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You are here: Home / Archives for repair

Repairing a Dell 1800FP Power supply

2016/07/12 By staze

1800FP PSUI have an ancient Dell 1800FP monitor at work that is used for a print release station (users swipe their cards, select their print job, and print it). This monitor runs 24/7, and has probably been running for next to 2 years pretty much solid. The other day, we had a power outage in the middle of the night, and when we came in the next morning and tried to turn the monitor on, it wouldn’t turn on (nothing). Knowing no other option than to try to fix it, I opened it up, and checked the voltage rails (12V and 5V). Both were pulsing on and off about once a second, and the power supply could be heard “ticking”.

I took the unit home (where I have a better setup for soldering/repair) and found several dry/cracked solder joints. Fluxing and reflowing those, however, didn’t fix the issue. Checking the main output caps all showed good as well (ESR all 0.0ohms on my blue meter). Thinking about it some more (what it was doing), it SOUNDED like it was basically starting up over and over again. So I checked the control chip, ICE2AS01 (this seems to be the primary failure on these units), IC901, and it looked fine (no short between ground and VCC). But then I checked its decoupling cap (C907, 47uF 50v): 27ohms ESR. Huh. The decoupling cap (C924, 33uF 25V) for the opto-isolator showed 4ohms ESR. I pulled both, and checked them again (with my DER DE-5000). C924 checked out relatively okay… 4ohms, 30uF (certainly a bit high on the ESR, but the capacitance was within spec). C907, however, was WAY off. ESR measured at 28ohms, and capacitance at 8uF. That’s more resistor than capacitor at this point. Digging through my old boards, I found another monitor supply board that had an exact replacement for C907 (47uF, 50v), and a close replacement for C924 (39uF, 35V). Both fit, and both measured close to 0.1ESR. MUCH better. I popped both in, soldered, and fired the unit up. No clicking, and solid 12V and 5V rails.

Yay, job done. So, while the power outage may not have helped, I’m guessing the unit was probably in this state for a while, and the fact that it was power cycled was the issue. Once that ICE2AS01 is up and running, that decoupling cap probably doesn’t overly matter. But on startup, it’s needed, and there just wasn’t the capacitance there to actually get the IC fired up.

Anyway, this is obviously another failure mode of these old units. And remember, just because there is no sign of bulging for venting doesn’t mean a cap isn’t bad. Just means it may have not failed quite so catastrophically as to vent.

Filed Under: Electronics Tagged With: 6870T445D10, C907, C924, Dell 1800FP, IC901, LG, PSU, repair

Repairing two Ubiquiti Toughswitch Pro 8’s

2016/05/31 By staze

ts_8poe_proI recently purchased two listed-as-broken Ubiquiti Toughswitches off eBay for $65. They were listed as not working, unable to boot. They admitted very little troubleshooting had been done to the units, but I couldn’t pass up the price since I’d been looking for one of these switches, but they sell for more than I wanted to pay, and a friend also wanted one, so I figured I’d sell it to him if I got both working. Buying them, I figured there were two likely causes. One being a firmware corruption, and they just need to be re-flashed using their tftp mode, or two being the power supplies had failed (power surge, lightning strike, wear and tear, etc). I know from research that these switches have an internal AC/DC power supply that supplies the switch board with 48V, which I can replicate easily enough on my bench. It seems it’s not that uncommon for people to replace those internal PSUs with DC/DC converters for use in wireless installs that only have DC available, but that’s not what I’ll be dealing with here, hopefully.

The unit’s were delivered on Memorial day (oddly), and initial inspection showed no power up at all, and no ground continuity between the ports and the power ground. Huh. I opened both units, and found the failure modes to be completely different. On one unit, the power supply was dead. The fuse had blown (easy to replace), and the main SMPS chip, a TEA1755T was cracked. The failure was bad enough that it blew the trace off the ground connection. So I ran some 20AWG wire from the ground to the screw so there was a good ground again. I ordered and replaced the TEA1755T and the power supply started working again. Sadly, the switch board also had an issue, but more on that in a bit.

On the second unit, the PSU was good, but the LM5005 buck regulator that takes the 48V input from the PSU and converts to 24V was blown (complete with a hole in it). I ordered a replacement and replaced it, but man, TSSOP chips suck to replace. Once that was replaced…

One the first unit again, supplying power to it (even with a bench PSU), results in a hissing sound from the Buck Regulator section, but a clean 24V output from the regulator. But, none of the unit starts up, as I don’t see anything on the main oscillator, and the unit certainly doesn’t boot. Tracing down where the 5V/3.3V rail comes from was a bit of a challenge, but it originates from…

Filed Under: Electronics, Sys Admin Tagged With: PoE, repair, TS-8-Pro, Ubiquiti

Amscope SE400-Z Review

2016/05/16 By staze

Amscope SE400-ZAfter moving my workbench, I’ve been buying tools that I couldn’t otherwise have used in my old space. One of the last things I needed was a stereo-microscrope for doing SMD work. Some looking around quickly pointed me to the Amscope SE400-Z, which gets great reviews, is affordable ($185 on Amazon as of today). I had a bunch of Amazon credit, and rewards, to I used those and the total was only $115. Two days later, Ontrac delivered the scope in a pretty small, but weighty, box. The unit goes together quite easily (especially if you’ve seen pictures, or any reviews online). The manual, for whatever reason is password protected from download, but the access code was on the side of the box rather than in the included pamphlet. The manual, however, is pretty useless.

The scope as a whole is quite nice. I’m haven’t used for much SMD re-work at this point, but it seems like it should work very well for everything I might do. While a continuously zoomable scope, on a boom or arm would be nice, but I don’t really have a good space for one and didn’t want to spend the $500+ for one. =/ Same goes for a trinocular (camera) port.

The base of the scope is pretty stout, but could be a bit heavier. It’s ferrous, so you can slap a magnetic parts tray to it, and put screws, etc in that. The gooseneck light is great, and allows for moving the light to just the right angle to see SMD markings (which are often laser-etched, and aren’t legible in direct light). I do use the microscope without my glasses on, and it looks very clear. The working distance is great, but I will need to figure out a good working surface for some boards since they don’t always lay on the bench “flat”, or study enough to allow soldering. Which is my only complaint. Although the working distance on the unit is very good, I do wonder about any kind of clamping I’ll have to do on double-sided boards. I may need to invest in some low profile clamping (either something cheap like this, or a couple Hakko Omnivise‘s).

The scope does sit on my bench well enough that I can use it seated from my stool. My bench height is 33 inches, and I’m medium height, so it should work for most people. Rough focusing for your working height is done by moving the horizontal arm height up and down, then fine focusing is done via the knobs. The optics are very good for a scope this price, and really made me realize the finish difference between the cheap eBay/Amazon tweezers, and the good WIHA ones I have. Yeah, I’m probably going to need more tweezers at some point. =/

All and all, I’d highly recommend at this time. It’ll be interesting to see how well it survives. It feels very sturdy, but I do have a toddler, so it will have to get that test. =)

[xrr rating=4.5/5]

UPDATE 1 (6/1/2016): I have since soldered a QFP64 package using the Amscope, and holy cow, it’s awesome. Previously, doing this by eye (and I have pretty good close up vision), it was a pain. I was basically drag soldering, then cleaning up the bridged pins, and then running a blade between the pins to make sure things were clear. With the scope, and actually being able to see the pins, it was MUCH simplier. What used to take 5-10 minutes of fidgeting, took maybe 2 minutes, at most? I’ll certainly never go back to unaided soldering of small SMD components again. =)

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: Electronics, Microscope, repair

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