Nord User Forum

I just downloaded the E4 and E6 manuals. The bottom of page 2 shows the ETL Listing and CE marks. These indicate Nord certified the safety of these products.
To legally sell their products requires these certifications.
Obtaining certification requires testing and evaluation of safety critical components.
Substitution of a safety critical component invalidates the certification.
Since this is literally a matter of safety of person and property, I must only recommend authorized repair with the parts certified for this product.

pterm wrote:Obtaining certification requires testing and evaluation of safety critical components.
Substitution of a safety critical component invalidates the certification.

I don't think the OP is looking to certify the instrument in Portugal again. Since the instrument IS certified, simply replacing the certified component with one of the same specs will make it just as safe again. Your last statement is simply not true - it may invalidate possible guarantee, but that would be it. Certification involves the instrument type and its production process - not each and every single unit of it.

pterm wrote:I just downloaded the E4 and E6 manuals. The bottom of page 2 shows the ETL Listing and CE marks. These indicate Nord certified the safety of these products.

The entire "UNIT" was certified for safety. Nord did NOT certify each and every capacitor, resistor, diode, rectifier, etc. Those components were certified by the respective manufacturers. If the capacitor is replaced with the same rated capacitor there will not be an issue. A paper cap with the same voltage. farads, and safety rating (X2) is all you need to be concerned with.

Arjan P wrote:I don't think the OP is looking to certify the instrument in Portugal again. Since the instrument IS certified, simply replacing the certified component with one of the same specs will make it just as safe again. Your last statement is simply not true - it may invalidate possible guarantee, but that would be it. Certification involves the instrument type and its production process - not each and every single unit of it.

Good point Arjan. It is Nord who is not allowed to change safety critical components without invalidating their certification. Individual owners can do as they please at their own risk. Thanks for correcting me on this.

JohnT wrote:The entire "UNIT" was certified for safety. Nord did NOT certify each and every capacitor, resistor, diode, rectifier, etc. Those components were certified by the respective manufacturers. If the capacitor is replaced with the same rated capacitor there will not be an issue. A paper cap with the same voltage. farads, and safety rating (X2) is all you need to be concerned with.

I strongly feel your last statement is incomplete and there IS more to be concerned with:

The warning indicator here is that this is a "Safety" cap with Agency Approvals of it's certification. Very few electronics components get certified in this manner, so it is mostly components used in safety critical applications that receive it. The consequences of being wrong means endangering life and property. So I hope to caution the original poster and the forum of the risk they undertake by following such a recommendation.

It is essential to understand components from different manufacturers seldom posses entirely identical characteristics.

We do not know what the original part is, so we cannot know its specifications. We know a value, that it's X2 rated, but little else:
For these capacitors, the list of unknown yet relevant characteristics is large: tolerance, flammability rating, insulation resistance, distance between terminals, and what agency approvals it received, to name a few. Without knowing the exact part used originally, no one can assess the equivalence, and thereby the safety, of any substitute.

If this were a common electronics component (for use at low voltage in normal non-safety application), making a substitution based on a little information entails little risk. In this case, this capacitor is exposed to mains voltages and mains fault conditions and all the hazards that entails. I know the risk is considerably higher here so I refuse to recommend anything but an authorized repair and feel compelled to caution the forum of advice to the contrary.

cgrafx wrote:...a Nord Authorized service center. ANY competent service tech at any electronics repair shop could make this repair.

just a couple words of clarification on this (specifically in relation to the USA market and generally to the rest of the world market with the sole exception, perhaps, of Sweden):

There is no such thing as a Nord Authorized service center. Nord delegates responsibility for these things to their individual exclusive wholesale distributors. In the case of the USA, this is American Music and Sound. They "interview" shops via a two-part application process, one relating to technical capability (what tools, equipment, etc. they have on hand, length of experience and such, and the other on finances). The "official" list of authorized shops was initially populated by AM&S people who have been in the music business for decades and have come to know certain shops by their reputation for quality and reliable service. From the wholesale distributors point of view, they want to be sending their warranty work cases to shops which can be trusted to 1) handle repairs reliably, and 2) not rip them off when presenting their invoices for reimbursement for their warranty services.

Nord, as in the people in Sweden who make these things, does not have the ability (or time) to interview and approve/authorize repair shops globally. Shops which are referred to as "Nord-authorized" and really just shops which the wholesale distributor for that respective country trusts to do quality work.

bless, pablo

"X2" is by definition the "Safety Rating" of the capacitor. The manufacturer must meet certain standards to label their caps as such. Thereby "certifying" them for their intended purpose.

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/techni ... apacitors/

Hello Guys!

Sorry for bring this topic up again, but my life went crazy.... Got divorced and all that complicated process, but now i'm on track and trying to get back to music.
I still have this issue pending... I've just boot up my NE4D after 2 years and it still boots up... even with this transistor/capacitor/something broken...

Can someone point me out on the right direction?

Hi Jo, sorry to ready about your story but hope you are better now... my suggestion is to contact the official distributor for Portugal, which is Adagio Instrumentos Musicales in Barcelona, Phone: +34 93 564 60 12 mail: asantiago@adagio.es (as you can find on Nord official website Distributors page) and ask for the nearest repair shop and/or for an indication of the correct part so that you can have it replaced by an electronics repair workshop nearest to you.