Did I fry my case, my modules, nothing or both?

Hey,

yesterday I was about to make a small video that showcases various modules I wanted to sell.
I could not find the power supply of my Palette 62HP and used a 12V universal adaptor instead.
Everything worked fine until I plugged a Noise tools : all of the other modules stopped flashing and the Noise started to make a lot of buzz sounds. I unplugged everything and now it seems that any module produces this sound. I can't say what's broken exactly and the various threads were too complicated for me to understand.

Do you have any idea what could be wrong? Someone is supposed to buy several modules from me today and I sincerely don't want to sell something I'm not sure is working properly.

Thanks in advance!

Any answers you'll be able to get to this will be wild guesses unfortunately, without being able to lay hands on the equipment in question with some test gear to find out what's gone wrong. That said, my guess from your description is that something went wrong in the power supply, since it seems to affect all modules, not just a specific one. I'd guess that using a 12V input instead of the 15V intellijel calls for meant it pulled more current from the input to make up the power difference, and as you loaded it up that accumulated too high and cooked something.

EDIT: oh, or it's also possible that the 12v universal adapter you used might not have been able to supply the current the rack wanted and cooked that adapter instead

Thanks a lot for your answer! Do you happen to know the kind of place I could go to and ask to test the devices? Or is that something I should try myself? Oh also, can I safely plug one of the modules to another rack to check that they work safely?

Thanks again

I would probably start with just a multimeter and test the rack itself, empty, for +12, -12, +5 where they're all supposed to be. If any of them are way out of whack, that's probably your problem. Given your source was only 12v in, it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that it failed in a way that damaged modules, so you probably got lucky there. Plugging them into another rack is a pretty good way to test them, and from what you've described so far i'd probably just be bold and go for it testing the modules (one at a time though) - but keep an eye for obvious trouble as you power it up and be ready to pull the input power quickly if needed!

Alright, I found someone nice enough to let me try my modules with their rack: they work perfectly! I'll try to get a 15V alimentation tomorrow before going to the repairman ✌️

Buzzing, hm? That would localize the issue to the AC-DC conversion, and it sounds like a component failed in that 12V wallwart...which isn't too surprising, since the requirement for 15V is based on a step-down that translates that to the various DC busses and since wallwarts are often horrid little pieces of cheapo crap. But if you power it with 12V, you're pushing the DC-DC converters in the synth's power supply really hard, as that's not the voltage the P/S is expecting. The result is that even if you specced the build for the power capacity of that Palette 62 and had everything added up correctly, the 12V wart is lowering the current available, which also appears to be playing a part here. Betcha if you put that 12V wart on a scope now, you'll see quite a bit of AC getting past the rectification.

Things like this are why bunches of us make a point of saying to NOT overrun the DC specs...which includes the external wallwart needed for the DC busses. Always spec your available current at at least 3/4ths of what the manufacturer says is the maximum current draw to avoid the ugly surprise of inrush currents popping the fuse (and ONLY the fuse...if you're lucky!) or causing other trouble. And that also goes for the Intellijel's onboard DC-DC conversion; if the specs for the Palette 62 says it wants to see a 40 watt wart, put a 60 watt one on it instead. Since the Palette 62 doesn't need the extra 20 watts, what that'll do is to let the bigger wallwart loaf along at 2/3rd's of the maximum draw at the DC end. And loafing P/Ss is what you want, as that reduces the component heat, which makes the wallwart happy and far less susceptible to kicking off due to a current overdraw.