G2 Engine - no USB OR midi

philthegreek · Joined: Dec 19, 2015 Posts: 8 Location: amsterdam

Dear Electro Musicians,

I bought a G2 Engine, 5 years ago from sos ads.
It was fully expanded to max polyphony and I was very excited to try it.
However when I tried it never connected. Power light came on and the midi and usb flashed once, but nothing else.
I sent it to Benelux Clavia and was quoted around e750 for repair.

Their summary was:” several key components are defective which results in a completely defective board. This board contains a large number of extremely small solderpoints (which are machinemade in the factory) that are impossible to repair, hence the reason the board needs to be replaced completely”

I couldn’t afford that at the time, but am thinking to send it to Clavia rep in Netherlands, where I live, to see if it can be fixed.

(When I opened it yesterday, I noticed there was no ribbon connected from the power to the synth at all. Should there be something there? Perhaps it was forgotten about by Benelux Clavia. Also noticed the MIDI and USB lights don’t flash when switched on).

I was wondering - is it worth fixing for this cost (and perhaps more now)? because I don’t know what caused it so could happen again.
For someone with very little soldering experience, perhaps I could try and replace it myself?

Any thoughts welcome - sorry for the vagueness of questions ..
Phil

blue hell · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2024 5:58 am Post subject:

Hi Phil .. from what I have read over the years and seen in the synth ...

First of all ... you've bought the synth in Europe and not in the USA - right? So that is is actually set to 230V and not to 110/115 Volt ...

And yes, there needs to be a short flatcable from PSU to main board - and as orignally the the MIDI and USB lights went on for a bit .. a reasonable conclusion would be that such a cable was present before you sent it in; another conculsion is that the synth's operating system / software had been working .. as that is what has to turn the USB and MIDI lights on and off, theose are under software control. Then then conclusion from that is: it is very likely the PSU was actually set to 230V and not to 115V. Which also means that Clavia Benelux removed the internal power flatcable - no idea what their rational could have been.

When they have wanted to replace the main board and the extension card, 750 may not be unreasonable.

Sometimes when USB stops working on the G2 it is the USB chip on the main board which needs to be replaced. Also sometimes it is the USB connector that is the issue .. like when it got bent or something.

The USB connection chip is known to be vulnerable and ideally when fixed the chip's protection should be solved too from it's design error - you may be able to find info on this forum.

The general USB defect would not be beyond repair (but note that I can not know about the actual cause of the USB issue), there are people on the board here who did it themselves .. and I've seen posts from people bringing the sysnth to some general synth repairs person.

I'd try to find a capable general syth repear person to have a look at it. And in that case make sure to look at https://electro-music.com/forum/download.php?id=50120 (edit: page 11 there; also removed the finishing dot from the URL).

blue hell · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2024 6:03 am Post subject:

Ow .. and a couple of seconds in the chat is not enough to get attention .. Laughing

when you'd have mentioned clavia .. g2 ... or something and would have been patient for a couple of hours .. I probably would have replied Rolling Eyes

blue hell · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2024 6:23 am Post subject:

And a small edit on my first reply - at he end.