Fostex MR16

[The Dude]

Just had a Fostex MR16 digital recorder show up on my bench. Customer says "will not power on". I am able to get it to power on, but I have to either hold down the power button for a bit or press it a few times. Before I dive into this thing, anybody experience this before? I'm wondering if it's a setting somewhere, or if it's actually broken- maybe a power supply problem? I couldn't find anything enlightening in the owner's manual, but sometimes these things are cleverly hidden.

The reason I ask, is because I recently worked on a Yamaha drum brain that "randomly shuts off". I found there was a system setting for it to shut itself off when there was no input after a set amount of time. It wasn't broken. The customer was just not aware of this feature.

[Enzo]

So is it a tactile switch under the button? Or a rubber contact? Or an actual power SWITCH?

[The Dude]

I have yet to take it apart, but it clicks and feels like a tactile switch. 99% sure it is. Could be the switch, I suppose, but when you hit the power supply button once (as you would expect to do), the backlight comes on momentarily, you can hear the hard drive start to spin up, and then the unit shuts right back down. This makes me believe the switch itself is ok.

[Enzo]

I wouldn't expect that at power up, but in shut down, I find some similar units require you hold the button for a couple seconds. I guess that prevents inadvertent shut down in the middle of a session.