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Zoom H4N – Is this a dying unit or fixable?
Seems as if my three year old Zoom H4N has just reached the end of the line. No matter what batteries I put into it, fresh and out of the package, it sees it as a dead or extremely low battery. It will not even work on plug in power. At this point, it is not useable.
Has anyone seen this before? Is it dying unit, or is it repairable for reasonable cost?
Zoom appears to not have online service, and Sweetwater took far too long to pickup to place a service order.
Thoughts?
Al
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7 Replies
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Well it MIGHT be something simple, so it’s probably worth getting a repair guy to have a look at it and give you a quote. But my gut feeling is that it’s quite likely that it’s not to be cost effective to fix it.
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My thoughts exactly. I’ll continue to try to get through to Sweetwater repair on Monday.
Al
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Hi Al,
were you able to get you H4N fixed? I’ve run into the same problem with mine..it only lasts about ten minutes with fresh batteries before having the battery life indicator go to “no bars” and then cutting off.any luck with yours?
thanks,
Ish.
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Nope. I had to throw it out. The good news is that I replaced it with a Marantz PM661. A much better unit all the way around.
Al
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Have exactly the same problem in that fresh batteries last a matter of minutes. Seems to work OK via power lead but not ideal. Anyone had any luck repairing this fault ?
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What kind of batteries are you using? I’ve found that the new Lithium long lifes sometime cannot be used in some devices, in that they trigger some kind of shutdown of the electronics (as if the batteries are low) likely because the voltage is above the specs that some component expects, and the unit may treat it as if it’s protecting itself from electrical overload. (that’s my best guess). So make sure you are using *standard* batteries, before assuming the unit is defective.
Al
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Mine was doing the same thing, fresh batteries or adapter, it didn’t matter. Just barely touch the power switch or record button and it would say ‘Goodbye’ or whatever. I’m an electronic technician, so I thought it was a bad solder joint on the power switch, or where one board plugs into another (there is like four boards sandwiched together via board plugs). I looked through a scope for fractured solder or loose connections, resoldered most plugs, switch, reseated the boards, well, no luck.
So then as a last resort, I thought, hmm, let me seat, reseat that SD card several times just for sh*ts and giggles.
So far so good. I can mess with the power switch, record button, no power down. So try that before you trash the thing.
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