Adrian

I have mended countless fader strings, without soldering anything. took me around 12-14 hours to figure out but I finally got it and re-strung all of my messy faders….

Step 1 – Unscrew fader using James Stewart’s method…

Step 2 – Once you have the metal case off, see if the string simply needs to be re-fed onto the copper wheels… as this will save you some time and a little money.

Step 3 – Buy / get some nylon or strong thread… (roughly the thickness of the one that comes with it), some INSTANT super glue (try to get a very watery glue and NOT the thick kind), a very small screw driver or pointy device to feed the string around the fader parts, and last but not least some decent lighting around you…

Step 3 – Take the stock string off, tie one end of the new string to the bottom of the fader (the bit that wont stick through the surface)… feed the new string over the first copper wheel (start at the fader and you’re going to work your way up and then around).

Step 4 – Feed the new string from the 1st copper wheel, around the back of the metal coil (the thing that spins), feed it around the coil starting from just below the middle of the coil, keep feeding it back around for three to four spins, then bring the new string out from the coil, over the 2nd copper wheel, then down to the third, then the fourth.

Step 5 – Once the new string has been fed through the last copper wheel, tighten it as much as possible without snapping the new string. Then wrap the string back around the fader where you tied the other end. Tie this end to it now, but because it should be tight all the way around, it will take some patience to do this, once tied securely, get some of that super glue, add a couple drops to the fader bottom to secure the string to the fader, making the bond even stronger.

Step 6 – Sigh a huge sigh of relief… Carefully place the casing back on, and reattach the entire fader to the MCU, you should have a completely automated fader once again! Take care over it, as the thread isnt as strong as the original string, and can easily snap if too much tension is applied.

Hopefully this works for all of you, it was just my last resort before oredering a bunch of new faders from a European site.

The extender works perfect now.

None of the ribbon cables were tangled, but there was a lot of residue on the inside of the metal fader housing. I used a light weight oil (air tool oil) and cleaned the inside of the housing with it and left a small amount of the metal so the ribbon would work smother when it hits the housing. The big thing I found was that the faders were hitting the sides of the fader paths on the top plate of the unit. This can easily be adjusted with the 2 hex screws on top of the unit on each fader.

Anyways thanks for the post I will be doing this every time a fader stops working.

Anyways the only other option is the Euphonix MC-5 (a 48 fader version with the center control is $50,000+) so its not like I really have any other options. I use windows so the euphonix artist series is out of the questions. And from looking at the Tascam control units they really suck, and the SSL is also out of my price range.

Mackie needs to put better faders in the units, thats the bottom line. But from what Ive heard they got bought out by some Chinese company and everything will be made in chine now. So looks like we are in for a larger failure rate in faders when they restart production of the faders and the MCU units in June 2010.

Just wanted to say a big thanks for this article. Worked a treat.

Reference for anyone else who might encounter this particular problem:

Fader 5 was only making it half way up on calibration test. If you moved it up and down for a while and then turned the unit on it would pass calibration, but if you tried it again without this little ritual, it would again only make it about half way up.

In the end, it looks like the issue was possibly the rubber o-ring at the top of the slide bar. It was sticking to the fader guide and getting dropped off at random places along the slide. Then when the fader moved up again it was encountering a small amount of extra resistance from the o-ring, which I guess confused it into thinking it had hit the top of the guide. I blew air on, greased, and oiled everything in sight just to make sure there were no other resistance points, and made sure the o-ring was greased nice and good so it stayed stuck at the top of the slide instead of stuck to the fader.

It appears to have fixed my problem; fader 5 is so far working fine. It was such a stupid little issue, I thought I’d post it in case it solved any hitherto unexplainable fader problems.

Cheers.

0) desolder the optical sensor first of all
solder it back on