hi guys, a quick question, can one swap a display board with the illumination buttons modification from an original empeg into a riocar mark 2a without anything going pop? both boards look almost identical other than the riocar board having an AD8400 ic on the back which is not on the original empeg.

thanks in advance!

Is the “original empeg” a mk1 or a mk2?

As far as I know only mk2 and mk2a can swap with each other.

Please note that the rotary encoder shaft type differs from mk2 and mk2a. So you cannot interchange the rotary knob, that part will have to travel along in the swap.

thanks for the quick reply tony, its a mk2 to mk2a swap. decided to swap out the LED conversion instead.
I purchased two new riocar mk2a in the firesale and never used them. I had a mark 2 already so im going to upgrade my existing 2 using one of the 2a's and will be selling one new unused 2a and a 2 in the box of a 2a with everything as it came from the factory if anyone is interested. also have new lenses some where unused so they will go. ahh also the complete guts of a rio home server in a box with remote and network adaptor for a rehousing project that never happened! will be willing to part it all out if the need is there from you guys. will list in the correct place as soon as i have things in order!

I've done the LED conversion swap too. Pain in the ass, but do-able.

But yes, a MK2 to MK2a display board will swap successfully.

In fact, what I did was to swap the display board from a spare MK2a into my Mk2 and swap the lighting kit over from my old Mk2 display board into my MK2 with the MK2a display board in it. Annoying but successful. I did it because my rotary encoder was getting flaky on the Mk2 unit, and I didn't want to replace the encoder because that was actually harder to do than swap the lighting kit.

Normally that wouldn't have worked, since normally the translucent rotary encoder knob would have been the wrong type: It would normally have been the round-shaft type from the Mk2 lighting kit, while the new Mk2a display board would have had a keyed-shaft encoder. However, I had once in the past, already frankensteined a keyed-shaft encoder onto the Mk2 display board so my clear knob was already the right type for the Mk2a board. The frankenstein job was the reason I knew how hard it was and why I didn't want to do it again.

your right tony the illumination knob is indeed keyed on the 2a but i must of put a rubber washer in the illuminated knob on the 2 and it went on perfectly on the 2a.

Where do you guys buy replacement full round encoders from when they get flaky? i think the one on this 2 is weak and i might as well swap it out before i sell it to make it perfect.

There was a full BBS thread on encoder replacement, including part numbers and details for how to do the replacement. I don’t have the link at the moment, but enough poking at the BBS search feature should yield a result. I’m on my phone at the moment so it’s a little fiddly to try to do the search at the moment.

Got out my computer and poked a the search a bit. I found this but don't have a solid set of part numbers yet (with precise working ordering links). But did find the link to the replacement procedure from Rob. Sorry about the FAQ being out of commission.

Discussions of part numbers:
http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/264758

http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/283665

Description of replacement procedure:
http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/172562

thanks again Tony, I will try and hunt one down. In the process of doing the led swap which is all done minus one led deciding to die on me, i have created another problem.. When the display was tested the image was very dim on the screen, i swapped the old display back into this unit and i was getting the following scrolling image for a bit before the screen just goes blank. So the issue is with the player main board but i dont know what to check. I have had done a search on here but didnt find anything concrete to check.

any ideas would be appreciated.!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ca87bcaapjkm4hf/20180326_200850.jpg?dl=0

I think i have found a topic about blown fuses around the display connector and the one nearest to the dock look dead. can someone confirm if this would cause the screen to become all wavy as in the picture?

looks like i may have miss aligned the header!

In theory this can be fixed if you replace the blown fuses (and promise not to make the same mistake again ).

Here is a wayback machine link to Michael Munsell's fuse replacement page.

Also double check that there isn't another problem, such as:

- You broke components off the back of the display board.
- The display cable is frayed or broken at some point.
- Other fuses are blown besides the one shown in the fuse replacement page.

replacing the fuse is the easy bit ( veteran smd engineer) i have a full SMD workstation with solder tweezers so it shouldn't take long. not knowing what i had done was the stress of it all.. text book error, never mind.. will let you know how i get on.

thanks again

No worries. Just about all of us have done that the first time we played with the cabling.

well the fuses arrived this morning and that has sorted the problem! I have 4 fuses if anyone needs them.

Also I had a read through the Rotary encoder FAQ pages and although there is a lot of mention of the part numbers for the mk2a encoder I couldn't find a part number for the MK2 encoder other than its a meggitt unit and maybe available from farnell?

If any one knows please share!

I don't have a part number, the thing to remember is that one of them is through hole and one of them is surface mount, and one of them is keyed shaft and one of them is roud shaft.

i ordered a Mk2a through hole encoder and surface mounted it with little problem. So this Mk2 is as also all up and running and working as it should be.

Thanks for all the help guys.