Leporello Posted March 10 Posted March 10 Hey everyone! I'm having issues with my AXR85. I had this problem basically ever since I bought it. I always thought that the problem came from the electrical grid. I thought that the voltage fluctuations that we have over here in Brazil were too much for this amp. Sometimes it would go away and not happen for months and sometimes it would refuse to stay on for even a minute. Ever since I bought it, I rewired the mains in my apartment, tried using surge protectors, upgraded to the best cables I could afford. Recently I measured these voltage oscillations and turns out they are minimal, it fluctuates between 223 and 225v. Recently I'm having this issue more than ever. I tried everything that the manual suggested. I also reached out to CA's support and they couldn't help me diagnose this issue. And since they don't offer support here in Brazil, they suggested I get in touch with a representative in another country (Paraguay). I'm very close friends with two electronic technicians. One day when it was simply shutting itself off even with all the cables (except the power) disconnected, I asked them for help. They couldn't find absolutely anything wrong with it. They checked for shorts everywhere and everything was measuring fine. They disconnected a connector that connects the power PCB to the main PCB and when they connected it again, it finally turned on. We think it reseted something. But it still happened many times since. Sometimes I can just turn it back on again, sometimes I have to take the power cable off and wait a minute, and one or two times I had to disconnect and reconnect that connector. I don't know if it's an IC that is triggering this, if one of the relays is not working properly, or if it's something else entirely. If anyone has any idea or similar experience, I would love to hear it. Obs: I never had it turn off because of overheat or overload. My best regards, Vitor
Leporello Posted Tuesday at 04:24 PM Author Posted Tuesday at 04:24 PM Update: I'm posting this for whoever might find it and who's dealing with the same issue to say that I found a solution for my case. The TLDR, in my case, it that it was a firmware/processor unit/memory issue, so a factory reset is what solved it. I had done a factory reset in the past, but maybe a power outage or something else might have messed up the memory of the device. After this initial post the device became worse and worse, it would constantly shut off and sometimes it would outright refuse to turn on, it was basically unusable. I took it to some very capable technicians and they couldn't find anything wrong with it and the problem kept happening with them too. I took it to a third technician who came across this issue with Cambridge devices and he was the one that pointed to me that the issue was on the firmware side. He assumed that the firmware was corrupted. I emailed CA asking if they could share the firmware along with installation instructions (they later replied saying they can't), but in the meantime I tried a factory reset and just like that it started working perfectly and reliably like it should. I came across many CA owners with the same issue and it was very frustrating that no one knew what was the cause or the solution. I read many times that the solution was to return it or buy something else, but that honestly wasn't an option for me. Only once I saw someone that mentioned that the problem might be the firmware. Considering that this issue comes up in many of CA's devices in different lines (I stumbled upon stereonet because of a post with the same issue as me on a CX amplifier), I think it's fair to say that the firmware and the memory on these devices can be problematic. So, in conclusion, if you have this issue, try a factory reset. It's super quick. I thought it was power related, I blamed my mains at first, I measured the transistors multiple times, I suspected that the diodes were not discharging the caps like they should, I thought a cap could be out of spec... when I just needed to press some buttons. I think that it is probable that the issue might happen again, but I'm feeling confident that the fix was and will probably be a factory reset. Kindest regards to everyone who might find this. 1
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