Shit I just saw smoke coming out of my MPC!!!

Yeah I have decided to just send it in and talk to a manager before doing so.
I've been thinking about downgrading back to my mpc2500 afterwards, the 5000 is cool and all but I can't have a machine that breaks once a year.

yeah, thats your best bet, considering everything. i'm curious if akai will replace the pc board or just the cap. if they replace the pc board for the display, you may still end up with the same problem.
from experience as a repair tech at an electronics company, i'm willing to bet that this cap problem (which supposedly happened to a few people from what i've just read) could be due to wave soldering. the heat of a wave soldering machine will cause some caps to fail alot sooner than their life expectancy. so if this is the case, akai need to sort this problem and have all these 5k display boards hand soldered. otherwise there will be more units coming back to them with the same problem. if i'm correct, then akai need to recall all their 5000's.
i'm really curious to find out whats going to happen. so i'll be watching this thread.
best of luck to you and anyone else with this problem.

Ritec, any good news?

Not really, I got an RA from akai, they will fix it for free and I have yet to send it but they did not send me the email with address and so everytime I call to request the email there is a hold of like 15 minutes and my lunch break is 30 minutes long and well it never works out...

I am going to raise hell on them, and I guarantee I will cost them more than a replacement. I wanted a disgruntled customer akai? well you've won yourself one.

love,
ritec.

Sad man...

No way to adjust your schedule to get more time to beef with Akai?

Only advice I can give is have a game plan when you talk to them. Instead of blowing your stack out of the gate have a game plan. Tell them you're very unhappy with their service and explain why. The person on the other end should listen. Once you've got your grievances off your chest tell them (within business reason) what they can do to make you happy. If you want expedited shipping tell them. If you want a quick turn around tell them. If you want them to give you a brand new unit tell them. Don't expect them to say yes to anything, but if they come up with something you are happy with then accept it, otherwise tell them you want to speak to their manager/supervisor. Do the whole thing again, but this time feel free to get a bit angrier about it. If things don't go your way you can always let them know that you have videos of how dangerous the MPC 5k is and that you will do everything in your power to make it public how shoddy their quality control is and how bad their support is. Sure they may not do anything even at this stage, but especially given the internet age businesses do have no idea how far these things can go or how deeply one angry motivated customer may hurt their bottom line.

So anyways... I'd suggest not going in swinging... it sucks when you sucker punch somebody who was willing to help you.

Thanks for the advice. They have actually seen the video I sent it to the tech that got me the RA, unfortunately they don't give a shit. I would really like to get through to a manager, but as I said I am sooo busy at work I don't have time to hold for 30 minutes, argue and get nowhere. I will try, I think my RA must have expired by now, I sent an email to the rep about a week ago asking when my RA would expire and did not receive an answer.

sad sad sad.

Forget about dealing with Akai. I believe you can have VST Service take care of your warranty. They're authorized by Akai and should be able to repair it for free (shipping is your responsibility).
Call them and ask for Nick. He knows the deal.

http://www.vstservice.com/t-contact.aspx

Distorted...

Do you need to provide proof of purchase to them for this service to be free? I imagine you do... but probably worth a call. Thanks for the heads up on this... might be worth picking up an MPC from them

NearTao wrote:Distorted...

Do you need to provide proof of purchase to them for this service to be free? I imagine you do... but probably worth a call. Thanks for the heads up on this... might be worth picking up an MPC from them

Good question. I'm not sure since I returned my 1000 to AKAI 5 years ago and ended up with a B-Stock replacement that was blemished. If I knew about VST back then, I would've sent it to them. So you would have to call and find out.

BTW, VST has a much better extended warranty on their MPC's and the come fully loaded for a damn good price. If I ever buy another MPC in the future, I'll definitely buy from VST. They know all the bullshit I had to go through with Akai and have also helped me out by convincing Akai to make the pad upgrade after I started the petition on the 1000 forum 2 or 3 years ago. So Nick and all the staff at VST are highly recommended by me. They treat people like real human beings, and they're far more skilled than Akai's techs.

Latest Update.... so after gettin the run around from akai I decided to try and fix it myself and so I found out what kind of capacitor had blown up and after some research the general consensus was that the blown cap was a 33pf 100V 10% capacitor, after much searching I found a place that sold them for 20 cents and just today I soldered the new capacitor put in the board and unfortunately it did not fix the problem.

That said, somehow the LCD is more readable now but the backlight still does not work, which leads me to believe that the LCD itself mighr be damaged. What I did is I ordered the whole new AC / Dc converter from mpcstuff for 32 bucks and once I get it I will replace it, if that does not work then I will order a new LCD and that Has got to fix otherwise I will have to send it to VST or something.

WE'll see. any thoughts, questions remarks or thoughts?

ritec wrote:Latest Update.... so after gettin the run around from akai I decided to try and fix it myself and so I found out what kind of capacitor had blown up and after some research the general consensus was that the blown cap was a 33pf 100V 10% capacitor, after much searching I found a place that sold them for 20 cents and just today I soldered the new capacitor put in the board and unfortunately it did not fix the problem.

That said, somehow the LCD is more readable now but the backlight still does not work, which leads me to believe that the LCD itself mighr be damaged. What I did is I ordered the whole new AC / Dc converter from mpcstuff for 32 bucks and once I get it I will replace it, if that does not work then I will order a new LCD and that Has got to fix otherwise I will have to send it to VST or something.

WE'll see. any thoughts, questions remarks or thoughts?

now this would be the perfect example of why the community needs access to the service manual for the 5k.... we could then see what parts SHOULD be installed, and maybe even how much current is running through the trace that the cap is soldered to. **** lame problem man, good luck on the AC/DC converter... hopefully that works out. the thing is, why would the cap dry out or pop so soon in it's life? Something aint right and it's upstream from the cap. (I think, i could be dead wrong)

The electric / computer engineers obviously overlooked something. This screen problem is happening to quite a few people, I know of at least 3. That's without counting me twice.

i'm curious to know the difference between your machine and one that doesn't have this problem... is it a thing of, it didn't happen yet? or are they built with different components?

How have you gone from being able to get it fixed for free, to now cracking open the mp and having a stab at it yourself??

Wouldn't that invalidate the warranty?

It's WAY more complicated that your explanation there.... Akai did give me an RA number, bu in the RA number they have your return address, well the return address was wrong I sent them countless emails telling them it was wrong and to regenerate another RA with the correct return address and they never answered any of them.

That's just to clear up that part. Also, this is the 2nd time this happens, I am pretting effing fed up about the whole situation so I am taking it into my own hands. After all, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. I really want to know why this is happening and if I don't dig the problem find out myself and figure out how to fix it it will keep happening. Also, I love to take things apart, I am inquisitive and I NEED to know what is happening underneath the hood, I don't just turn on the light and live with it a whole life without knowing what is happening back in the power plant like 99% of the population does.


Anyway man, don't be afraid, it still "works" and I am getting closer and closer to the solution, I still have not spent the $120 bucks it would have cost me to send my mpc to Nevada and that's not even counting the 3 months they would have it over there while I wondered if they sent it to the wrong return address......................... seen?