EDI Bijou Plus LCD Broken

[Rose03]

Hi, I recently found and EDI Bijou plus moving light console on the side of the road. The other day it began behaving oddly. The lcd display above the keypad has started randomly displaying odd characters. Restarting the desk does not fix the problem, nor does a deep clear. Does anyone have an idea why?

 

[Amiers]

I got an idea.

Cause you found it on the side of the road.

 

[Rose03]

I got an idea.

Cause you found it on the side of the road.

Possibly but it was working fine for several months after I picked it up, it was only a few days that this cropped up.

 

[MNicolai]

I wouldn't keep your hopes up if I were you, but I would start by disassembling the chassis and inspecting the internal wiring harnesses. Possible a harness is loose.

 

[Amiers]

Possibly but it was working fine for several months after I picked it up, it was only a few days that this cropped up.

Wording led it to believe you found this a few days ago then it immediately crapped out.

If you search Bijou on the forums you will find a decent amount of info.

I’d say it was thrown out cause of the random artifacts issue. And when it was tossed maybe something got relodged til now.

It’s free so crack it open.

 

[Rose03]

I wouldn't keep your hopes up if I were you, but I would start by disassembling the chassis and inspecting the internal wiring harnesses. Possible a harness is loose.

The cable that goes from the main board to the lcd pcb is tight. I noticed that there are several rom chips on the board, could the problem lay there? It is worth mentioning that the display output will randomly switch to the desk's test pattern and that can only be solved by restarting it

 

[RonHebbard]

The cable that goes from the main board to the lcd pcb is tight. I noticed that there are several rom chips on the board, could the problem lay there? It is worth mentioning that the display output will randomly switch to the desk's test pattern and that can only be solved by restarting it

@Rose03 When you wrote: "The cable that goes from the main board to the lcd pcb is tight." Is this by any chance a ribbon cable? If so, ribbon cable connectors can often connect tightly and consistently where they mate with their counterparts but be intermittent where they pierce through the insulation of the ribbons themselves. If this is the issue, no amount of cleaning and / or re-seating will help. If this is the case, replacement of the cable is essentially your only realistic option. This used to be a very common problem with Mackie audio mixers some years ago. I also found similar problems where an LCD display mated with a Century Strand LP90 remote and CD80AE rack programmer. The two PCB's within the handheld programmer inter-mated directly without a ribbon cable yet there were still intermittent connections between the two boards.
With all best luck.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[MNicolai]

It could be anything in a console that old. Surges can take out chips, heat will cause the capacitors to decay, sometimes spilling their guts and sometimes just losing their ability to do their job.

You may try the smell test. Literally put your nose up to the circuit boards and start sniffing around for anything that gives a little whiff of a burnt electronics smell.

The power supply could be degraded and feeding the console the wrong or unstable voltages.

Others here have said that the memory is susceptible to becoming corrupted and occasionally needs to get wiped out and restored. This is probably the first step I would do before getting too far into the weeds in troubleshooting the electronic components.

 

[microstar]

As above, you can look for "domed" capacitors that have gone bad: