a new unit is going to make most people happy - they're getting an almost certainly better product. The difficulty with musical gear is that often the player simply prefers the older version.

Going back to Roland, actually the thing that's annoyed me most recently was being unable to repair a bass combo - at least without doing a huge amount of unnecessary work - because a wiring bundle from the amp chassis was *very* thoroughly glued into a hole in the cabinet, with not enough slack left to pull the chassis far enough to even investigate the fault. I did have a look at ungluing it, but it was so solid that I suspected I might have had to cut the wires and replace the whole loom. That goes almost into "designed not to be repairable" rather than "not designed to be repairable", if you see what I mean!

I gave up on that one and suggested the owner take it to a Roland dealer, because the fault was almost certainly a blown switch-mode power supply.

Sorry chap - I didn't mean to imply... I just re-read what I put... for the record, the tech involved is nothing to do with this website at all. And certainly not @ICBM !! I hope no offence taken!!

Yes, first series Spider Valves become valve power amps if the display blocks. The mainboard just can't be bought, nor can it be repaired as its a flash problem and the device used was pre-programed before instalation by the contract manufacturer who built the amps. The device fails and there is no way to reflash it - even if you can find a replacement device. Not even Line6 have the right code for doing that!!!! The joys of 3rd party manufacture. On the plus side, they still work fine as a 40watt valve power stage even with blocks in the display - stick a Helix (or similar) into the effects loop return and BINGO.

Danny1969

impmann said:

Yes, first series Spider Valves become valve power amps if the display blocks. The mainboard just can't be bought, nor can it be repaired as its a flash problem and the device used was pre-programed before instalation by the contract manufacturer who built the amps. The device fails and there is no way to reflash it - even if you can find a replacement device. Not even Line6 have the right code for doing that!!!! The joys of 3rd party manufacture. On the plus side, they still work fine as a 40watt valve power stage even with blocks in the display - stick a Helix (or similar) into the effects loop return and BINGO.

In fairness to Line 6 that's pretty standard with digital circuits. If the SMC chip goes bad on your Macbook Pro changing it for a new one won't help as you need it pre programmed..... basically all you can do is reuse a chip from a board that's failed for some other reason .... so never throw a digital board away unless your sure nothing is of use 

TimmyO

Eee it were better back then, when it were all fields and rickets and dysentery  

mbe

TimmyO said:

Eee it were better back then, when it were all fields and rickets and dysentery  

Back then we used to dream about amplifiers and had to make do with Marshall stacks painted ont' cellar wall

Three-ColourSunburst

p90fool said:

impmann said:

I'd also get independant repair techs who would get incredibly stroppy about the company's postion of not releasing schematics to third parties - I can see both sides of this argument but ultimately, its a business decision. You are welcome to your own opinions on that, but as you didn't create the IP, its protection isn't really anything to do with anyone else. 

This is cynical and should be illegal IMO, they're using copyright laws designed to protect authors and photographers to starve everyone of service information and to force customers to pay them inflated prices for repairs.

On the other hand, if you spend a lot of money developing a product, releasing schematics to third parties opens the door to others copying your designs. Restricting schematics to a few approved repair centres does reduce the likelihood of this happening. It a simple case of protecting intellectual property rights.

As many have said on here it is a numbers game. Generally Roland products have one of the best reputations for reliability, so for most users ease of repair is not really an issue. That said, there still should be a way to get second-hand and out of warranty stuff fixed, or a policy of providing a replacement at a significant discount.

I also appreciate that no one is likely to be happy if their amp blows up 10 years down the line and is unrepairable. But one does need to look at the overall cost of ownership, so even if an old-technology valve amp might still be repairable in 10 years time, the amount spent on new tubes and other repairs over that 10 years might well have added up to the same cost as buying a replacement. Added to this, just look at all the old-school valve amps that one sees on here from companies such as Mesa that are hugely complex and difficult to repair, so it is not as though 'going valve' is always - from a repairability standpoint - the equivalent of buying a Morris Marina.

p90fool

@Three-ColourSunburst I do agree, but when all you need to diagnose a fault accurately is one simple resistance reading +/- 20% at 20c over the phone and they won't give it to you even though you're trying to buy the parts from them, all you're left with as a repairman is to recommend that nobody buys anything from that company ever again. 

It's a balance between intellectual property and consumer rights, and the consumer can always go elsewhere next time.  

Three-ColourSunburst

p90fool said:

@Three-ColourSunburst I do agree, but when all you need to diagnose a fault accurately is one simple resistance reading +/- 20% at 20c over the phone and they won't give it to you even though you're trying to buy the parts from them, all you're left with as a repairman is to recommend that nobody buys anything from that company ever again. 

Yes, that does seem like taking protecting one's intellectual property rights way too far!

impmann

p90fool said:

@Three-ColourSunburst I do agree, but when all you need to diagnose a fault accurately is one simple resistance reading +/- 20% at 20c over the phone and they won't give it to you even though you're trying to buy the parts from them, all you're left with as a repairman is to recommend that nobody buys anything from that company ever again. 

It's a balance between intellectual property and consumer rights, and the consumer can always go elsewhere next time.  

Actually, in a situation where someone was trying to fault find something like that - and clearly just needed some tech advice, I'd put them through to a tech to talk them through all of that. For clarity, it was just the sharing of schematics that was blocked - Line6 would never prevent a third party from repairing a unit, and any help we could give, we would.

Sometimes, however, trying to explain to 'repair techs' the concept of multi-layer boards was hard work... when normally they were dealing with fairly simple valve or transistor circuits. And explaining to some folks that whilst the device may be generic but the code to make it function wasn't - and was not available, nor was any method of applying it to the device - was impossible. Trying to explain to some "repair techs" that their theories on why something has failed wasn't necessarily the case usually ended in rows and pissing competitions about who had been "doing this" the longest. In general, most techs are reasonable guys just trying to make a living - I'm talking about those who are good at talking the talk but are out of their depth on digital boards, but won't admit it.

I can't speak for Roland - I can't speak for Line6 any more - but sometimes a part isn't available, nor is it user repairable and that can render a unit BER (Beyond Economic Repair). I can think of a few units that were more expensive than the amp featured here that could fall into this category - but the instances of them failing was so low, it wasn't worth creating a 'fix'. As I said above, technically speaking the OP can't apply "consumer rights" here as they purchased it secondhand. Therefore they cannot prove how the unit has been used prior to their ownership - and the onus is on the consumer to prove that in any application thereof. Yes, these sorts of spats can cause all manner of 'outrage' about a lack of support etc but the instances are usually incredibly low - and fwiw, its the first time I've heard of such an issue with this amp. As I suggested, I think the OP should strike up a conversation with Roland - and keep moving the complaint higher up the food chain there. Don't expect a freebie but if some kind of discounted replacement is offered, that would be a good compromise for all parties IMHO.

Good luck.

jpfamps

Three-ColourSunburst said:

p90fool said:

impmann said:

I'd also get independant repair techs who would get incredibly stroppy about the company's postion of not releasing schematics to third parties - I can see both sides of this argument but ultimately, its a business decision. You are welcome to your own opinions on that, but as you didn't create the IP, its protection isn't really anything to do with anyone else. 

This is cynical and should be illegal IMO, they're using copyright laws designed to protect authors and photographers to starve everyone of service information and to force customers to pay them inflated prices for repairs.

On the other hand, if you spend a lot of money developing a product, releasing schematics to third parties opens the door to others copying your designs. Restricting schematics to a few approved repair centres does reduce the likelihood of this happening. It a simple case of protecting intellectual property rights.

 
I doubt very much whether this is the case to be honest, especially for digital gear.

It's actually easier to reverse engineer something from the product than the schematic.

Most of the ip in digital gear will will be in the digital domain, and thus unobtainable from the schematic.

impmann

jpfamps said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

p90fool said:

impmann said:

I'd also get independant repair techs who would get incredibly stroppy about the company's postion of not releasing schematics to third parties - I can see both sides of this argument but ultimately, its a business decision. You are welcome to your own opinions on that, but as you didn't create the IP, its protection isn't really anything to do with anyone else. 

This is cynical and should be illegal IMO, they're using copyright laws designed to protect authors and photographers to starve everyone of service information and to force customers to pay them inflated prices for repairs.

On the other hand, if you spend a lot of money developing a product, releasing schematics to third parties opens the door to others copying your designs. Restricting schematics to a few approved repair centres does reduce the likelihood of this happening. It a simple case of protecting intellectual property rights.

 
I doubt very much whether this is the case to be honest, especially for digital gear.

It's actually easier to reverse engineer something from the product than the schematic.

Most of the ip in digital gear will will be in the digital domain, and thus unobtainable from the schematic.

Ummm... not quite so easy on a multi-layer board as often layouts are very compact, plus a lot of SMDs are hard to identify without the use of a schematic.

But you are right about the code used to run the boards.

ESBlonde

Lots of interesting points made about fix -v- replace. I'm old and learned fix but seem to have some aptitude in that respect (I understand others do not and I don't have other aptitude so fair dues). I spent some of the weekend supervising my son doing and engine swap in his 2006 Fabia outside on the drive. The intention was to teach him that he could do this with tools and time and save hundreds of pounds. Modern machines and houshold devices are becoming less friendly, not just because you need the correct 'security' drive bit to remove something, but because they are cheaply produced by machine as small components making human access not a requirement.
I find the satisfaction of achiving something far outweighs the cost saving much of the time. But my time is finite and I can earn better money at my job than I can save on many projects unless they can wait for me to have time/tool/components all together.

impmann

ESBlonde said:

Lots of interesting points made about fix -v- replace. I'm old and learned fix but seem to have some aptitude in that respect (I understand others do not and I don't have other aptitude so fair dues). I spent some of the weekend supervising my son doing and engine swap in his 2006 Fabia outside on the drive. The intention was to teach him that he could do this with tools and time and save hundreds of pounds. Modern machines and houshold devices are becoming less friendly, not just because you need the correct 'security' drive bit to remove something, but because they are cheaply produced by machine as small components making human access not a requirement.
I find the satisfaction of achiving something far outweighs the cost saving much of the time. But my time is finite and I can earn better money at my job than I can save on many projects unless they can wait for me to have time/tool/components all together.

This.

I have a couple of classic cars that I wouldn't dream of giving to the local garage to fix because 1) its not difficult and 2) its a hobby.

I've tried fixing stuff on my Golf but tbh, its no fun and as you say the saving in doing it myself is outweighed by the costs in time of doing so.

Something I was told whilst in Korea by one of the Contract Manufacturers I visited - if you see a screw in an electronic device, a human has had to install that as machines are still a bit wonky at doing this at this small size (nuts and bolts on cars can be done but even this needs human interfacing). What you are seeing far more of is clip together, glued and plastic-welded components... thats because you can program a robot to do this. I've watched an entire production line of *a particular well-known electronic product (not L6)* being made where from start to finish, there is no human intervention. However, the product was totally unrepairable should it fail as you couldn't even open the clam shell case.

Danny1969

I was just looking at the PCB of a Katana and if you cropped off a 4" square of it and asked me what it was I would have said it's the PCB from an audio interface, not a guitar amp  

Some things spring to mind looking at it, are the BGA chips underfilled ? .... they should be ... it's a guitar amp, it's gonna vibrate a lot ... it's not going to have a stress free life like an audio interface sat on a shelf. Will it cope with spikes and dropouts from an outside generator gig with poor regulation ? how close to their max operating voltage are those caps working at, I bet there's not the margin there should be. 

I'm betting the head version will prove more reliable than the combo but I wouldn't be surprised if there are various faults emerging with these amps in the future once they have been gig'ed a lot, random freezing of DSP and that kind of thing 

merlin

This....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

ICBM

impmann said:

Something I was told whilst in Korea by one of the Contract Manufacturers I visited - if you see a screw in an electronic device, a human has had to install that as machines are still a bit wonky at doing this at this small size (nuts and bolts on cars can be done but even this needs human interfacing). What you are seeing far more of is clip together, glued and plastic-welded components... thats because you can program a robot to do this. I've watched an entire production line of *a particular well-known electronic product (not L6)* being made where from start to finish, there is no human intervention. However, the product was totally unrepairable should it fail as you couldn't even open the clam shell case.

I've just had to accept that my broken Apple low-profile keyboard is probably irrepairable because it is simply impossible to get the thing apart - it's glued together over the entire area of the back. My old one is held together by screws - luckily I kept it when the old computer died. It's not as nice a keyboard but it will have to do for now.

jpfamps

impmann said:

jpfamps said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

p90fool said:

impmann said:

I'd also get independant repair techs who would get incredibly stroppy about the company's postion of not releasing schematics to third parties - I can see both sides of this argument but ultimately, its a business decision. You are welcome to your own opinions on that, but as you didn't create the IP, its protection isn't really anything to do with anyone else. 

This is cynical and should be illegal IMO, they're using copyright laws designed to protect authors and photographers to starve everyone of service information and to force customers to pay them inflated prices for repairs.

On the other hand, if you spend a lot of money developing a product, releasing schematics to third parties opens the door to others copying your designs. Restricting schematics to a few approved repair centres does reduce the likelihood of this happening. It a simple case of protecting intellectual property rights.

 
I doubt very much whether this is the case to be honest, especially for digital gear.

It's actually easier to reverse engineer something from the product than the schematic.

Most of the ip in digital gear will will be in the digital domain, and thus unobtainable from the schematic.

Ummm... not quite so easy on a multi-layer board as often layouts are very compact, plus a lot of SMDs are hard to identify without the use of a schematic.

But you are right about the code used to run the boards.

There are plenty of companies (mainly in China and India) who specialize in reverse engineering electronic products.

MI gear is very simple compared with most modern electronics (and actually not were the money is).

impmann

jpfamps said:

impmann said:

jpfamps said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

p90fool said:

impmann said:

I'd also get independant repair techs who would get incredibly stroppy about the company's postion of not releasing schematics to third parties - I can see both sides of this argument but ultimately, its a business decision. You are welcome to your own opinions on that, but as you didn't create the IP, its protection isn't really anything to do with anyone else. 

This is cynical and should be illegal IMO, they're using copyright laws designed to protect authors and photographers to starve everyone of service information and to force customers to pay them inflated prices for repairs.

On the other hand, if you spend a lot of money developing a product, releasing schematics to third parties opens the door to others copying your designs. Restricting schematics to a few approved repair centres does reduce the likelihood of this happening. It a simple case of protecting intellectual property rights.

 
I doubt very much whether this is the case to be honest, especially for digital gear.

It's actually easier to reverse engineer something from the product than the schematic.

Most of the ip in digital gear will will be in the digital domain, and thus unobtainable from the schematic.

Ummm... not quite so easy on a multi-layer board as often layouts are very compact, plus a lot of SMDs are hard to identify without the use of a schematic.

But you are right about the code used to run the boards.

There are plenty of companies (mainly in China and India) who specialize in reverse engineering electronic products.

MI gear is very simple compared with most modern electronics (and actually not were the money is).

There are. But you don’t have to make it easy for them! 

Anyway, like I say it’s a business decision - you’re welcome to your own opinion but it won’t change a thing!