Need Source for Behringer Parts

[W3KQ]

I need to purchase an IC to repair a DPA400 power amp out of a Behringer PMX3000 board/amp. The schematic identifies the IC as IC4, and the chip is labeled HCA8001 - appears to be an Intersil chip, but not readily available based upon my searches thus far - see this link for a "kind of" datasheet

Datasheet Archive - hca8001 datasheet - hca8001 application note - hca8001 pdf

This unit was a trade at the store, and given the low resale value of this amp, we cannot afford to put a ton of money into it. Anyone have a source for Behringer parts that's reasonable? I found a few sites on the web, but you must know the Behringer part number to order, and our store is not an authorized service center so Behringer refuses to give out part numbers when we call. Thanks for any direction you can provide, Rick Jordan

[Enzo]

Try contacting John Frondelli - a member here - at dbm Pro Services in NYC. They stock more parts that Behringer out in Bothell does as far as I can tell. If anyone would have something as a Behringer part, it would be him. Behringer USA itself doesn't generally have electronics components like ICs.

Meanwhile I'd have to say that chip would be a very unusual failure for those amps. Generally it is only the output side that fails. The outputs are driven through optocouplers, so there is no direct connection between output stage and the earlier stages.

What is bad on yours?

[W3KQ]

I've already check out John's website. He has a big bold header at the top of the parts page stating he no longer has the resources to research part numbers. All orders from his company must be made with a Berhinger part number, so that's the reason for my post. Berhinger wanted to know how I even had a schematic for the unit since I was not an authorized repair center....

Yep, the chip is bad - heat sensitive - will not reset and "unmute" (muting on this chip shuts down the switching circuits - no drive out of the chip to the two optoisolators IC2 and 6) once warm and power cycled - a long cool down, or a dribble of freeze spray on the top surface of the chip restores the unit to proper operation. Already went through the whole process of possibility of chip caps/resistors that were temp sensitive, potential solder connections that were strain sensitive with temperature, etc. It's the IC that's heat sensitive. It's rare, but not the first time I've come across the problem. Sad to say, it's usually the hard to impossible chips that fail. Seems to me there's a law about that somewhere LOL!

Anyway, back to the original question, any other suggestions where to purchase this IC????

Thanks for the reply,

Rick

[Enzo]

Send me an email. I may be able to help you with a pull.

[Enzo]

Behringer's part number for IC-HCA8001A1B is:

275-94800-10528

[jrfrond]

The reason we can no longer research part number requests is that we are simply overwhelmed in that area, and it would be really be another full-time job in addition to the parts guy I already have. While the parts business has been good to us, it doesn't warrant an additional salary.

We do NOT stock that IC, and basically because we have never had a single request for it. In addition, it is rare that anyone repairs a PMX3000.

[Enzo]

I been referring people to you, John, here and elsewhere. ANy sorts of requests you don;t want to get? people really don;t understand how much time you can burn looking up the number of a dollar part.

Neto from Portugal sent me this web site. One wonders why they can;t do that over here.

PMS electronics GmbH*-*Power Amp

[W3KQ]

Hi John, and thanks for your reply. My post regarding your website statement regarding parts orders was in no way meant as a criticism of your policy, nor disagreement with your reasons. I would imagine it would be highly unprofitable to supply ones and twos of the tens of thousands of components contained within the product lineup (current and out of production) of Behringer (and do all of the lookup and research for them before the order is even (if ever) placed).

Thanks for the update!

Rick Jordan

[jrfrond]

Enzo, we will take any and all requests. Whether we can satisfy them or not is on a case-by-case basis.

We have been dealing with Behringer and selling their parts for many years, but the line is now so expansive that it has grown more complex. In addition, they have changed their part number scheme three times over. We are still on the last system with the part numbers on our website, but have an internal X-ref database. I am going to revamp it all, with the inclusion of a shopping cart script, but as to when is now unclear.

Rick, no malice interpreted here. We'd love to help everyone, but there's a lot of mouths to feed out there!

[razc strap]

Originally Posted by jrfrond

The reason we can no longer research part number requests is that we are simply overwhelmed in that area, and it would be really be another full-time job in addition to the parts guy I already have. While the parts business has been good to us, it doesn't warrant an additional salary.

We do NOT stock that IC, and basically because we have never had a single request for it. In addition, it is rare that anyone repairs a PMX3000.

John, I feel your pain. We started selling Behringer parts, in earnest, about 2 years ago. There are 2 of us here, at Full Compass, that do all of the customer service, parts ordering, receiving, inventory control and everything else that relates to service parts support.

While Behringer is only 1 of the 400+ manufacturers we work with, Behringer parts sales, by far, exceed all other manufacturers. Luckily, we've been able to work with Behringer to develop more efficient ways to conduct our business. Otherwise, there would be no way we could keep up with the continuing growth in our parts sales.

We have over 100 Behringer parts available on our web site.....
Replacement/Service Parts Accessories & Parts & Hardware from Full Compass
.....and adding more. We have gathered enough research material to handle most Behringer parts inquiries, but there are still times when we have to refer customers directly to Behringer.

I've been managing Full Compass' parts support for 11 years and have contacted Nick (extremely helpful) on many occasions regarding Behringer parts in the past. I now know first hand what it's like to be fully immersed in the Behringer parts business. Challenging, but ultimately rewarding.

Suffice it to say, we are here to help all those souls who are seeking to keep their Behringer mixers, amps, speakers and you name its' up and running.

[W3KQ]

Originally Posted by razc strap

John, I feel your pain. We started selling Behringer parts, in earnest, about 2 years ago. There are 2 of us here, at Full Compass, that do all of the customer service, parts ordering, receiving, inventory control and everything else that relates to service parts support.

While Behringer is only 1 of the 400+ manufacturers we work with, Behringer parts sales, by far, exceed all other manufacturers. Luckily, we've been able to work with Behringer to develop more efficient ways to conduct our business. Otherwise, there would be no way we could keep up with the continuing growth in our parts sales.

We have over 100 Behringer parts available on our web site.....
Replacement/Service Parts Accessories & Parts & Hardware from Full Compass
.....and adding more. We have gathered enough research material to handle most Behringer parts inquiries, but there are still times when we have to refer customers directly to Behringer.

I've been managing Full Compass' parts support for 11 years and have contacted Nick (extremely helpful) on many occasions regarding Behringer parts in the past. I now know first hand what it's like to be fully immersed in the Behringer parts business. Challenging, but ultimately rewarding.

Suffice it to say, we are here to help all those souls who are seeking to keep their Behringer mixers, amps, speakers and you name its' up and running.

Thanks for sharing this information.

Enzo kindly donated a parts amp board to me, and I was able to use the chip off of his board to repair the mixer/amp.

I thanked him personally, but really should have also done so publicly on this forum as well. Thanks Enzo!

Regards,

Rick Jordan
Precision Audio
Laurel, DE

[Enzo]

Hi Razc, welcome to the board.

I see you list some boards, like power amp boards. COnsidering how far those PMH2000 PAs burn when they blow up, that is not unattractive.

I am also a Behr service center, but have no plans to get into the parts game. The few times I have tried to special order something for a customer, I never got the parts. And out at Bothell they never make boards available. Are you stocking those or ordering case by case? And if so from Washington or direct from Behringer?

[razc strap]

Originally Posted by Enzo

Hi Razc, welcome to the board.

I see you list some boards, like power amp boards. COnsidering how far those PMH2000 PAs burn when they blow up, that is not unattractive.

I am also a Behr service center, but have no plans to get into the parts game. The few times I have tried to special order something for a customer, I never got the parts. And out at Bothell they never make boards available. Are you stocking those or ordering case by case? And if so from Washington or direct from Behringer?

Enzo,
Thanks. Forums like this can only help. We stock only what is in consistent demand. We've run into some prolonged backorder situations with Behringer, but eventually they produce. We order parts directly from Behringer.

[Enzo]

Cool. I have considered buying a stock of power amp boards for my shop. Apparently they are available?

[razc strap]

Originally Posted by Enzo

Cool. I have considered buying a stock of power amp boards for my shop. Apparently they are available?

Yes, the PMH2000 power amp PCB is in stock at Behringer. I can send you a quote for the PCB and any other parts you may be interested in. To request a quote, please e-mail me directly at jeffh@fullcompass.com

[zero cool]

THANK YOU to everyone! first off for willing to help others! I, Like many others, have had the frustration of trying to source behringer parts as well! so I am very happy to see that there are sources for these parts.

I also want to publicly Thank Enzo. he has helped me on MANY occasions and his generosity has not gone unnoticed!


I am very curious about these Behringer amp boards. I have repaired a handful now. both class-AB types and Switching Types and I am really curious WHY they fail? it seems as if they work perfectly one day, then flip the power switch the next and poof there dead. no rhyme or reason. Is it bad designs? cheap parts? bad board layouts? why do these seem to be so prone to failure?

And being the type to not leave anything alone. How could these be improved on? could they be improved on. say rebuilt with better parts if that was the problem? or if its bad designs. maybe someone could come up with a drop in, bolt up retrofit kit. I mean i know that's polishing the proverbial dookie but. why spend the money to replace an amp board that has failed with another board that is likely to fail when something better probably could be purchased for about the same price?


I think too much i know.....

Zc

[Jazz P Bass]

Why do these amps fail.
There is a lot of power in these amps.
Short the output section and you let the magic smoke out.
Personally I feel the failures are from inadequate soldering.
Next would be borderline design.

[Enzo]

I don't know why they fail, most of them don;t though. You sell a million amps, and a mere 1/10 of 1% failure rates still makes 1000 dead amps.

[Steve Conner]

Exactly. And one man's borderline design is another man's maximally-cost-effective design. It doesn't pay Behringer to overbuild things.

If you want overbuilt and easy to service, get a couple of old Peavey power amps and a forklift to lug them around.

[R.G.]

Just to keep a contrarian viewpoint on the table, I think that having power amps that die is a useful thing, as long as it's not your power amp.

The reason is that usually the expensive parts, the power transformer, rectifiers, filter caps, heat sinks, and the rest of the packaging is undamaged. The actual power amp circuits are an almost trivial part of the costs and effort in a power amp.

So if you can get a good corpse with an easily workable set of mechanics,
throw away the amplifier circuits and replace them with either an amp of your design, or a copy of a good one you like.

I have frequently been given the partially dissected corpses of power amps. Many of these can be revived with a few LM3886 power chips and work better than they ever did. For fun, a discrete design with some new sustained-beta power output chips can be a good weekend project.

'Course, this is a hobbyist/tinkerer viewpoint. It's quite different if you are trying to fix it in a repair shop.

[Enzo]

And at over a dollar a minute, convincing the customer it's a deal.

Main problem is creating a 400-600 watt per channel power amp that fits the footprint and space available. The 3886s fall a little short of those levels.

[Steve Conner]

Yeah, this would be a real problem in the case of the Behringer powered mixers. They were designed around Class-D switching amps, so the cooling system won't support a Class-AB one, even if there was room for it.

Some guy on the forum said that he squeezed a pair of modules from Class-D Ltd. into one. Class-d Limited But that worries me, since as far as I know, those modules aren't really Class-D at all, they're just ordinary Class-AB amps.

The Coldamp BP4078 might be worth a try, but I've had those blow up on me, and I'm not sure if they can take 90V rails. There's also the Hypex UCD700 and so on.

class d amp modules - Google Search

[jrfrond]

Razc Strap,

I am fully aware of Full Compass' Behringer parts sales, and according to Jim Savery, you guys are doing an excellent job. We met with them at NAMM, and we will be overhauling our Behringer parts sales system this year, most likely with an online shopping cart, but we have a lot of legacy parts with old part numbers so it is a huge undertaking. I am glad Nick has been helpful to you, and we do try hard to satisfy everyone, but Behringer's master parts list, as you know, is staggering. We will probably wind up carrying only the most-demanded parts and special-order others. Most lay people are not aware of Behringer's product line scope, but they are a great company, no doubt about it. And they currently make excellent products with excellent quality.

[DTKempII]

Originally Posted by razc strap

John, I feel your pain. We started selling Behringer parts, in earnest, about 2 years ago. There are 2 of us here, at Full Compass, that do all of the customer service, parts ordering, receiving, inventory control and everything else that relates to service parts support.

While Behringer is only 1 of the 400+ manufacturers we work with, Behringer parts sales, by far, exceed all other manufacturers. Luckily, we've been able to work with Behringer to develop more efficient ways to conduct our business. Otherwise, there would be no way we could keep up with the continuing growth in our parts sales.

We have over 100 Behringer parts available on our web site.....
Replacement/Service Parts Accessories & Parts & Hardware from Full Compass
.....and adding more. We have gathered enough research material to handle most Behringer parts inquiries, but there are still times when we have to refer customers directly to Behringer.

I've been managing Full Compass' parts support for 11 years and have contacted Nick (extremely helpful) on many occasions regarding Behringer parts in the past. I now know first hand what it's like to be fully immersed in the Behringer parts business. Challenging, but ultimately rewarding.

Suffice it to say, we are here to help all those souls who are seeking to keep their Behringer mixers, amps, speakers and you name its' up and running.

Nice site...I searched, but didn't find what I was looking for. I have a Behringer B2092A powered subwoofer that has extremely low output. It appears to have been dropped at some point. There is a massive coil inside. It was loose on it's mount. I suspect it was damaged. Would you have parts for this?

[Enzo]

Instead of posting here and hoping they spot it, may I suggest contact the parts seller and explain your needs.


Offhand it soulds like an inductor from a crossover, or wait, perhaps the toroidal power transformer is loose.

[DTKempII]

Umm...hey, you might be onto something...maybe I should just tighten up the Toroidal Transformer thingy and everything will be just fine

Yeah, I'll get there sooner or later. I'm already working on my sisters PC, my Singer's Marshall VS100V 8100 and reassembly of my studio. In my searches I found this site and started thinking of all the other broken things I have that I want to fix 'someday'. Did I mention my Roland KC-300, Yamaha DD50 and Original Big Muff pedal? Oops...I almost forgot...the cracked neck of my 5-string acoustic Dean bass....