Topic: TASCAM DR-680 portable 8-track #4

[kirk97132]

Yeah I wish they would do a patch so that you could set it for DIN  and the deck would retain the setting.

[moodymarco]

Hello everybody,

A little update on the complicated relationships in between my DR680 and my TwinQ.
Well, yesterday I found an old philips DVD player in the attic coming with an audio spdif output. I tested it straight away with the digital inputs of the Tascam and it worked perfectly.
So the DR680 is fine and working well. The problem seems to come from the digital  signal which is sent by the JoeMeek ...
My soundcard locks to its signal automaticaly, but the Tascam doesn't.
I emailed JoeMeek, they have no idea of what's wrong with it and they suggested me to send it for a check or repair ... which I won't do; Shipping and labour cost are not worth it and I prefer to spend the extra money in another preamp now. I emailed Tascam and they also have no idea of what's happening.

All in all this problem will remain a bit of a mistery to me. My JoeMeek pre may not be perfect, but the DR680 digital inputs are definitely very capricious.

I'm gonna do some other tests in the next days/weeks with a lunatec V3 and a minime ... I keep my fingers crossed this time
Thanks to all of you who helped and advised !

regards,
MM

[kirk97132]

glad to hear your 680 is fine.  Wish I could help with the Meek

[jkbyram]

i just bought a battery geeks 9-12-66 battery (12v, 66wh) for my dr-680. I have still not used my 680 except a practice run (on AC power) and am unsure how much time to expect to get out of it on this battery.  i will be running my apogee mmp into channels 1-2 and mics with phantom into 3-4 Sunday for panic. You guys got an idea how long i can expect from that battery?

[Chuck]

I'm starting to wonder if the 12v DC input on the right side of the DR-680 is really, really, really picky about what voltage it gets.
I've just experienced my first problem while using a 12v SLA, which is discouraging, since it had been working fine since I switch from a DVD battery. I'm using my DR-680 as a bit bucket lately for transferring my cassette masters to WAVs. When my SLA voltage dropped to 11.65v today a gstarted getting a reaally nasty squeal on the recording. I also had 8 NiMH AA batteries in the battery compartment on the bottom. The only way I could get the squealing to stop was to remove the NiMH batteries.

When I tested the NiMH batteries they were all pretty well depleted. So, I turned the unit on again with the NiMH batteries removed and the 12v (also depleted) SLA connected to the power jack on the right side of the recorder. Now, after a few minutes using it this way, the record meters just stopped working and I got no audio recorded. The next thing I did was to leave the batteries out and connect it to the Tascam AC/DC power supply. It started working properly again and I've no problems again.

I suspect that the battery compartment isn't as picky with voltage. I'm going to see what happens if I wire the 12v battery (after recharging) to go in through the bottom battery compartment instead of the regular input on the right side.

Since the manual says the battery compartment can take NiMH batteries (which are 1.2 v ea... = 9.6v DC) I assume it has lower battery voltage requirements than the 12v input on the right side.

I'll report back what I find....

Funny thing is that I just posted today that I would give up on this thing if I had one more problem.  But, I am still compelled to figure out how to make it work, because I still like it so much.

[kirk97132]

The battery tray is easily removed and has a small plug on it that can be adapted if you were so inclined.  I am curious as to what the problem is but I am one of the lucky ones works like a champ on the dvd battery.  Same for another person I know who does not post much at all.  I know on my Tascam HD=P2 if you had dead batteries and external battery power if would just lock up and not do anything so Chuck might be on to something.  Hell it just might be solved by a capacitor to stabilize voltage who knows. 

[Gutbucket]

Just a thought, but try standard alkaline AAs in the battery compartment instead of NiMH.   I've used alkalines in there as backup to 9V DVD LIion power without trouble, partly because I wanted to use my NiMH AAs elsewhere and partly becasue its a good application for alkalines (they don't get run down much so there is low turnover them when used as backup only, and they have a very long shelf life so they stay viable for months). 

Maybe nominal 12V instead of 9.6V in the internal battery tray is key.

[Chuck]

Have any of you had a high pitched squeal recorded onto your audio files while using the DR-680?
I've had it twice. The first time I thought it was a cable problem or problem with the SBD feed I got. But, I've had it happen while transferring my cassettes using the DR-680 as the AD converter/bit bucket. I tracked it down to the NiMH batteries I was using as a back-up to the 12v SLA that I use now. The squeal went away when I removed the NiMH batteries.

I won't be using NiMH batteries in that thing anymore. 

If anyone figures out what these issues are, and how to fix them please report back here.

I'm glad I kept one of my iRivers now.

[Gutbucket]

I know my experience is anecdotal and useage specifics may not be the problem with these machines, but FWIW I've only used alkalines in the unit along with a single external 9V LIion DVD and the DR680 external power mode set to 'adapter'.  I've hot swapped between DVD batteries many times by simply unpluging and letting the internal AAs take over for a moment.  I have not used NiMH AAs in the recorder or used paralleled DVD batteries (neither long term parallel powering nor momentary paralleled during the swap).

I'd be interested to know if problems occur with the effected units while using the same powering and battery switching scheme.

[phil_er_up]

Having a problem with channel 1 & 2 on the Dr680. I power the Dr680 with 2 tekeon 3450's set at 12 volts.

This might of been a problem from day 1 when I bought the unit but it took me till now to understand what is going on.

This is what my current thinking is:

On channel 1& 2 I run DPA4022 or 4027 with either a V3 or naiant mid box into the dr680. The problem I am having is On channel 1& 2 they will overload the pre on the dr680 for channel 1 and 2 even thou I have the gain way down on the preamp for channel 1&2. I have the record level set at "-31 on both channels 1&2 on dr680" and it still overloads the pre even thou the recd levels on the DR680 are only hitting -16 or hitting the line on the recd screen. It is not even close to the to even overloading on the recd levels, so it should not be overloading the pre's on the dr680.

So this weekend same thing happened. So I took out the big box and plugged the DPA's directly into the Dr680 and still an overload on the pre on dr680. Then at set break I took out the dpa from channel 1 and 2 and plugged that into channels 3&4 on the dr680 and no overloads on pre's. Turned on the phantom power for channel 3&4.

I run 2 sets of DPA's 402X series with close SPL max levels. Second set of DPA's I run on channels 5&6 and record level is usually around -9 to -20 for V3/either DPA 4022 or 4027.I have run DPA 4022, 4027 and 4060 into channel 1 and 2 and all they overload, but if I move the mic to channels 3&4 or Channels 5&6 then no overload on those channels on the Dr680.

I am not sure what is happening. I have read hear people have had drops in channels on the dr680 but this would be a gain increase in a channel.

1) Could there be a setting I have set wrong on the DR680 to cause this? (have read manual many times to try and figure out if I set something wrong)
2) Is there a way to test the output of channel 1 and 2? What would I need for this?
3) Anybody have any other suggestions?

Thanks for anyone input. It is appreciated.

[Myco]

The only problem I ever had with my 680 was when I ran using the Tekkeon. I had two channels fizzle out after some whining. Tried it with my batterygeek battery and it hasn't happened since and all the channels work fine now. I think it has to do with the Tekkeon, I won't use it with the 680 again.

[hi and lo]

Has anyone noticed that the internal AA batteries drain when the unit is not turned on? Just went to check on my batteries for a show tonight (I had put fresh batts in 1-2 shows ago, but always used external power) and they were beyond dead. Read 1.05 on the multi-meter.

If the AA's are always draining regardless of the units on/off status, I would be very concerned about them leaking ala the psp-2.

[Gutbucket]

Could there be a setting I have set wrong on the DR680 to cause this?

Apologies for questioning the obvious, but have you confirmed that the input sensitivity switch on top of the deck for channels 1&2 was not accidentally set to high instead of low? or the other switch set to Mic instead of Line?

I've switched those accidentally and it took me a bit to figure out what was going on.

[Chuck]

Has anyone noticed that the internal AA batteries drain when the unit is not turned on? Just went to check on my batteries for a show tonight (I had put fresh batts in 1-2 shows ago, but always used external power) and they were beyond dead. Read 1.05 on the multi-meter.

If the AA's are always draining regardless of the units on/off status, I would be very concerned about them leaking ala the psp-2.

Yes this happens on mine too. I don't put the AA's in until show time. 

[Fried Chicken Boy]

Has anyone noticed that the internal AA batteries drain when the unit is not turned on? Just went to check on my batteries for a show tonight (I had put fresh batts in 1-2 shows ago, but always used external power) and they were beyond dead. Read 1.05 on the multi-meter.

If the AA's are always draining regardless of the units on/off status, I would be very concerned about them leaking ala the psp-2.

Yes this happens on mine too. I don't put the AA's in until show time. 

I'd hazard a guess that the unit's clock (time/date) draws a small amount of power to keep it "ticking" even if it's powered off.  Same thing happens on my R-44 but it doesn't drain batteries nearly as fast as your 680 appears to.  FWIW, I normally don't keep batteries in any of my decks unless I'm recording shows within a few days of each other just in case something does leak.