Some USB strangeness

General
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Update - The USB jack is insufficiantly soldered to the pcb - not only is solder practically nonexistent, the pins barely make it thru the PCB so not sure if getting good flow is even possible. Suggest you use a different jack, 4 gnd pins are obviously cold soldered as well. Movement is coming not from the usb jack but rather the standoff holding the PCB, so as the PCB moves it’s likely stressing the inferior USB connections. A kludge fix for me is to hot glue the PCB to the standoff, and attempt to get a good solder flow on the jack.

Firstly, apologies as this is my second post about the USB port and don’t know how to delete my first post.

So after some false starts yesterday I got the USB transfer going - moving a memory stick from computer to Meta is a acceptable workflow - especially because of the auto update feature !

Well, today once again .yml files not being found. However, as I was typing here, the file pops up, so turning my head away for >min, it shows up. I want an opinion here before I attempt to tighten what appears to be a loose usb shroud jack.

Edit - Is moving a file from USB to card an acceptable workflow? Because I updated the file on VCV this morning, turned on Meta, drumseq loaded, so I deleted, assuming it was on the card, then attached USB drive. Could the deletion have confused things, ie some caching effect between drive and card? Now that I’m thinking though I don’t like that the USB jack appears loose. Actually, regarding modular, I was a little dissappointed to see the assembly jobs on modules in general. The PCB stuff is great, but the assembly, meh. Coming from a background in soldering under microscopes I may be too picky though.

I’m using a usb 2 thumb drive but ordered a 3.1 fast drive, because why not? Would usb3 make a difference?

Also, question about plugins. Is it always required to preload plugins before a patch is loaded, and what of the built in plugins, can these be viewed as to load status? My first experiment was a Omri drum sequencer which after auto loading Venom and a couple others, and adjusting some default levels, was until now quite impressive. Is there a option to preload all plugins ? I don’t so much care about the boot time.

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Hi, It sounds like there’s a defect on your PCB. The USB-C jack should be inserted fully through the PCB, and soldered at all points on the back side. The shroud is strong enough to prevent any damage to the SMT connection with normal wiggling (and the slot in the faceplate limits the maximum angle of wiggling). But, manufacturing errors happen. Please email us at 4ms@4mscompany.com and we’ll sort of the details for a repair or exchange.

Please don’t hot glue the jack-- it’ll make it harder for us to do a repair. If you still have access to a hot-air rework station and microscope, then let us know when you email.

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Already done - and seems to have fixed things. The standoff itself is inferior - since it’s supporting the area of the usb it can’t be good on the pcb being torqued as the jack is used. A nice allen screw is used, then some cheap plastic connection to the pcb, mine appearing to have a wing missing. Highly suggest using a more robust standoff. Hot glue can be removed easily enough. No worries though - I’m confidant it’s fixed now. As for the cold solder, that was easy enough to remedy. Probably the jack is attached by the person making the pcb, and sometimes these hand soldered things can be dicey. It seems I managed to get a good solder joint now. It’s comforting to have a warranty, and I appreciate your responding, but it’s also comforting to know my future modular adventures I have the required skill to repair things myself. Hopefully I’ve entrapped all the electrons now !

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Ok, well glad you got it working. Have fun!