DM 4800 battery location

[Stephen Wilder]

Sorry for the newby question. Where is the internal battery on a DM 4800 and how do you access it? Thanks!

 

[cmaffia]

I would think it's on the main board. Probably a CR2032 battery. There's excellent documentation on how to get to the main board on 2seemy.com. Follow the installation instructions for the 2seemy card for the DM4800. It tells you how to open the machine.

 

[cmaffia]

Actually now that I'm looking at the service manual, it looks like it's going to be a bitch to get to if I'm correct. If I'm reading the schematic correctly, it looks like it's on the main board under the power supply. Corner top right if looking at board. I don't think the instructions I referred to above get you there all the way. I think Redbus gave me complete instructions on how to dismantle the DM 3200. If I find them I'll upload them to the forum. Probably very similar to dm4800.

 

[cmaffia]

Here are the instructions and on pages 7, 9 and 10 you can see the battery where I suspected.

 

[Stephen Wilder]

Thank you Cmaffia. That looks helpful and just a bit intimidating! I don't understand the design philosophy that would make a replaceable part so hard to get to.

 

[cmaffia]

It's typical for these types of machines. Wasn't any easier to get to the battery in any of my Akai gear either.

 

[Stephen Wilder]

We got an error message about the battery today, but have been having another issue for a few months I think may be related. Often when the mixer boots up there is an error message saying that it wasn't shut down properly (even though it was) and then it doesn't load the current project file. You have to go to the project management screen and load the project from the CF card. Do you think the battery would cause that, or could a failing CF card be an issue as well?
Thanks!

 

[cmaffia]

Possible

 

[Arjan P]

AFAIK, the last preserved project settings - meaning the state the mixer was in before shutdown - are not preserved on the CF card but internally in the mixer. Which makes it point to the battery even more when failing to load next time.

 

[Stephen Wilder]

Thanks Arjan, I suspected it might be something like that.

 

[Tonepad]

Hello to all my fellow DM users, hope you are all well. I used to frequent this forum a bit and am still reg'd. I shut my studio down in early 2023 and moved from Granada HIlls CA to Ventura CA. Both my dm-3200 and dm-4800 were shut down and boxed for the move. I had them in storage up here in Ventura until the storage unit was robbed. Of course I lost a bunch of nice guitars and amps etc. but the DM's were too big to steal. I quickly built a sorage shed in my new backyard and moved everything there where it is much safer. I decided to set up a small recording rig in my home office using the 3200. That board had been boxed as my backup for 10+ years, but it booted up and I'm getting audio in and out of my Pro Tools PC as well as USB remote control. I had expansion cards in the 4800 so I moved the IF/FW card to the 3200 since my old audio PC uses that format. I'm getting the battery warning on boot because of course the old battery is dead. Long story short, I have the TMC app on the PC and I've used the the backup function from the 3200 to the PC. Is this a workaround fix to a battery replacement to avoid using the CF card? I'm hoping it is since any reboot of the DM loses my current setup. LMK when you get a chance.

THX,
Wilson

 

[Tonepad]

Looks like I can answer my own question. I can backup to TMC on my PC but I can't restore, I just get a nag screen that it can't be done. I never really saved to the CF card so my question now is internal memory good enough or does that require the battery swap to work as well?

 

[Peter Batah]

@Tonepad Kindly provide us with the Nag screen for starters.

 

[Tonepad]

Here you go...see attached...THX

 

[Peter Batah]

@Tonepad If the project exists on both the CF card and saved to your DM you will not be able to restore it. Make a copy of the saved project that I see in your screenshot. Call it ERA Monitor 24-1 (does not really matter). Load it. Then use TMC to back it up. Move to your DM and delete ERA Monitor 24-1. Go back to the backup that you made via TMC and select restore. It will then be restored to your DM. In other words you cannot restore a backup to a project that is active (current "C").

TMC Backup - Restore

 

[Tonepad]

Interesting...will try this...THX again

 

[Tonepad]

Peter, I havn't drilled down on this since I was having major Pro Tools issues with USB connect and FW as well. Happy to say I bit the bullet and upgraded to the latest PT version 2024.x...in my case just the Artist version for a super cheap $66 bucks sub and it has solved my issues. I was running my older PT 2019.12 Ultimate version whcih is legacy to my Post Pro Sound Supervisor career. My music rig was always running a lower level version of native PT, but I didn't have that around anymore. I do have to say AVID seems to have done a lot under the hood to make the newer versions work really well. I'm a 30 + year user of PT and it makes me smile to have it behave well now.
FYI since I had to do several reboots of the DM they all seemed to be happy with the onboard or CF card data. I will def follow your advice once I'm sure that my rig is settled down.

WD