On 15 October 2015 at 07:21, richtrix@... [oberheim] < oberheim@yahoogroups.com > wrote:

 

[ Attachment(s) from richtrix@... [oberheim] included below]

This is THE most bizarre thing. So I am sitting at my desk and decide to turn on the OBXa to play around a little. It fires up fine and I am playing it and then after about 10 seconds the audio begins to fade away and then goes out completely. I am looking at it like WTF!!! I then look and see the controls in the pitch bend section (a section that has always worked flawlessly) all lit up crazy. All lights illuminated (i.e. Octave up and Octave down both lit). I then shut it off in haste and go to open the lid. I didn't smell any magic smoke so that's good. When I go to open the lid I notice there what looks like water in a lone drip going down the left side of the board. WTF! I look closer and there is a little pool of odorless liquid that looks like water at the Mod pot. F*%&.. WTF... I look up at ceiling... white... Flawless. No leaks. I look around and then notice that my old Mytek converter I use for my monitors and OBXa input has CRYSTALS growing on it... HUH The Mytek is a 19in. rack unit and I just have it sitting on top of my Tannoy monitor (kind of ghetto I guess but it works) and my Tonnoy is right next to and a little over the OBXa (obviously). So I figure that some cap in the mytek is leaking a dielectric all over everything and it just shorted shit out in my OBXa. As I start to move the Mytek I notice crystals on the top too... ok... that doesn't jive with my theory (btw Mytek still works fine). The crystals seem to originate next to this little USB powered illuminated globe rock thingy I picked up at Goodwill a year or so ago. I just had it hooked into my computer and plopped it on top of the Mytek. It gave off a cool little bit of light when my computer had power to it. Also let me know if I hadn't cut the power to my computer (meaning it was off but still had power). It is just a globe of white rock, quartz I figured but but had never really thought about it, and shifts through the rainbow slowly (ooooh pretty). So I take apart the Mytek and everything in there looks fine except a clear path where something has dripped down and left crystals on the PCB drained through the PCB to the bottom plate and then out the lowest corner (and on the OBXa!! AHHH) as seen in the pictures. So I take apart this globe... I am like WTF could be in here that is leaking. The answer... NOTHING. Aside from the bottom being damp and the most downhill screw looking damp and maybe a tad corroded there's NO liquid in this thing and nothing that would have had liquid in it but this globe is obviously the source somehow. So then... I think for a moment and take the ball globe, just a chunk of white translucent shaped rock, and touch it to my tongue... this thing is pure salt!!! So... that explains what the crystals are but not the water that carried the crystals. I have had this thing for a year why have I never noticed this before So here's my theory. 2 weeks ago it rained all week pretty much. I live in Georgia, USA. This made it pretty humid but it's fall so not very hot outside. So our inside temperature was never really triggering our AC to kick on. so it was cool out but very humid without the AC running it was notably more humid in the house. This week and last week it's been temperate and not very humid. Our heater has been coming on at night even, further drying things out. So during the week long deluge I think that this block of salt must have absorbed a bunch of moisture. When the humidity dropped it released it back into the air. On the outside of the globe this would have just evaporated out into the room but on the inside it was trapped and collected. Drained out slowly via the screw terminal and down into the Mytek and into my poor Obie. I am hoping that some alcohol and good try out will solve the problem but some components could have gone down... Either way it sucks and is beyond bizarre. Thought I'd share.