a16 ultra z-link B not working

[og_travis]

So i have an a16 ultra connected to a scope 3 dsp home card with the z link expansion card. Z link A is plugged into the mother PCI card, and Z link B goes into the expansion card. I verified this by going to the samplerate window within the scope platform. The red light by Z link A is illuminated while the Z link B sync remains dark. Any clue as to how i can go about fixing this? im going to be recording in a couple of weeks and would love to get more than 8 i/o's.

[Fluxpod]

Internal cables connected?
You need to connect a floppy disc power cable to the expansion card card to make both z-link ports work.Its a small white powwer connector.

Edit..or is that just needed for the luna boxes??

[kylie]

I verified this by going to the samplerate window within the scope platform. The red light by Z link A is illuminated while the Z link B sync remains dark.

the sample rate window doesn't tell you if you have both z-link ports up and running. imho sync is done with the first or only connected z-link port of an a16u. imho by swapping the cables you would see no difference; I think the first port used on the card is important, so you should note a difference when only one port (the luna expansion port) is used. the a16u does not split up into two separate clock slaves, since all z-link ports in a stdm connected environment are in sync with the z-link master (according to the manual).

you should have a sync led when
- connecting z-link a or b (a16u) to the expansion port (led B should be on)
- connecting z-link a or b (a16u) to the luna port (led A should be on)
- connecting both cables, in either way (led A). if swapping the cables swaps the leds, the a16u decides which port to sync with, but I don't expect that. especially not if scope is master.

somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

if the sync led on the a16u is fine, start hooking something to every port and see if you get a signal.

-greetings, markus-

ps. flux, the power connector is only for supplying additional power to a second! luna box. the pci bus can supply enough for one, but not for two. I never tried to hook a single luna box to the second port only, but for that to work it would be necessary that power is supplied via the ribbon cable. don't know if that is the case, but I think yes. the a16u does not have to be powered via z-link.

[og_travis]

thanks for the prompt feedback guys. my computer tech and i opened up my case and double checked that the ribbon cable and the 4 pin power are connected (even if it doesn't need to be.) Everything is properly seated but still nothing. i have attached a screen shot of the scope routing window. My ASIO 24 bit channels are feeding into inputs 1-16 in Nuendo.

routing.jpg (161.81 KiB) Viewed 930 times

I tried patching a preamp signal into every input on the a16u. Every input channel lights up on the front of the unit, but when i look to nuendo, there is no signal. Could this be a bad firewire cable? they are both brand new cables, and look to be of good quality. Should i reinstall the scope platform and drivers? So clueless guys, any help is much appreciated. thanks again...

...ps happy turkey day!

-travis

[og_travis]

oh and here is a shot of my vst connections in nuendo.

vstcon.jpg (109.44 KiB) Viewed 948 times

[astroman]

well, not the ideal way test it ...
if you're concerned about the hardware, restrict the environment to hardware and to an absolute minimum of software.
Just connect the Z-Link ports to a virtual mixer in the Scope environment and check which channels carry a signal.
Usually the stuff fails in groups of 8, so an input signal on port 1 and 9 should do the job
Route the respective outputs (physically) back to some other channels (say 2 and 10)
and check if the meters on the mixer display the signal

cheers and good luck, Tom

[kylie]

yes, try the ports with a scope mixer first. and check if the z-link sync led locks to B if you just hook one cable to the z-link port on the adat expansion.
if it does (and the a16U shows synching via z-link), and you have verified that scope is master and the a16u slave (I'd prefer that), the cables should at least be fine.

there is a small chance that the unit mutes completely if not both z-link channels are in sync with each other, but that should only happen if you hook the unit to a non-stdm-coupled bunch of scope cards. still could be an indicator that the ribbon cable might be faulty. you could try to get hands on another luna and hook it via stdm to the other.

-greetings, markus-

[og_travis]

so the first thing i did was unplug the z link A on the main scope card (so now the only z link connected is B going into the adat expansion. now, with the a16u set to slave, it is not receiving sync at all and the z link word clock indicator lights red. In addition, neither of the z link leds under the samplerate menu are lighting up. Next, i switched firewire cables to make sure it wasn't a faulty cable. Sure enough, they both carry signal.

Next i routed z link ch 1(a) to a 1632 mixer, got signal there. I routed z link ch 9(b) to the mixer, but couldn't get any signal.

Later today im gonna take out the ribbon cable and test continuity. thanks guys, any other ideas?

[kylie]

did you plug the B port on the A16U to the port on the luna card to verify that the upper section of the A16U does work at all?
check all ports, since I had the strange thing that port 9 was fine while everything starting with port 10 was broken. S|C fixed the unit, then.

if the converter does sync on both ports seperately, either the expansion board itself is broken or the ribbon cable is bad.
or maybe just the z-link port. you could try to use the adat connections for hooking up the A16U.

I have an expansion that does not run with all lunas. a newer one does not see the expansion ports at all, while the older ones can use them.
but since you see them ports in the routing window it can't be completely dead...

-greetings, markus-

[og_travis]

ok, so i after checking and double checking everything, ive discovered that both my z link cables are good, AND both the scope home card and expansion are good... it appears that no matter what i do, the Z link B out on the back of the a16u won't send or recieve ANY signal or sync (thanks markus!) how should i go about getting this replaced? i need 16 fully functional channels by dec 13th, but i want to record at 96k. can 16 channels of 96k 24 bit be achieved by adat alone (or adat smux + the z link A)? if so then i might just scrap the other z link. anybody got any clue as to how i can fix this? im at a loss.

-travis

[astroman]

can you verify that all channels work with Adat ?
in that case the powersupply and converters should all be ok.
my guess (out of the blue) is that one Zlink connector may have fried the Firewire controllerchip, according to my experience with external harddisks this seems the most reasonable explanation.
the connector is defined hot-pluggable, but obviously it's too hot sometimes
we accidently fried at least 4 disk controllers by no unusual handling of the device.
Can't blame anyone but the designer of the plug...
Imho you can squeeze at best 12 channels in 96k out of the box - 8 from the working Z_Link, 4 by the smuxed Adat (if that's workable) - no idea about sync or any other restrictions that might apply...

cherers, Tom

[og_travis]

thanks tom. thats what i was afraid of as well. i was hoping that it was just a bad port, but no worries, i will just check those adat ports tomorrow to rule the converters out. appreciate all the help guys.

-travis

[kylie]

for having all channels 96kHz you definitely need Z-Link. the adat ports do S/MUX, but that reduces the channel count to 8, since there are not enough adat ports.
the planned adat upgrade board to fit into the expansion slot was never made, and according to ralf there are no current plans to make them. the A16XLR does not even come with the expansion slot anymore...

for having the item repaired you have to get a RMA number from ralf first, along with the repair quote.
I had my unit fixed one or two years ago. don't remember exactly how long it took, because there were complications with the case where the screws had to be drilled, and I ended up in having the insides of my unit transferred to another case. so yours might be repaired faster, but depending on your location I'm afraid that won't be within your timeframe...

-greetings, markus-