Brand:

• AMX

Models:

• Axcent3

Question:  

Over the past year or so, I have received many complaints of a common problem with the Axcent 3 units losing memory and setup when power glitches hit the facility. The best we can do for these unlucky souls is to tell them to reload program, ir files and configurations and start again.

Is this something we can protect against in the hardware?

Do we have any specific recommendations to help prevent this from occurring?

I have often encouraged dealers to install small to medium UPS units to protect against this. Is this a good idea, and do we 'formally' endorse this? Do we have specifics on what would be proper size and specs on such devices?

Answer:

We found a weakness in our battery back up circuitry a few months ago. If there's a negative spike on the internal power bus (that can happen sometimes during power glitches), our battery backup I.C. doesn't protect the memory. We incorporated a fix on all of our products that use this particular I.C. for battery backup, ViewPoints, Axcent3's, and Stealths. It's also a simple retrofit mod, we just short two pins together on the I.C. We started modifying Axcent3's in production on February 25, 1999. The new Axcent3's with LEDs have the new circuit.

I vote we don't recommend UPS for our systems. What's the point of having battery backup built-in if it doesn't work? We've never had a memory loss problem yet on a board with the new circuit.