[B3OHACK3R]

pepps wrote:

Thank you! I really appreciate your help (thumbs up)!

Sure, no problem. Maybe let us know here if you got any further with that issue then.

[B3OHACK3R]

Madskp wrote:

I guess I could try to do a test where I set the BS5 up to have the CD command for internal music, and the Radio command for internet radio. Then if I have a Beoport connected via masterlink I should be able to test if the BS5 can fetch the source from that

Just gave it a try here. Doesn’t work unfortunately. So no external source extension for BS5. When you send it e.g. a N.Radio request it will answer with “source not available”. In contrast a BC2 / BS9000 etc. would forward such a request to the “source center” device then. BS5 doesn’t do that.

Madskp wrote:

However if I choose A.MEM the BS 5 screen is black and no sound is comming through.

Also tested it now. Same here. It does actually the same when internal sources are set to N.Radio/Music and you are selecting CD. On the ML it then pretends to be playing something but the screen stays off and no audio comes through (VM:2 / AM:0 setup). Who knows.

[B3OHACK3R]

pepps wrote:

The problem is I have an Amazon Firestick connected via HDMI to the BV under the button ‘TV’. I can cast music from my phone to the firestick – it shows the devices are connected and that a file is playing. But when I press AV, TV on the Beolink 1000 I don’t get the sound from the Firestick. I don’t get any sound at all.

Hi,

only the very last BS3 equipped TVs had the possibility internally mapping / converting the HDMI audio input to the MasterLink system. Your 7-40 is probably an earlier model without that functionality.

For this to work you would have to add an HDMI audio extractor (analog) and connect it to the RCA input of the corresponding source (e.g. AV3, etc.)

[B3OHACK3R]

Madskp wrote:

Does anyone know if it should be possible to make i show the picture from an other computer, provided power is supplied to the BS5 screen?

Yes, works.

Madskp wrote:

Or should it have some signal via the USB cable?

USB is a normal HID device. You can control the red LED and also read out any input values from the controls easily. Unrelated to the screen itself. Played with that many years ago.

[B3OHACK3R]

Madskp wrote:

Also I can activate CD and Radio and get a Beogram CD 4500 playing and controlled via an MCL2AV.

Interesting. Was the BS5 set up with the audio master (AM) option enabled? What I still have on my list of things to test:

If the internal BS5 sources are set to CD and Radio (also AM = yes) – will it forward N.Radio and N.Music “source center” requests to ML like a BS9000 / BC2 etc would do?
If yes, that would be cool but I have some doubts that they enabled that in software.

[B3OHACK3R]

Wasn’t A.MEM used for Spotify when it was still working?

If you haven’t set it up (which you can’t nowadays) it will probably just ignore that source command.

[B3OHACK3R]

Madskp wrote:

Another idea for a usecase for this adapter: As systems like BC2, BS3000/3200, BS4 and BS9000 does not have datalink control of the Aux connection the adapter could be used to have tape2 and phono available via Masterlink and control connected record and tape players. This would require the use of datalin80 on the datalink connection, but I gues that is not a limitation hardware vise

Yes, exactly. I had that in my mind as well but haven’t implemented it in the software examples yet.

It can easily control a DL80 turntable and record its audio output. Tested that already and it works well. Pretty straight forward to make that available as the N.Radio / Phono source on ML then.
Unlike the “Univeral Link Adapter” project the MDT does not have a built-in RIAA equalizer. So it either needs a BeoGram with normal line-out or an external RIAA.

[B3OHACK3R]

Madskp wrote:

Nice. I guess that it could also be served to NL devices as well?

There is an easy to use AirPlay sender application. Then you are not limited to NL-only devices. Had a test setup where you could press play on a BeoGram and then the sound would come through a BeoLit12. It even allows you to sync multiple AirPlay receivers.
Technically it would also be able to handle NL but one first need to reverse engineer that protocol. Replicating something like a NL/ML BLC shouldn’t be too complicated. Unfortunately I don’t have much time for going down that rabbit hole right now.

 

[B3OHACK3R]

The female 16-pin ones are a bit problematic to source. I still couldn’t find them at Molex but TE makes a compatible part. I just recently learned that it’s called an SDL connector.
So if you have a traditionally wired ML system probably it’s best to either directly solder a RJ45 cable to an existing ML one – or use one of those legacy 6-port ML distributor boxes to chain it together.

If I ever get hold of some 16-pin ML female THT connectors I can make a small adapter for that as well. Like you say, 16-pin ML on the one side, two RJ45 on the other. One of them then goes into the device you removed the 16-pin cable from while the other then connects the MDT. Let’s see…

[B3OHACK3R]

Guy wrote:

Is the IR command ‘Server’ the same as ‘CD2’?

No, it’s different. “Server” is command “0x95” while CD2/Join is “0x97”. Then on “0x96” there is also “Spotify”.
Not sure if and how the older systems are handling those sources.
For example if you request the N.Radio source from a BC2 it will forward that request to a “source center device” (which is either a BM5 or a BM1).

Gave it a quick try in that BSys3 + BC2 setup here. The BS3 knows that Server and CD2 are audio sources which it will then request from the audio master. Unfortunately the BC2 answers that this source is not available – without making a “source center” request to another device. So likely those sources cannot be used in setups with just an audio master (but with a video master I think it could work).

[B3OHACK3R]

eil047 wrote:

I join the enthusiasm and find this an exciting product and an impressive website!

Great, thanks! 🙂

eil047 wrote:

related to the ML-RJ45 adapter and the ethernet cables: can these fully replace a ‘normal’ MasterLink network, or is this just for the MasterDataTool functionality?

Yes, compatible with normal ML cables. You can easily use them even without the MDT.

eil047 wrote:

I have BS9000 with BS5/BM5 as N.RADIO/N.MUSIC source => how to activate the BS5/BM5 and the MasterDataTool separately?

Good question. One of the setup options I haven’t looked into yet. It can easily replace the BS5 in that setup and feed the “Net” sources into the BS9000. Nevertheless when retaining the setup like that I see two possibilities right now. If you have no TV setup in your ML system – MDT could emulate that. So e.g. the BS9000 can be set up in option 2 and MDT can play and control everything via the TV source for example. Second possibility would be finding out if the BS9000 can handle the “Server” or “CD2” sources which the BS5 should not allocate. Then those could be used by MDT as well. Haven’t tested that yet.

eil047 wrote:

I also have some ‘link rooms’ => how to activate the MasterDataTool there?

Again the TV source could be an easy fix here if all other sources are already reserved by the BS9000 + BS5 combo. If you have a full ML system with several link rooms in your home the MDT can also control single link devices. A scenario that I have in mind: a central MDT that runs multiple instances of the AirPlay emulator software for each linkroom. They are all appearing as AirPlay speakers then and once you selected one it will be automatically switched on. Of course the single-active-source limitation of ML will still be there.

There are many possibilities with the MDT and software will evolve and get easier to use over time. Right now it still requires at least basic software understanding for setting it up and a bit deeper insight if you want customise it for your setup.

Easy to handle out-of-the-box scenarios currently are converting standalone ML linkspeakers and ML music systems (except your mentioned combination) to AirPlay receivers.

[B3OHACK3R]

Yes, exactly. Sounds good.
Don’t forget to mark the polarity of the components when desoldering them. The photoresistor won’t care but the LED certainly will and the two black IR sensors probably as well.

Be careful when removing the black plastic frame. It’S a bit tricky as the display will come off as well. It’s plugged into a two row pin socket connector on the bottom. So disengage the four clips from the bottom and then gently pull it up. You will need some force.

Now when I look at the picture – you might also get away with just replacing C17. It’s a dual footprint. It can either be an SMD or a THT part. Mine was SMD – if yours is THT like in the picture you might be able to replace it using a small tip for your soldering iron. Nevertheless then you are missing out two SMD electrolytic caps that are under the plastic frame. Lower left area close to the red LED in your second picture.
I don’t know which cap is actually causing the problem. I just replaced all three of them and since then everything is working well again.

[B3OHACK3R]

KolfMAKER wrote:

Are the capacitors to be replaced electrolitics or SMC’s?

Yes, they are all SMD while the components you have to desolder for removing the display are through-hole ones.

KolfMAKER wrote:

Do you happen to have a picture of how that PCB looks like?

Unfortunately no, sorry. Forgot to take pictures during that repair.

Guy wrote:

I would probably attempt a more ‘normal’ IR test before stripping it down.

Good point regarding possible issues with test mode in general. Nevertheless the IR reception “strength” itself cannot be adjusted in hardware. It could just ignore certain commands due to software flaws etc. in that mode.

[B3OHACK3R]

XavierItzmann wrote:

That’s a very polished website! Best of luck with sales + customers.

Thanks, happy that you like it. 🙂

BTW there is some stock now. If you are interested please see the link above and let me know there.

I will also do some kind of unboxing and getting started video soon.

 

[B3OHACK3R]

Yes, getting the display out is a bit tricky.
First you have to remove the whole front PCB which is still pretty easy.

The IR related parts are underneath the internal bracket that holds the display in place.
For removing that you have to carefully desolder the red LED, the photo-resistor and the two IR sensors.
Then you can slowly pull it off and get access to the caps. There is also some sticky foam touching that board. Better remove it and give it a proper clean afterwards to prevent future damage.

[B3OHACK3R]

Could be a slowly dying capacitor.

https://beoworld.dev.idslogic.net/forums/topic/beolab-3500-remote-ir-not-working/

[B3OHACK3R]

Madskp wrote:

Anyone knows what to expect about laser durability?

Can’t say much about that. Both of the units here are working. One of them has a pretty low serial number and is in a really bad cosmetic condition. It had the belt issue but the CD drive works well.
One thing to note is that it’s a DVD drive. I think that is also true for the non-video version of the BC2 – but not entirely sure. So not a standard music CD one. It always takes quite a time to spin up and some buffering is also going on I believe. It always feels a bit slow when switching on and when changing tracks. Was the same when they were new. So not a problem of age.

[B3OHACK3R]

As far as I know the pin code is stored in the socket unit.
I have two BC2 here. One with pin code enabled, the other came disabled. I remember connecting the “pin code” head unit to the other socket unit (several un-powered hours in-between). It then didn’t ask for the pin code, so…

Watch out for sticky soft touch paint on the head unit.
Also worth checking the display for signs of wear. The VFD technology used has a limited life-time. If people let it running 24/7 or enabled the standby clock some pixels will be worn out heavily and pretty dim while other will still be bright. While it still functions then it will just look bad.

The wing mechanism tends to stop working properly. Usually caused by a slowly failing rubber belt.

[B3OHACK3R]

Madskp wrote:

So i guess that we can put down any hopes of control options through this connection

Okay, a bit disappointing. So likely for development or (undocumented) service only. There is still the chance that by default it only listens and waits for the right command to be sent. Figuring that out would mean to download and decompile the firmware. Things like that are super time intense and just not worth it for the BS1.

[B3OHACK3R]

pilatomic wrote:

Just curious, how would you recover the firmware from such a device ? Is it still in a separate mask rom like the older B&O products ?

Haven’t looked too closely at the BS1 internals but chances are high that the firmware is stored in an external EEPROM. You could extract it from there using standard tools and then spend countless hours with Ghidra figuring out how the firmware works in detail.

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