Customer said was using mixer and just died mid-performance, had been difficult to power up a few times previously but once running was ok, now doesn’t power on at all. Dead PSU.
Tested and wasn’t getting power to pins on connector, which looks like a custom moulded plug for the Spirit mixer, making replacement a little tricky, although new power supplies (of dubious origins) can be acquired.
Upon metering the continuity from inside the power supply to the connector only one pin was connected! Spent a little time bending cable whilst metering both sides from inside power supply to connector and found a clear break in the cable about 4″ from the plug end. Cable appeared undamaged but clearly internally broken (repetitive winding?).
Then found there was a 2nd break, unfortunately inside the connector itself, the white wire just pulled out from the end that was trimmed! :
Tried digging out the connector to reach and should be able to join to it for a temporary fix if needed urgently, but would be fragile.
Found the cable had broken in multiple places! My guess is that perhaps the wire used was not great quality and up for the required current, and localised heating occurred where a few strands had broken due to the increased resistance, accelerating the demise. Anyway a whole new cable was warranted, so managed to swap strain relief over and used a 4 core shielded cable doubling up the cores for belt and braces.
Customer was ok to wait and didn’t need it urgently so decided to replace the connector with Rean Mini XLR (four pin so couldn’t be confused with anything 3 pin audio related):
Decided to leave the old connector in place rather than a gaping hole, and drill new hole and fit the new connector next to it. This is the Rean RT4MP version secured with the backing nut inside the chassis rather than outside so is a lower profile when tightened up for a neater finish (first photo is just loosely placed for fitment testing – hole has a flat, D shaped to help prevent rotation):
A much more robust solution for many more years to come.