7PIN MIDI CABLE FOR PHANTOM POWERED MFC

tommyh

tommyh

Inspired
So I purchased the correct 7pin midi cable from the vendor recommended by Fractal. Plug it in at practice (with the dc power supply hooked in the back) and all i get is every light on the mfc lit up yellow and the screen is blank. Can anyone tell me what im doing wrong ?
 
Can you link to the cable you bought?

What DC power are you using?

What jacks are you using on the Axe and on the MFC?
 
This is a known issue with the MFC when being phantom powered over 7-pin MIDI cables, especially with longer cable lengths.
It may also have to do with using the MFC in countries other than the US where the supply voltage is slightly lower than it is in the US, e.g. in Canada.

What happens is the the AC coming down the cable is affected by the resistance in the cable and the current is not strong enough when it reaches the MIDI Out jack of the MFC to trigger the MFC's boot-up routine.

The three solutions (if you want to use the MFC's adapter for power rather than the Ethernet system) are to:

1. Use a shorter 7-pin MIDI cable.
10' seems to be the maximum length that works w/o issue.
But lots of folks, especially in the US are using longer cables w/o issue too.

2. Send your MFC back to Fractal to have the circuit board that contains the MIDI Out jack and related components changed to the new board they've designed to address this issue.

3. Forgo using phantom power and plug the MFC's adapter directly into the MFC.
Use a regular 5-pin MIDI cable for data or a 7-pin cable with all pins connected properly.
Some 7-pin cables don't have the pins connected in a way that allows for proper communication, especially 2-way communication, between the MFC and the Axe.

I went through all of this over something like a 3 month period (a very frustrating period) after I bought my MFC back in mid January.
At first Fractal Support didn't know what was going on and assumed that it was all due to user error or some other incorrect diagnosis they came up with.
But eventually they came to realize that the solution was to redesign the circuit board and they arranged to have it replaced under warranty for me.
Seems to work great now with my 20' 7-pin cable from Best-Tronics.
 
thanx Joe, I live on Long Island N.Y. so the electric is fine. Charley at fractal basically said the same thing as you.so I will have to send it back as I have a midi setup with the Roland GR 55
 
update...........Sometimes it works right away and some times it does not work right away: However it always works if i repower the unit up after 3 times.so in summary it seems the 20 foot midi cable is pushin the limit to turn the mfc over(start it ),i should send it back ,but i wont
 
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