have you seen this before???

Hi everyone,

i have been looking for a mpc 2500 for some time now and after some research found one sold from a retailer for 800,-- € and bought it. According to what he said it was his demo-unit. It had no signs of use at all so i thought ok. i don't mind if some people were touching it before as long as it works.

just now as i powered it up, i found out that a couple of buttons are not functional. it is the following: [Pad Bank B], [16 Levels], [8], [5], [2], [0], [Window], [Step Fwd], [Overdub]
along with the corresponding LEDs

As all of them are aligned in some way and i do know tiny bit about electronics i thought that maybe the buttons are connected in some kind of array, and that one contact that runs to all of these buttons is not functioning. I thought about opening it up to check, but as i bought it from a retailer just recently i thought that this could void the warranty. But as i took a closer look i saw that some screws did look as if someone had been tampering before. I opened up the only pard that i thought i could without doing something that could endanger the warranty and removed the lid underneath which is the slot for the RAM-expansion and was a bit shocked. I found this: http://postimg.org/image/k4rbgln1x/

As you can see the white plastic on the connector at the left seems to have been molten somehow. But what is shocking much more: at the center of the pic you can see that some of the tiny feet of the cpu are bent and look like they could be shorted to their neighbouring feet. Also the parts C33, R21, C1 seem to have been roughed up... it looks like some beginner was trying to do home-repairs without proper soldering skills.

I am sure that the unit i bought is not as delivered by akai. This would never pass through QC.

I have just written an email to the retailer and asked for a suggestion on how to get me a working mpc as they are no longer available for retailers from the manufacturer (at least thats what he told me) and you can only find used ones these days i think.

Do any of you more experienced mpc mechanics think this is repairable? Do you know the pinout of the CPU and know if this could do serious harm or what could happen here?

I wouldn't mind soldering myself if i knew that it would work fine afterwards (and of course if the retailer i bought it from would compensate me in some way), as i have the proper soldering tools and skills for this kind of work.

thanks,

Chris

other people will probably chime in. But it sounds like this Mp has been used before with some home repair. Isn't a bad thing if the people know what they are doing.

I actually bought one brand new like a month ago for a travel Mp. I got two 4000 as my main one as a back up cause they are cheap right now an a 2500 running JJ as a travel. Love it. Putting all the oh it's a nuakai stuff aside, I just like to make music an a 2500 with JJ is an amazing machine, hands down. Enough for me to buy one brand new from this guy when I already have 2, Mpc 4000, but a 4000 is heavy as sh*t to travel with an make beats :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-AKAI- ... 20d9d98db0

Don't know how much it will be for you but watch out cause this guy is a tricky one. He ships solid an seems like an alright dude but I bought mine for $1,100 an then when I bought it the next day he upped it to $1,200 an now it's at $1,300 . Can't blame him if there is interest in the product but damn, anyone running a 2500 or 1000 knows you need JJ, that is a must. Anyway who knows, your unit could've passed though akai, trust.. numark-akai don't check for quality control like the old akai. I still went an bought a new one though from armen cause used they are $800 here in canada so what was an extra $300 for a brand new one. So I grabbed it. It is 100% brand new. I can vouch for that. My point is there is new 2500 an 1000 still if you look, I can point you in the directions of them. As for what your dealing with if you bought it from a retailer then return it or show them what is up cause that ain't right. If you got the proper skills though I'm sure you could fix it or return it if you can an find yourself a better unit. Which I know better units are out there

Wish you the best of luck , .

Looks like some noob was practicing soldering on this thing...if you can return it to the seller n don't even mention you opened it up...otherwise you are probably looking at replacing that pcb board

He bought it 'new'/ex-demo from Armens.

Return it, get them to send one that is actually in new condition, or get your money back.

I would explain that you opened the RAM expansion cover, and the damage that you see.

Take it back and get a refund. Just tell them those buttons aren't working and leave it at that, that's plenty reason to get your money back. Don't tell them you opened it up.

800 EUR? That's a lot of money for an MPC2500, I see them go for 450 EUR s/h on Ebay all the time, and they would be in better condition than the one you have there. Also remember that ex-demo units often get a real hammering by people, so often are in much worse condition than a s/h unit lovingly cared for by the previous owner.

Also remember that Akai no longer make this machine, so you shouldn't be paying top prices, even for 'new' models, as there's no further OS updates or support.

IMO, get a second hand one and spend the extra cash on JJOS-XL, although many s/h units will already have this installed.

thanks for the replies.

I didn't mention clearly enough above that everything else seems to be running just fine.

i already got an answer from the retailer. i mentioned the buttons that are not working and sent him the pic i took through the RAM-slot.
He seemed surprised (at least he acted that way, but usually the store i went to is really good in service and reliability, so i trust him) and asked that i send him the serial number of the unit so he could check with akai.

i hope they fix this problem because i already have the mpc more or less integrated in my synth-setup as sequencer and sampler and i have been working on a live set for a couple of weeks now that needs to be finished in 3 weeks and i planned it with the mpc 2500 as central unit in mind.

The soldering itself wouldnt be a problem at all. I was just wondering if it is a problem that can be solved easily by correcting some solder joints or if it is a broken ic that causes the problem. And many of the ICs are not as easy to find anymore. The CPU for example costs around 40€ and needs to be shipped around the world and you need to buy 18 pcs at least.

And the PCB with the CPU on it costs 375 USD at MPCstuff.com (Does anyone know a source with reasonable prices for parts? i mean, i saw that the tactile switches cost 8 USD there. And you can get quality replacement switches from ALPS for 20 cent at mouser i think. That makes me wonder what kind of shop this is...)

But for now i wait what the guy from the store has to say in the end. Hopefully they can come up with a solution that makes me happy.

Why are you wasting your time with this? You purchased something new from a retailer, it's clearly faulty. Get your money back and buy one that works out of the box. Why would you even contemplate having to buy parts and solder the main board on a unit under warranty that you've just purchased as supposedly fully working?

If you want to tinker with a faulty MPC2500 you'll be able to grab one off ebay for less than 100 EUR if you bide your time.

Regardless, ebay always has plenty of fully working s/h MPC2500's for much less than 800 EUR.

the problem is that i heven't been able to find a 2500 on ebay for a reasonable price in europe for 3 weeks and no retailer i could find via internet had one. Thats why i got the one i got. Ok, i saw one once for 1250 €, with not even the RAM-upgrade so to me it made sense to get the new one from the shop

But for now i will let the guy in the shop where i bought it handle it. I hope there's an easy solution for this.

Oh, and if you can find faulty 2500s on ebay for 100€ let me know, i will buy some I would also take 1000s for that price.

ch ri s wrote:the problem is that i heven't been able to find a 2500 on ebay for a reasonable price in europe for 3 weeks and no retailer i could find via internet had one.

This one has an SSD, memory upgrade and JJOS1, currently 400 EUR:

http://www.ebay.at/itm/Akai-MPC-2500-12 ... 19e38200fa