Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
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By richie Fri Mar 25, 2016 1:50 am
sorinp wrote:What's the "db25" by the way?


The 25 pin scsi port on the back.
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By JUKE 179r Fri Mar 25, 2016 9:28 am
:shock:
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By sorinp Fri Mar 25, 2016 1:50 pm
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: Oh right... That.... Thank you

The db25 has been left alone on the back, if I understand what you're asking. There's nothing connected there externally. I did however hook up a Zip drive and tried to make the MPC 3000 detect it (on SCSI ID 6) with a 30 second response delay but it won't work, it only detects the RaizinMonster on ID 2. That's why it's so puzzling, the card reader is recognized and I have been able to save in the card occasionally but it seems to always freeze now. I tried reformatting the card yesterday and I was able to save one sound but then it went back to freezing.
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By Horseclick Fri Mar 25, 2016 2:10 pm
sorinp wrote::mrgreen: :mrgreen: Oh right... That.... Thank you

The db25 has been left alone on the back, if I understand what you're asking. There's nothing connected there externally. I did however hook up a Zip drive and tried to make the MPC 3000 detect it (on SCSI ID 6) with a 30 second response delay but it won't work, it only detects the RaizinMonster on ID 2. That's why it's so puzzling, the card reader is recognized and I have been able to save in the card occasionally but it seems to always freeze now. I tried reformatting the card yesterday and I was able to save one sound but then it went back to freezing.


look cf cards are troublesome and frankly searching for good ones are the reason i avoid them altogether.

2)
if the artmix internal scsi adapter is installed then your db25 connecter should be active and working, it seems that either

a) the kit is not installed or
b) your zip drive is busted.

you need to open up the mpc and check if you got something that looks like this in there.

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it will be face down so you will only see a green square board with 2 wires coming out of it.


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one wire is connected to the front device there should be another wire from the board to the db25


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and also check if your zip drive works or is busted with another scsi equipped device.
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By sorinp Sat Mar 26, 2016 2:32 pm
Hey thank you @Horseclick for taking the time to take some pictures... Here are my pictures, I believe everything has been done correctly. It's a Zip 250 with 100 MB discs, don't know if that makes a difference, and it works when I tested it with my MPC 2000. I don't have another SCSI device to try it however. At this point my tech said he wants to investigate the power regulator.

Two people have suggested looking into the <multi sector trans mode> to make sure it's OFF and also <ID exchange function>... I'm on OS 3.11 and have not located these features for the life of me.

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By Horseclick Sat Mar 26, 2016 3:45 pm
Two people have suggested looking into the <multi sector trans mode> to make sure it's OFF and also <ID exchange function>... I'm on OS 3.11 and have not located these features for the life of me.

those features are not on 3.1 but the third party vailixy OS, i can comment saying scsi2sd does not work on 3.1 either.

it will format but not save sound files anything bigger then a few kb.

so basically does artmix's razin monster work properly on 3.1 i think you need to ask mr artmix.

but in the meantime find a seller on ebay and order your vailixy chips.


also

if you pull out the scsi board the one i have pictured , double check the db25's wire is connected to that board, then reseat it.
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By sorinp Sat Mar 26, 2016 7:28 pm
Thanks for the info regarding the OS and for your suggestions @Horseclick!!! Ah the joys of old analog gear lol

Regarding the Vailixi chips, I spent some time yesterday on this forum reading many posts. If I understood correctly there was a gentleman by the name of Rohan who used to sell good and reliable EPROMS with the 3.5 OS but he is nowhere to be found. Now people are left to their own devices and a new market of copy cats with sub-par products has flourished (serial numbers erased, etc.). So in the end it seems we have no choice but to deal with these people on eBay for Vailixi, right?
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By Horseclick Sat Mar 26, 2016 8:43 pm
correct,

until rohan reappears we can only acquire through ebay etc.

but rest assure, if you receive a non working copy you are protected via ebay ....


if rohan does comeback you can always repurchase from him directly.
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By sorinp Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:27 pm
After reading all 12 pages of this thread it would seem the compact flash card is perhaps at fault, although a member reported using the Ultra SanDisk card on the right with success. Manabu from Artmix wants me to return this card to check it out... On my end none of the three on the left worked. Some I could format, one I got an error right off the bat, but I'm definitely not able to save on any of them.

Another possibility is that I don't have Vailixi, but that should not be the issue according to the product specs.

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By sorinp Thu Mar 31, 2016 5:36 pm
Eureka my problem's solved... it was a matter of finding the right compact flash card... I tried the Apacer Industrial CF5 (4 GB) and I was able to save on it, reboot and load from it. I'm really surprised actually because somebody mentioned this card not working for them. This world of compact flash cards is a real Russion roulette :lol:
By a_tonik Mon Apr 11, 2016 8:39 pm
Hi everybody, first post here ever, great community, and after reading carefully all the 12 pages of this topic, let’s see if anyone has a useful suggestion I could explore before I admit the hardware might be faulty.

I’ve purchased and installed the CF RaizinMonster and internal SCSI conversion KIT bundle set for AKAI MPC3000 and I didn’t have any success so far to make it work.

Here is a list of the steps I went through so far:

- installed the CF RaizinMonster conversion KIT following the instructions and online Youtube’s video with no difficulties
- I left all the card reader jumper settings as-is (SCSI ID #1, no T jumper)
1 2 4 T
0 : : :
- once turned on with a CF card in the reader’s slot, the MPC recognizes the SCSI ID drive and I could perform a lot of attempts to format some used CF cards I owned and some I bought afterward on ebay and I couldn’t make any of them work.

My MPC is running Vailixi OS 3.5 that I’ve purchased in 2008 (sn# C9845-01814).
With all the cards I’ve tried (9 in total), it seems the formatting and partitioning are going well, but if I try to save something, whether it says the partition hasn’t any free space (0 ko) or that the partition isn’t formatted (error FF04).

- I’ve tried auto SCSI disk select or ID 1
- Hard or Soft formatting
- turned off multi-sector ON or OFF
- Hard formatting always switches on Soft formatting after a few seconds then after a few more seconds the screen switch to the partition menu as expected
- Tried MPC 3000 or Hybrid format with same results
- Soft formatting takes ages for similar results

Once formatted, If I choose a disk to load or save from, the partition list is correct (good letters), but as stated before, whether the partition hasn’t any free space (0 ko) or the partition isn’t formatted (error FF04).

Based on all the forum information I could gather, it is very probably a CF card problem, but I’ve tried 9 so far and the Sandisk ultra 2 (1gb) seems to be a good choice.

If anyone gets inspired by my problem I’ll be very happy to explore his suggestions.

I’m looking forward to hear from,


P.S: I have a pictures of the 9 CF cards tested, how can I post it?
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By dshook Tue Apr 12, 2016 2:34 pm
Sounds like a card problem but I have been using 6 or 7 different ULTRA II cards in my setup (identical to yours) for a number of years now. My thoughts:

Are you running anything else on the external scsi port? Do you have a SCSI terminator you could install on that end to rule out termination / grounding / scsi fuse issues?
Put a continuity meter across the scsi fuse to check if it's blown. If you are up to it. replace it with a self-resetting poly-fuse.
Will it save and load to/from other SCSI drives mounted externally?
Is the adapter board seated properly? Did a ribbon cable get partially dislodged in your install? I remember having to re-route some wires in order to get the board to sit properly.
Try it on a different SCSI ID (move the jumper to 2).
Try more cards (hit up used camera stores to look for cheap. older models)
Try the grounding trick (you'll want to do this anyways to get rid of noise in the outputs, unless art mix has updated their boards) - ground the black wire on the power connector to the chassis somehow.
Bent pins on the CF receiver?