KVR Audio

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:10 pm

I've once toasted a mouse port on a laptop while attempting to hot-plug it.

It is possible that while you plug in something in a hot FireWire port, that it doesn't make good contact while hesistating (is this the right orientation, does it go in smoothly?) and that fries either the FireWire port or the device.

I'd indeed not (un)plug a firewire device if it weren't nescessary.

beej · Post by **beej** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:22 pm

Not having a power switch is almost always a cost-cutting decision, I think you'll find. Nothing to do with not turning stuff on or off - this is the real world, after all!

My little Zoom 1201 rack FX box didn't have a power switch either. A lot of the time a large rack of units will be left in their powered-on state, and connected to the mains by one switch, thereby allowing the whole rack to be powered up rather than continuously powering up and down all the individual units.

plasticmoonrain · Post by **plasticmoonrain** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:17 pm

So here we are two weeks later, and AudioMIDI.com sent me a new Liquid Mix unit that arrived yesterday.

In the interim, I was contacted by a Focusrite employee who told me that plugging the electrical adaptor in was not necessary if I was using my Firewire 400 port.

Extremely helpful advice and I hope this will prevent any further problems.

But it begs the point as to why this information was not in the product manual in the first place? Why is there an adaptor in the Liquid Mix package with no specific information on when to use it and when not to?

While this seems to be a happy resolution, this kind of incident should really serve as a warning to hardware manufacturers who produce incomplete manuals.

Drew

VicDiesel · Post by **VicDiesel** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:45 pm

plasticmoonrain wrote:In the interim, I was contacted by a Focusrite employee who told me that plugging the electrical adaptor in was not necessary if I was using my Firewire 400 port.

Interesting. I used the adapter on my FocusRite Saffire until tech support (software issue, no malfunctioning hardware here) told me it was unnecessary.

Victor.

beej · Post by **beej** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:03 pm

Some computers or devices do not offer firewire bus power, notably some laptops, some PCI<->firewire cards, and so on, so you have to use an adaptor in that case - hence why they bundle one.

plasticmoonrain · Post by **plasticmoonrain** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:15 pm

But it's criminal that they don't even mention the adaptor or electrical use in their manual! Perhaps if they put it in there, I wouldn't have overloaded the circuit of my Liquid Mix.

beej · Post by **beej** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:33 pm

Not necessarily. In actual fact, due to the design on firewire ports, you are far more likely to fry ports/motherboards/devices if you are using bus power, than if you are using the adaptor.

You can feasibly (though I still don't recommend it) hot plug when using local power adaptors, but if you hot plug using bus power, sooner or later the ports will blow. It's just one of the reasons I still mistrust firewire audio devices, from my experience...

My Liquid Mix just fried after 48 hours