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Author Topic: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair  (Read 19810 times)

mjgreeneaudio

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Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« on: April 22, 2008, 11:41:20 AM »

I have a Lexicon 300L that has stopped working.  It won't pass any reverb.  The digital connections will lock and it passes audio through but it doesn't pass any reverb and the analog connections won't pass anything at all.  

Who can repair this unit?  Does Harmon/Lexicon still repair them?  If not who out there can fix this unit up so that I can use it again?

Thanks,
Michael Greene


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amorris

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2008, 12:29:47 PM »

Lexicon pro legacy products says that it is still supported. so yes lexicon harmon should be able to repair it.
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mjgreeneaudio

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2008, 04:27:00 PM »

amorris wrote on Tue, 22 April 2008 10:29

Lexicon pro legacy products says that it is still supported. so yes lexicon harmon should be able to repair it.


Thank you,
I will give them a call.

Michael Greene


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Mark Donahue

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2008, 10:36:33 PM »

Michael,
Before packing the unit up and sending it back to what is left of the mothership, check a couple of things.
1) Replace the battery in the unit with a fresh one. This is one of the most common problems with these units.
Also, while you have the unit open, check out the power supply rails and any fuses.  
2) If you don't want to tackle the battery, the other thing to try is to flash the units memory back to original factory. The procedure is in the manual.
What makes me think that it is not a fatal problem is that the digital IO is still passing audio. If the main board was FUBAR, this would actually be the first thing to go.

Good luck-
-mark
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************************
Mark Donahue
Chief Mastering Engineer
Soundmirror, Inc.
Boston, MA
http://www.soundmirror.com
************************

mjgreeneaudio

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2008, 11:51:56 PM »

Mark Donahue wrote on Tue, 22 April 2008 20:36

Michael,
Before packing the unit up and sending it back to what is left of the mothership, check a couple of things.
1) Replace the battery in the unit with a fresh one. This is one of the most common problems with these units.
Also, while you have the unit open, check out the power supply rails and any fuses.  
2) If you don't want to tackle the battery, the other thing to try is to flash the units memory back to original factory. The procedure is in the manual.
What makes me think that it is not a fatal problem is that the digital IO is still passing audio. If the main board was FUBAR, this would actually be the first thing to go.

Good luck-
-mark


Mark,
Awesome suggestions.  Thanks you a million times over.  I will pull the unit later this week and check all these things.  You may have just saved me a lot of money and I will owe you a round of beers or your drink of choice.

Thanks again,
Michael Greene

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compasspnt

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2008, 05:09:09 PM »

Michael, let us know how it works out.

There was a guy out there, Jim Fabiano, who had worked at Lex for years, but was repairing the older units freelance.  But his website now has an unwelcome story...

http://www.jimfabiano.com/
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Jay Kadis

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2008, 05:15:51 PM »

compasspnt wrote on Tue, 29 April 2008 14:09

Michael, let us know how it works out.

There was a guy out there, Jim Fabiano, who had worked at Lex for years, but was repairing the older units freelance.  But his website now has an unwelcome story...

http://www.jimfabiano.com/


I'm burning some extra incense for our 224!  Maybe it is finally time to seriously think about replacing it...

tom eaton

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2008, 11:08:19 PM »

Jim was the man to go to here in Mass. before Harman moved Lexicon out of state.  He did my two PCM60s... lovely job.  Sorry to hear that he is leaving the biz.

-tom

mjgreeneaudio

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #8 on: April 30, 2008, 12:30:28 AM »

compasspnt wrote on Tue, 29 April 2008 15:09

Michael, let us know how it works out.

There was a guy out there, Jim Fabiano, who had worked at Lex for years, but was repairing the older units freelance.  But his website now has an unwelcome story...

http://www.jimfabiano.com/




Will do.  I contacted Lexicon and received this response.

Michael,

You may want to try resetting the unit.  To do this you will need to remove the EEPROM at board location U21 from it’s socket and short all of the pins to ground then re-insert the EEPROM (with the correct polarity) and start the M300L.  If this does not fix the problem we can set up a repair for the unit.

There is a $325 flat rate for repair of the M300L.  This charge covers parts, labor and shipping back to you but will not cover extensive damage.  If additional charges are required for the repair you will be contacted before we proceed.


I am still trying to find an hour to pull the dead unit and do this.  Hopefully next Monday at the latest I will tackle it.  

Worst case the $325 is more than resonable and since they are just across town I can drive it over and save the shipping.  I am just really glad they are still fixing these units.  There are so many out there it would be a shame to have them all fall by the wayside as has seemed to have happened to the TC M-5000 units.

I will let you guys know on Monday if this fixes the problem.  I have a lot of mixing to do next week and subbing out a PCM-91 just isn't doing it in the same way.  I certainly is not the same box or the same sound.  Not even close really.

Thanks,
Michael Greene


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mjgreeneaudio

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #9 on: May 08, 2008, 01:04:45 PM »

mjgreeneaudio wrote on Tue, 29 April 2008 22:30

compasspnt wrote on Tue, 29 April 2008 15:09

Michael, let us know how it works out.

There was a guy out there, Jim Fabiano, who had worked at Lex for years, but was repairing the older units freelance.  But his website now has an unwelcome story...

http://www.jimfabiano.com/




Will do.  I contacted Lexicon and received this response.

Michael,

You may want to try resetting the unit.  To do this you will need to remove the EEPROM at board location U21 from it’s socket and short all of the pins to ground then re-insert the EEPROM (with the correct polarity) and start the M300L.  If this does not fix the problem we can set up a repair for the unit.

There is a $325 flat rate for repair of the M300L.  This charge covers parts, labor and shipping back to you but will not cover extensive damage.  If additional charges are required for the repair you will be contacted before we proceed.


I am still trying to find an hour to pull the dead unit and do this.  Hopefully next

Monday at the latest I will tackle it.  

Worst case the $325 is more than resonable and since they are just across town I can drive it over and save the shipping.  I am just really glad they are still fixing these units.  There are so many out there it would be a shame to have them all fall by the wayside as has seemed to have happened to the TC M-5000 units.

I will let you guys know on Monday if this fixes the problem.  I have a lot of mixing to do next week and subbing out a PCM-91 just isn't doing it in the same way.  I certainly is not the same box or the same sound.  Not even close really.

Thanks,
Michael Greene






Ok.  So I finally stole an hour to open this up.  The above suggestions from Lexicon fixed the problem at least for now.  It seems to be working just fine.  Pulling the U21 Eprom and shorting all the pins to ground with the power off has reset the unit and brought it back to its original factory state.  It actually seemed to have fixed some of the strange glitches that I was having since I bought the unit 3 years ago.  The Larc works more stable and the programs load faster and without reverting back to the original program loaded.  I always thought that was weird since I have never encountered that with any 224L's, 480L's or any other 300L's.  So its all good for now.  

One caveat:  If you have any user stored programs, try and write them down.  It erases them from memory and they are gone!  I only had a couple and I had written down hard copies of them so if your going to do this and wish to save any custom programs write them down before attempting.

At least it is a nice reward after pulling the unit and taking out the 3 million screws just to get the top off.  (Ok maybe it was only 18 or 20 but you get the point.)

Thanks to all for your suggestions and help.  Now if I can just keep this baby working for a few more years.

And one more aside.  If anyone things that a PCM-91, PCM-90 or something along those lines of Lexicon products sound anything like a 300 or a 480 then your up in the night.  After subbing out a PCM-91 and going in Digital I can tell you that it is a thin fizzy POS compared to the higher end Lexicon products.  It just doesn't cut it.

Thanks again,
Michael Greene


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Michael Petkau

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2009, 03:08:16 PM »

Hey folks

I currently have the cover off our Lexicon 300 and am about to do the same thing.  Problem is, I'm a bit of a luddite and don't know how one 'shorts all of the pins to ground'.

If someone could let me know what exactly I need to do, that would be awesome.

It was great to find this thread, as I currently have the exact same problem as the OP.

Thanks!
-Mike Petkau
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mjgreeneaudio

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2009, 04:24:20 PM »

Well let me chime in again.  I shorted all the pins on the chip together using a screwdriver placed up along side of the pins on the chip.  Any piece of metal would work, just be careful that your not introducing static into the chip.  Ground yourself properly.  I shorted out one side and then the other.  I don't know if it is the proper way to do it but it worked.  My Lexicon 300 developed the same problem again about a month again and of course it did it right in the middle of a big project with a deadline.  I pulled it out, yanked it apart and did this again and once again it fixed the problem.  I still don't have an exact cause as to why it does this from time to time.  The one thing that I might have narrowed it down to is when I have it hooked up to my Digidesign 192 digitally and then I switch to a 96khz session the unit freaks out like it should since it can't handle that sample rate but it seems to send something to the digital input that once in awhile wacks it out and causes this to happen.  The only reason I suspect this is because it has happened both times when I have forgotten to turn off the Lex 300 and send it 96khz clock.  I may or may not be the problem but I make a point of turning off the unit when I am working at anything higher than 48khz.  Or if I am going to use it I disconnect the digital i/o and run it analog.  

I hope it helps.  Its very crude and a bit of a shotgun approach to fixing the problem but as long as it keeps fixing it I will keep on shooting!!!

Michael Greene
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Michael Petkau

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2009, 06:03:12 PM »

Wonderful.
Thanks so much, Michael.
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tom eaton

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #13 on: January 08, 2009, 01:06:17 PM »

This is great info... thanks much.  I love my 300 and hope it stays alive forever!

This forum rocks.

Resonater

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Re: Lexicon 300 with Larc Repair
« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2010, 06:52:45 PM »

I've got a different problem with my 300 and wondered if anyone here might have suggestions.  The unit seems to power on, it passes (gorgeous) audio, BUT, I can't see the display.  It doesn't read anything, so you can't really know what the settings are.  

I have done the U21 RESET thing.  I haven't replaced the battery.  It seems like it is soldered in there and I didn't want to do that unless someone told me that it was most likely the problem with the display.

Would anyone have any experience with this issue on their 300?

Much thanks in advance!
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