The mackie DL1608 white noise saga continued..

[iBloke]

So what is different in your set up, is it the new lead, sorry just got up.
Cheers

Kev

I went to the closest Apple Store today (200km round trip)

I bought an iPhone 6

While I was there I bought a 30 pin - lightning adaptor lead (shown in the above picture)

I am now able to plug my iPad mini (lightning dock connector) in to my DL1608 (30 pin dock connector)

[iBloke]

Happy daze iBloke👍😉

Thanks Robbo. Fingers crossed

[gerenm63]

... an apple 30 pin to lightning adapter lead which measures 200mm long.

I've used it to plug my iPad mini into the DL.

I've been playing music directly from the "docked" iPad mini for a cuppa hours now and have not had one incident of the dreaded "white noise".

That's the same setup I'm using. Admittedly, I'm a new user, but when I first brought the mixer home and set everything up, I played music from the iPad for several hours, both from the iPad and an iPhone 5, while playing around with Master Fader and My Fader as well as other apps. Both of my devices are running iOS8. The whole time, I never had a white noise burst or a loss of communications.

Good to hear you had a good gig last night. I was set to debut the DL at our gig last night, but it got cancelled because the fellow who booked the gig failed to follow up with the venue/return their phone calls for a week-and-a-half.

Rock on!

[Kev tyler]

So what is different in your set up, is it the new lead, sorry just got up.
Cheers

Kev

I went to the closest Apple Store today (200km round trip)

I bought an iPhone 6

While I was there I bought a 30 pin - lightning adaptor lead (shown in the above picture)

I am now able to plug my iPad mini (lightning dock connector) in to my DL1608 (30 pin dock connector)

Ok cheers.

Kev

[WK154]

G'day iBloke. I know why it's working, it's showing off in the Allen Heath cabinet. Take it out of there and it will go back to it's old Mackie habits. 
On a more serious note China Post delivered my $8.69 toy, a USB meter. It of course arrived when I had an all day gig Sat. 7:00 am to 6:00 pm  of chorus coaching. My XAP800 system needed little attention so I worked on other things. 
So here are my results for the iPad charger a 10W unit. Full well knowing I would have to repeat all measurements once I add D+- test points for my memory scope. I did want a baseline so not all is lost. Since I ran down my iPad to 76% I started from there, I see no need to go to barely booting levels. Initially the charge started at 1.92 amps at 5.01V and over 3-4 hrs finally arrived at 100% at 1.18 amps 5.06V. So much for the USB V1.2 battery spec. Voltage range of 4.75V - 5.25V is OK but current exceeds 1.5 amps without shutdown. At this point 12:00PM I called it a day. I shut the iPad down and left it on the charger as I always do. Next day it was at 5.11V and 0.0 amps. so start-up of iPad that brought it to 100% and 5.11V @ 0.59 amps. I then tested the effects of screen brightness settings and found 0.44 to 1.75 amps as the range all at 5.06V. Re-plugging the charger brought it back to 1.6 amps with a slow decrease to 0.59 amps over ~40 minutes. Since brightness setting has a significant effect on current draw I set brightness at 50%. Re-plugging send it back to 1.6 amps and after 30 minutes it settled at 0.8 amps based on the new brightness setting. On to charging using a USB 3 port I found it at 0.45 amps and 4.96 V. reduced to a USB v2.0 spec. The iPad of course indicated no charging. No compliance with USB 3 out of Apple since it should have drawn 0.9 amps initially. Tomorrow I should receive my iPad load (.25 - 5.0 amp.) rheostat since I'm the impatient type not inclined to wait for batteries. Stay tuned cable test coming soon, before Oct. 15  . Beginning to sound like Mackie's marketing dept..   

[iBloke]

G'day iBloke. I know why it's working, it's showing off in the Allen Heath cabinet. Take it out of there and it will go back to it's old Mackie habits. 

Noooooooo!!

[iBloke]

Day 2 playing music direct using the mini as the "docked" iPad.

Hours of music playing and still zero incidents of the white noise blast.

Very Very happy so far!

So, does this mean the other three 30 pin dock connector iPads were "faulty" ?
And the iPad mini isn't?

Or does this mean that using a 30pin to lightning adaptor cable has somehow solved the issue for me?

Dunno. And really don't care. I'm 99% confident in doing gigs that require all 16 channels for the band, which means using the iPad mini docked via the cable to supply set break music.
Yes that means I'll need to carry a heavy mutha f***a iPad 3 to do wireless mixing but I can live with that for the few gigs I do that actually require all 16 channels for the mix.

Any other gig that only requires 14 or less channels for the mix I'm happy to dock the iPad 3, plug an iPod into channels 15 & 16, and wander around the venue with the nice light iPad mini.

I paid $48 for the 30pin to lightning adaptor cable. A lot of money, but that's just how it is down here in Australia.

MUCH cheaper than the $160 - $180 I'd need to spend on a Mackie iPad mini tray + lightning dock upgrade for the DL.

VERY happy 

[gerenm63]

So, does this mean the other three 30 pin dock connector iPads were "faulty" ?
And the iPad mini isn't?

I wonder if maybe the charging load of the Mini is significantly lower than the older "full size" iPads, and so the charge circuit isn't be loaded to the point that the offending ripple is appearing on the line... And, maybe new "full size" iPads with Lightning also require less charging current... Hmm...

[WK154]

New revelations. I was for whatever reason under the impression that control and data were separated, well surprise their not  . It would have made the analysis much simpler. Looking back at my notes from over a year ago I realized that the 30 pin board only handled USB and a few control lines and test point were brought out for TX, RX but never continued to the DL even though the serial ground line was . Good to read your own notes. So fall back and punt. That means ALL data and control messages are send over the USB channel and yes it's on one cable. Sorry Mackie engineer you did stick to convention. You however need a course in grounding techniques, NO tying of shield to signal ground!  What's the point of a shield then? This communication method unfortunately keeps the USB lines busy and a Mandolin protocol analyzer is needed to make sense of D+- traffic. Not going to happen here. A few basic tests can be performed and signal noise can be evaluated but that's it. A note on extension cables here. The one's I've seen don't meet USB specs and a DIY custom cable may help that meets spec. The other lines should be OK with 22-24 gauge runs. The whole thing shielded but the right way, not by tying shields to signal ground. This would require a wire to the cables from the DL chassis ground, not difficult at all. Correction of Mackie's wiring is required as well, although it's probably incorrect on the motherboard. Reducing the noise on the MB may help, see pin one problem and solution. Now back to the sync/noise issue. Since reports have indicated that recording continued while sync was lost, that would rule out loss of control communications due to hardware. CRC's are in all USB control messages and for them retries are the norm for properly written drivers. S O F T W A R E is the only thing that can cause this loss of sync. I did have to pull the 30 pin board one more time just to verify the connections and a couple of minor corrections will be made to the prior board description.    http://cacophony.aspinock.com/index.php?topic=464.0

[Keyboard Magic]

WK;

"S O F T W A R E is the only thing that can cause this loss of sync"

I am blown away with your technical knowledge. I understand some of what you just posted about the DL issue(s). With my limited computer skills I agree that it is a software problem. In that light, if I may ask a hopefully not too dumb question? Do you think that the updated soon to be released Master Fader will correct these issues?

[WK154]

So, does this mean the other three 30 pin dock connector iPads were "faulty" ?
And the iPad mini isn't?

I wonder if maybe the charging load of the Mini is significantly lower than the older "full size" iPads, and so the charge circuit isn't be loaded to the point that the offending ripple is appearing on the line... And, maybe new "full size" iPads with Lightning also require less charging current... Hmm...

Offending ripple on what line? The shielded twisted pair D+- differential lines. I don't think so. Any change in the NRZ data would be picked up by the CRC check in a properly written driver. Here are the battery capacities for iPads.
iPad 1      6613 Mah
iPad 2      6944  "
iPad 3     11540  "
iPad 4     11560  "
Air           8837  "
Mini org.   4490  "
Mini curr.  6471  "
Doubt that this has any effect.

[WK154]

WK;

"S O F T W A R E is the only thing that can cause this loss of sync"

I am blown away with your technical knowledge. I understand some of what you just posted about the DL issue(s). With my limited computer skills I agree that it is a software problem. In that light, if I may ask a hopefully not too dumb question? Do you think that the updated soon to be released Master Fader will correct these issues?

BenO would be the one to answer that, e-mail him. 

[Keyboard Magic]

Yes, but I may not unfortunately get a straight answer. I would appreciate and value your professional opinion, if you wouldn't mind? 

[WK154]

Yes, but I may not unfortunately get a straight answer. I would appreciate and value your professional opinion, if you wouldn't mind? 

You won't know until you try BenO.
Unfortunately my opinion isn't going to change the facts which will be clear once the software is available. I, like all others that have DL problems would like them to go away. What is not clear is when that event will happen. Oct. 15 or much later.

[Keyboard Magic]

You won't know until you try BenO.
Unfortunately my opinion isn't going to change the facts which will be clear once the software is available. I, like all others that have DL problems would like them to go away. What is not clear is when that event will happen. Oct. 15 or much later.

Very true. But thank you for your reply though.