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General Information & Operation Desks
PowerPoint demo: Audio Consoles
Conductive Ceramic and ESF technologies
| Since 40 years ago, Solidyne has been researching for new suppliers to improve the duration and reliability of its equipment and to make them resistant to faults. The main faders are a key point of "on-air" consoles. Such faders of carbon type ( 30.000 operations), that gives good results in audio consoles designed for live shows and recording, have severe failures in Radio consoles, due the very intense use which faders are exposed. Still those made of conductive plastic, bring problems when it works in Radio On-Air consoles. | Solidyne has made a joint work of development with several suppliers of Japan and Asia, to obtain faders of conductive ceramics. This product is a carbonic polymer of great hardness connected by specially designed wipers. The ETM-VCA technology is added to guarantee that the faders are no longer a problem in the radio studies. |
Technology ETM-VCA multiplies the life of the faders, allowing in addition the use of conductive ceramics of greater hardness and resistance to wearing down. On the other hand, it obtains a perfect stereo tracking (smaller than 0.1 dB), impossible to obtain still with faders of conductive plastic. ETM-VCA faders will never cause noise, not even at the end of its life. |
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Faders of 2 million guaranteed operation, models FAD2M, comes standard since March 2007, in all Solidyne consoles (S500, D816 & 2300). You can recognize it by the black plush that covers it. In real testing, using a wearing machine (see below), all the samples supports at least 4 million operations.
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The slot of the conventional faders is wide and lets pass the heavy dust. |
The slot of the new faders FAD1M is very narrow. The plush closes when the lever have passed, to prevent the heavy dust passage |
Models FAD2M of 2 million operations (15 years of use) are recognized by its black plush |
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NOTE: The indicated duration is guaranteed by Solidyne and measured in our laboratories. It is obtained in conditions of clean room, without smokers and fall of liquids or remainders of food over the console.
The estimation of the time of use is based on a console handled by professional operators, who frequently use the AIR button to open the channels and which they do not move the faders unnecessarily |
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Testing the fader duration
With this wearing machine, specially designed for Solidyne, the faders are tested to verify its quality and duration.The high speed test allows to obtain 18,000 complete cycles per hour. 6 hours are enough to emulate 1 year of real operation. |
Fader Solidyne ESF
A technology for the future
The consoles Solidyne 2300 have ceramic faders with connectors that will in the future allow using faders ESF (ElectroStatic Fader). This revolutionary technology, invented by Solidyne (Invention Patent Pen-030101875), allows to totally eliminate the sliding contacts that wear away to the conventional faders, still those of conductive plastic. This will allow a fader of endless life, able to operate in very aggressive atmospheres, supporting even fallen of liquids. This technology not yet is available, because, by their smaller cost, today the ceramic faders are preferable. The base of technology ESF is a sliding steel piece that moves on a crystalline fiber glass surface. Any electrical contact with this piece does not exist, that exerts an almost despicable friction. |
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From the opposed side of the crystalline surface, there are fixed electrodes that detect the position of the sliding piece by the electrostatic action of the charges accumulated in the surface. The position is detected with a precision of tenth of millimeter and is turned a signal of DC from zero to 10V to control VCA or digital fader. |
A transversal view allows to analyze the physical process that permits to obtain a fader without mobile electric contact |
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View of Solidyne ESF Fader
