I never turn off my Fantom X8 off. Is that OK?

[Cardinal24]

I never turn off my Fantom X8 off. Is that OK?
.
Over the years I have learned to keep my musical instruments visible and ready. For example, my guitars are not in cases, they are on stands, ready. And so it is with my Roland X8.
I never turn it off.

Well, I'm starting to wonder what knowledgable Roland people think of that.
Of course there is the cost, but I don't know if that is significant.
So, here's my question:
What do you think of never turning my Roland Fantom X8 off?
Thank you

[Artemiy]

It definitely reduces the lifetime of some components.

[Rodan]

While it is true that component lifetime is reduced, one would like to know, reduced from what to what. I have measured the consumption of my X8. It is 12 Watts. This just happens to be equal to what my Powerbook draws when in sleep mode. 12 Watts is low enough that the fan turns off even on very hot days, so we can assume the designers have determined that component lifetime is not adversely effected at this level of dissipation. My powerbook has been on almost continuously for the 5 years that I have had it with no noticeable degradation.

Next look at the Fantom. This has a much larger volume than the powerbook, so unless the Roland engineers are much less skilled than the Apple engineers, we can assume that component temperatures in the Fantom are even lower than in the Powerbook. I will make an educated guess here. The electronics designed where I work would typically be designed for electronic component MTBFs (mean time between failures) of 20-40 years. In a volume roughly that of the powerbook, we would design for a dissipation of 10-20 Watts without fans. I would be surprised if leaving a Fantom on continuously would do anything more than limit the average lifetime to about 40 years. There is one exception, the LCD display. I don't know what the lifetime of the display is, but it might be as little as 5-10 years.

I would suggest that if you are not worried about the 12 Watts of electricity you are using, keep the Fantom on all the time and just expect to replace the LCD display every 10 years or so.

By the way. Let us know how this turns out. If I'm right, we won't hear back from you until 2049!

-Rodan

[Arjan]

It definitely reduces the lifetime of some components.

Most notably the LCD backlight which will get dimmer over time. Other electronic components should be able to surive many years of being turned on assuming Roland picked decent quality components.

my guitars are not in cases, they are on stands, ready. And so it is with my Roland X8.

But it will thank you for putting a keyboard cover on top of it.

[Rodan]

Arjan is exactly right. Short of setting your board on fire, heat is not the problem, its dust and other physical damage.

[Cardinal24]

Well, well ....
This beginner doesn't know what a keyboard cover is. We''ll, I get the idea. Can you provide a link or suggest a brand of a keyboard cover?
Thank you.

[realconcept]

Component lifetime is in fact an issue.

When your Fantom is ON, and you don't play or press any buttons, you might think it is not doing anything and that is stays cool. This is not true. The CPU will continue making computations and scanning the buttons and leds, so it is actually running. It is running less often than while you play, but it is still running. Over time, there is a phenomenon called electromigration that occurs inside the CPU (or any other semi conductor component) that is degrading it. Basically, the electric current that flows inside the tiny circuits inside the CPU moves atoms around and eventually, some the tiny traces that connects everything together inside the CPU will degrade and disconnect. So it could eventually start failling. This phenomenon takes a really long while to occur but still could make it fail after a couple years of being on. I'm pretty sure that the Fantom does not have the kind of software or CPU that can enter a low consumption or sleep mode like a computer does, so I think it could fail sooner than a laptop.

So just to be on the safe side, I'd turn it off if you know you won't use it for say a week. The LCD could start to fade as well and you could eventually loose the backlight. Also, putting a keyboard cover on it while it is on will raise its temperature and will maybe decrease its lifetime. I always leave my instruments off and I don't think waiting a while for them to turn on when I need them is that much of an issue.

So that was just my thoughts!

Phil

[secret Roland agent]

I'm thinking that if you turn your Fantom ON and OFF repeatedly over a long period of time, that you can have the 'best' of both worlds! . . .Hey! Don't mention it! You're very welcome!

sRa

[Arjan]

putting a keyboard cover on it while it is on will raise its temperature

I thought of that but with 12W total power consumption a cover is not going to increase temperature noticably.

Your other comments are not untrue but probably irrelevant in practice for the Fantom. For a device like this I maintain that probably the only component that is going to suffer from keeping it on is the backlight.

Ofcourse that in itself justifies turning it off if you're not going to use it for a long time. I wouldn't fret over keeping it on the whole day but I wouldn't keep it on 24/7. Besides, even saving 12W of power may save a tiny bit of ice on the north pole. Help save the polar bear

I'm pretty sure that the Fantom does not have the kind of software or CPU that can enter a low consumption or sleep mode like a computer does

It doesn't have to, it's in low power mode all the time Seriously though, without knowing the die size you can't really know how hot the CPU/DSP is going to get even with low wattage but my guess is not very hot at all.

[Rodan]

Now you guys got me curious again. Power in a processor depends upon clock speed, but for a given clock speed, the power dissipation depends a lot on the amount of I/O, that is, how much data is being read or written to memory. Since the Fantom is a ROMpler, I suppose it is doing a lot of memory reads when being played versus when idle. So I hooked up the Watt meter again. Got a cheap meter that just reads to the nearest Watt. Result:

No keys being pressed, 12 Watts
Playing normally 12 Watts
Playing fast 12 Watts
Pounding with open hands as fast as possible, multiple keys, sustain pedal 13 Watts!

So it looks like the dissipation can be increased around 5-10% when the Fantom is thinking hard.

I know, I know. I need to find something better to do with my time.
-Rodan

[Septimo]

I've had my FX6 for six years come april... It's probably been on for maybe 4 & 1/2 yrs turned on continuously... Nothings wrong with it or the LCD screen... It's just as bright as my brothers X8 which is like new and he has his always turned off unless he's playing it of course... The only problem I have with the LCD and all of them have it, is the light takes a while to come on fully when it's cold, other than that, it's perfect... But then again why do you think they put screen savers in the systems? Cuz they knew ppl wold leave it on for days and weeks... Not cus they thought the screen might burn if you left to get a sandwich... Now make sure you play it most of the time so you can justify it with the Polar Bears saviors of the world..

My MV88 and XT are on all the time as well.... And only recently with the XT since I started using the XT as my sound card.. ( I'm So glad my M-Audio started making noise cuz the XT blows it out of the water with 0 noise digitally and 0 latency when recording)

If anything, just keep it clean and free from dust so your buttons maintain reliable... Other than that, don't worry about it...

Now some X's have had issues with the LCD going out but that's on individual cases not every LCD they put on is faulty... I'd say out of 100% of the LCDs that are out there maybe 2 or 3 % are bad... But it has nothing to do with all of them.. My Brother in law and I had the same car years ago and he had all sorts of problems with it and I didn't experience none of his issues... I had my own, but none of his... You get my point?

I'll be back in 2049 to give you guys the status of my FX6...

[Arjan]

But then again why do you think they put screen savers in the systems?

I don't think I've ever seen the backlight of the Fantom LCD actually turn off so the screensaver does nothing to improve the life expectancy of the backlight. But it's good to hear that your LCD is still going strong after 4 1/2 years of continuous use, especially as you were able to compare it to your brother's.

Maybe the reason for the screensaver is simply to convince us paranoid users that there is no problem leaving it on, ie Roland knows that the life expectancy of the backlight is actually very good and that leaving it on is really not a problem at all.

[Artemiy]

SAVE THE POLAR SHEEP!!!

[mcaleb]

I remember this topic on another thread a while back. Question is...why in the world will anyone buy used gear from someone who never turns them off...for years.

I guess that is one of the risks in buying 2nd hand. Aside from technicalities, I measure the true life of a keyboard by how long power has been going through it. If one keyboard is turned on for 2 hours a day and another for 24 hours a day. I will much rather put my confidence in the former.

[John Cagle Sr.]

On any piece of electronic equipment, the thing that wears out the components is the heating and cooling of the components. This happens when you switch the system on and off. This debate has gone on in the computer world for quite some time. Any good tech will tell you that the heating, and then cooling off of the resistors, and capacitors,ect., is what causes a system to ultimately fail. At most large offices with many, many workstations; the systems are left running 24/7.
John Sr.