Hey, this is my first post on this forum, and I’m grateful that this resource exists!
I recently bought a Panasonic WJ-AVE5. I was excited about using it not only to create visual glitches, but also to integrate it into a linear editing workflow (I also have two AG-5700s and am looking for an editing module - background in film editing and interested in the older workflows)
Anyway, the device appeared to be in optimal condition - clean, fader caps all intact, the previous owner provided the manual and they’d even written in the date they purchased the device (30.12.1993!) and so I was optimistic that everything would be fine.
I connected two separate video sources from the 5700s and previewed them (using monitor out for channels 1 & 2) on separate monitors. Everything so far is fine.
However, when I try to output the mixed signal (here I tried both BNC monitor as well as Rec out 1 & 2) the signal I get is mostly black and white, definitely distorted, with strange banding which affects most of the picture. The effects still work just fine, meaning fades, mixes are clean, but the signal is not.
I’m not experienced yet with electronics, so i don’t know where to start:
can an error like this be repaired, or should I just try to find another device?
does the community know of people who can fix these mixers? I’m currently based in Germany, and most people I speak to about video moved on from this tech years ago
has anyone had any experience dealing with these errors on the WJ-AVE5, and do you have any suggestions for me?
It feels like a bit of a crap shoot right now. This was the cleanest example I could find online, for a reasonable price. No one here seems to be able to test their devices before they sell, because no one has the appropriate cables/equipment. I can see this becoming a bottomless pit of wasted money, unless I can drive out to each individual with my own gear and test everything beforehand.
So… can anyone help?
PS: I can post some pictures later, if that helps.
Hello Everyone, greetings from argentina once again, so I’ve bought an old PAL AVE 5 that seems to be working just fine except for I cant get it to output in color, at first I thought it could be a video norm issue, but the tv I’m using can handle NTSC and PAL since its a rather “modern” model. Then I thought it could be the BNC to RCA adapters the previous owner of the AVE5 sent but that probably isn’t the case, so I was reading different threads in this forum and found people having similar issues and then read [this thread] where someone commented that it could be due to the clocks in the mixer channels drifting, and that it could be fixed by twiddling the capacitors but then didn’t go into further details about how to fix this or what he/her meant by that.
Im just getting into analog video mixing and video art so I have 0 experience in the matter, any help is welcome.
(Panasonic WJ-AVE5 guidance and help - outputting b&h (no color))
Hey Matt, greetings from Germany. Looks like we’re in a similar boat. I’m asking people locally if they have any more info, and I’ll share here anything I find out as well. Would love to know what we’re supposed to open up and look at. Worst case scenario, I’m considering taking the mixer down south to someone who still does repairs on gear. The problem is that most people in this country who used to do video stuff have moved on. DVDs killed the medium, it seems.
this is more of a meta reply than specific, but it might be good just to have 1 dedicated thread for stuff like this, either maybe on a per-mixer basis, or for specific issues like color loss on panasonic mixers in general? seems like it could help folks looking for issues and for folks doing troubleshooting together. otherwise like i’ve seen in other internet video art groups we could literally end up with 100 separate threads all literally asking the same question about color loss on ave5/3/7 with various ppl only responding with links to other threads
hey folks, as discussed i merged the new thread into the existing thread about this issue, and renamed the original post to be more explicit about the issue - let’s keep the discussion all in one place so we can easily find it later!
i can understand how frustrating it is to have a seemingly fully working mixer, which is outputting a video signal successfully except that there is no color. i have seen this issue come up many times, and unfortunately have never seen any simple fix that people reported to solve it, not that it’s impossible but these devices are aging and unfortunately it’s probably capacitor related, which to me means i should probably just use it as i can in its current state – aka, embracing the limitations the world throws at me.
i do know that, in similar mixers, i have opened them up and seen some trim pots for calibration - they are little round plastic things usually with a straight edge groove so they can be turned with a small screwdriver. sometimes, twirling these around while the device is powered on can adjust the signal and correct it. i believe the ave5 is mains powered which means it’s extra important to not touch anything else inside while it’s powered on. that was what came to mind when i read “twiddling the capacitors” even though i still don’t know what that means. all i can imagine is just poking various capacitors which doesn’t seem too helpful.
good luck to all and let us know if you figure anything out or if anyone else has advice.
I have heard (from Jonas Bers, I think) that opening up these Panasonic mixers and simply making sure the internal ribbon cables are firmly attached will fix many common problems.
This is true of more equipment than just Panasonic mixers as well.
this is a solid tip for literally any of electronic troubleshooting. its cheap and easy to open something up and not just check any ribbon/molex connector between different pcbs but do a quick alcohol wipedown on the ribbon/molex leads/slots as well. look out for the tan/orange colored pcb with the extra large capacitors & inductors all over it that sits right near where the ac plug goes in, there is always potentially a charge stored in there that could at the very least knock you on yr ass if not worse.
once you’ve got everything open, then you can take a look around. next easy step is to clean out any fans/air holes, anything that has enuf dense microprocessors on it hopefully has some kind of temperature sensor that just cuts power to anything with dense enuf transistors if the internal temperature is too high.
then just look around and see if theres any caked on gunk/dust/human grease that could be causing a short. clean it off with some alchohol. maybe you found an exploded or leaking capacitor at some point, its the stuff that usually smells like a metallic fish is rotting and sometimes looks like it too. you’ll def want to put on some gloves and maybe a mask too to clean that junk off.
apologies to the OP’s, because this might not be exactly the steps that will fix yr panasonics. on the other hand, this is a routine i’ve followed that has ‘fixed’ a suprisingly large number of electronic devices that other folks had given up for dead. For more detailed knowledge on a very specific peice of hardware i look at the service manual, it will usually have a laundry list of common failures and instructions on how to troubleshoot them. Theres always the option to try to find some old broadcast engineers message boards and search through for relevant advice too! if the boards are still active you might actually even find someone who will be literally amazed that anyone still gives a hoot about some panasonic prosumer sd video mixers in 2022 and will help you out just for shits and giggles.
I fixed this issue on my mixer a week ago. The problem comes from a bad capacitor, its value is 1uF 50V.
It’s a true hole capacitor, so pretty easy to change!
I’ve been having the same problem with my WJ-MX50A and I’ve had a hunch that it’s bad capacitors. Would love if anyone in this thread has experienced the same. If not, I’ll be digging through the service manual myself
I know this isn’t the mixer mentioned in the thread but I wanted to share that opening it up and twiddling some potentiometers DID fix my color issue!!
My mixer is a Panasonic WJ-MX50A - I (carefully) used a screwdriver to adjust the two red pots in this picture while the device was on. The top one fixed channel A, the bottom fixed channel B. They were easily accessible since the MX50A has hinges that let you lift off the top cover without completely disassembling the device.
So I opened mine up and found nothing unusual. Mind you I’m a noob, but I can spot a busted capacitor at least.
Made sure wires were inserted tightly and carefully adjusted the trim potentiometers of the faulty channel while running color bars from the XV C900. I adjusted the chroma gain in particular but absolutely nothing came from that.
Might have accidentally messed up the calibration of both channels along the way… whoopsies.
I have a hint of an idea that it might be a capacitor that is causing this. The other channel is on its way out too, as it gives color after a warm up period. Which to me reads like something capacitor related. But again, I’m a noob.
So now the question is wether to live with it or send it in for a repair and calibration. I got the AVE5 for free and only plan on doing experimental feedback shenanigans with it. So I’m not too concerned with the fidelity of the unit.
I didn’t investigate what the problem is , either the crystal is drifting out of spec or the trimmer is faulty. Neither did I do it properly, I just twiddled till it worked, Ideally you should read the frequency with a counter.
Hi, I too have a problem on wj-ave5, I don’t think I have broken components, just a check for a calibration. I hoped for a miracle by turning the screw on the VCOA CT1 by observing the color bars from the preview on the monitor, but my signal gets worse and I don’t have the capacity and measuring tools as described in the panasonic service manual from page 19 for calibrations; i’m just destroying the video signal, as my two video channels work fine and the system strains too etc. but I have the processor on BUS A which has distorted horizontal phase to fix and absent color. Did I misunderstand or not by reading the manual? the calibration procedure is done in three steps on each BUS and input and is not visually immediate; finally a sum of the frequencies that can be read and set individually only with an electrical reading on the output. in my case regarding BusA I touched vr5, vr6, vr3 etc. all those screws adjusting channel A after input, I have a colorless Z-shaped signal, I think I’ve gone too far out of bounds to hope for the luck of returning to an original signal.
Man i haven’t even gotten to the calibration part. Still trying to get a color signal out of Bus A period.
Interesting side note: I’ve received a WJ-MX12 in the mean time and it has a similar problem. Only difference is, that the color vanishes after a certain warm up period, whereas on the AVE5 the color on one channel appears after several minutes but the other stays BW…
If you have a Pana Mixer that is working right now get ready for chroma to shit the bed sooner or later.
with panasonic wj ave5/c (italia) i’m trying to send PAL signals only (even if my hdmi/s-video conversions detect it as NTSC signal from pc do you know why?) i have a fine tuning problem in channel A, i have open and behind the lid I worsened the video by moving the vr1 and vr6 screws only finding rgb levels, how can i go back?
