Awaiting delivery of new Micro SD cCard

[Steve Dace]

I am awaiting delivery of a new micro SD card for Brennan B2 T2

In preparation I have removed the 2 screws, used a taped screwdriver to ease out the chassis / carriage? 

Removed the SD card. All with no problem

However....  The photo is of the underside of the "chassis"? is this correct, is it meant to have this "loose"componet dangling? Because it does not help for reassembly, it could easily get caught .Looks a bit Heath Robinson to me in the fact it is not fixed.

Is tugs correct please?

 

[Peter Lowham]

Hi ex8,

What has happened here is that you have eased the back panel out slightly too far and have pulled this connector out of the back of the CD drive.  In the photo, your thumb is on the connector that needs to be replugged into CD unit.

It will be a bit fiddly, but if you keep the connector close to the 'floor' of the B2 case, you should be able to gently plug the connector back into the CD unit.

Regards,

Peter.

[Steve Dace]

Thank you Peter

Appreciate your observations.

Please confirm if I am understanding you correct.

The 'floor' being the Case not the "tray" I've eased out?

So I guess I should effectively turn the unit upside down to locate / engage the rear of the CD unit

Please advise if I should ease out the panel out further so I can see the back of the CD unit? Or leave it where it is?

Once again , thank you 

Regards

Steve

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Steve,

1.  Yes, the floor is the bottom of the case (because the CD unit is screwed to the case and not to the tray).

2.  If you turn the unit upside down, then the CD and the connector will be on the top side (that is the floor of the case).

3.  Yes, now that the CD connector is disconnected, you can ease the tray out quite a bit.  There is a second cable connector that runs from the tray up to the front panel which has a reasonable amount of 'slack' but not enough to pull the tray out completely.  If you ease the tray out further, it will help you to see the location of the CD connector.  Then you can ease the tray back in enough to plug the connector back in to the back of the CD unit.

Regards,

Peter.

[Steve Dace]

Excellent!

Thank you Peter

[Steve Dace]

A shout out for Brennan Support.

Very prompt service in getting me a replacement Micro SD Card. Many thanks Paul and staff.

Arrived next day.Installed OK.

Regards

Steve.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Steve,

Great stuff!  And did you get the CD connector plugged back in?

Regards,

Peter.

[Steve Dace]

Yes Peter I did.

Sadly now I'm back.

It installed all good.

Switched on and it started up. Did a Web upgrade. Played a few tracks, however it did not play some recently added  track.  Although it shows them as being there. But played previous loaded tracks.

Switched off let it all settle

Switched back on just now and Green and Red lights flossing.Back to square one!! Not working at all again.

Any suggestions please. 

I do have a full external HDD drive back up so I am OK there, I hope!

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Steve,

Holy moley!  After all of that!!

First question is when you are closing down the B2, do you first press and hold the 'Play/Stop' button until the message 'Saving' appears on the front panel display before powering down?

As to the B2 not playing some recently added tracks, that might have been caused by the first microSD card already being somewhat corrupt before the last rips and compressions were done.   That might have caused the compressed music tracks to be corrupted.

Now that you have two microSD cards, it might be worthwhile doing a re-flash of the card using your PC/Mac.  The procedure can look rather daunting but it is actually reasonably straight-forward.  I can post you additional instructions to help you through this process if you want to try this.  After all, you can't make the situation any worse!

Just let me know here.

Regards,

Peter.

[Steve Dace]

Yes I know!!!

yes to your "do you ".....  always!!!! , I learned that from the beginning. In fact I am probably more over cautious than most,  OTT probably! 

Peter perhaps you would e mail me details. I have a iMac machine.

Much appreciated 

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Steve,

Below are the instructions for the microSD card re-flash.  I have included a weblink to the Brennan website instructions which provide the download links for the B2 software and the 'balenaEtcher' app.

If you do this and get the B2 up and running, then try some powerdown and power up cycles. If the SD card becomes corrupt again then I would suspect that the B2 hardware is faulty.  I have 2 B2s, one about 4 years old and the other is about 5 months old.  I do quite a lot of software testing on these which involves many power down and up cycles and I have never yet had a corrupted SD card, so this should not be happening on a normally functioning B2. 

Regards, 

***** Note ---- these instructions are for the later B2 model (post March 2017 approximately) which has the microSD card inside the case.

      The instructions for the early model B2 (pre March 2017 qpproximately) are slightly different as the SD card is directly accessible from outside the case.

The microSD card rebuild process is reasonably straight-forward to do, although it looks a bit scary when you look at the instructions.  Below is a link to those instructions. Look in the left hand panel of the webpage and scroll down to 'New SD Card'.

https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/Techy

There are two download links in that webpage; one for 'balenaEtcher' and the other for 'B2BNOV2019.zip' file.  These are all you need to rebuild your microSD card.

The 'balenaEtcher' is the software program that is required to flash the microSD card.

I have boiled the instructions down into a series of summary steps below, which might be of help to you.

You will need a USB - microSD card adapter if your PC/Mac doesn't have one fitted.

1. Download & install 'balenaEtcher' onto your PC/Mac.

2. Download 'B2BNOV2019.zip' to your PC.

3. Power down your B2.

4. You will need to open the B2 unit (on the back panel, remove the two upper screws marked with a chevron (^) symbol.

5. Plug the new microSD card into PC OR use the existing microSD card that you have just removed from your B2.

6. Start up 'balenaEtcher' application on PC.

7. Select 'Flash from file' option and select the location of the 'B2BNOV2019.zip' file.  (DO NOT unzip the file).

8. Then click on 'Select target' button and select the microSD card as the target 

9. Then click on 'Flash'

It will take 'balenaEtcher a few minutes to flash and then verify the microSD card.

10. On your B2 install the newly flashed microSD card.

11. Power up the B2.

12. Check the software version which should show as 'B2B Sep 06 2020' (or similar).

13. Run a 'Web Upgrade' to further update to the latest software from the Brennan website.

14. Reboot the B2

15. Run a software version check - should now show 'B2B Nov 2 2020' (or very similar)

So from a bare microSD card to full upgrade should take approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Regards,

Peter. 

[Steve Dace]

I have emailed you Peter.

A big thank you to you Peter for all your help and guidance. As you know I have done everything as asked and instructed. All to no avail. 

It works after re-flash, tied 2 cards, power down, leave 10 minute and it does not work.

Have written to Paul at support.

Regarsd

Steve 

[PMB]

Hi Steve,

I'll check for your email and reply to that but think we need to take a look at your B2.

Paul

Brennan Support.