FC12 EM interference solution

[bassbastard]

I have been working with support on this for some time. The latest suggestion was to tear down the pedal and sand off some powder coating around the buttons so there is a better connection to chassis ground.
I set aside some time in my shop this weekend to pull the FC12 apart and remove some powder coating. While clearing a workbench for that, I ran across some large ferrite beads from my telecom contracting days. (I work in an office now, but have worked in some form of communications for 20 years) I decided to take them to practice, since we were doing a full dress rehearsal and put them on my Faslink cable. I know for a fact that the pedal board was going to freeze on me because we all had our wireless IEM running, along with wireless DMX. I decided to do it this way because our vocalist has been absent for nearly a month and I have had zero incidents of the FC12 locking up while he was out.
I put the large ferrite beads on the cable before practice and the board remained stable. The EM interference was quelled. See the picture for where I put the pedal side. (The other end has one as well, about 8 inches from the AxeFX III)
Hope this info helps someone else!

 

[rcm78]

What were the interference symptoms?
My FC6 recently flashed and all the buttons and displays came back on in a sequential order. I’ve only seen it happen once out of a dozen gigs or so.

 

[bassbastard]

The buttons, usually the bottom right 2, would stop working. Sometimes the whole thing would become unresponsive with the exception of the expression pedals.
The other mod I am doing is to clear out some of the powder coating around the buttons. The disassembly reveals that the buttons are a whole different thing than I expected.

I have my rack unit on a power conditioner, and the entire rack is behind a power-balancing UPS. (I work in IT, so a UPS is essential)

I tried the Ferrite beads because I noted WAY more problems when our vocalist was at practice vs when it was just the three of the instrumentalists. We both use wireless IEM, but his transmitter is close tot he same plane as the cables running to my pedalboard/mic/synth.