my empeg seems almost totally dead

so, my empeg had been acting up on me for a while and now it's totally out of commission. in the past, the unit would power on and occasionally get "stuck" in what appeared to be standby mode... where the LED would pulse evenly and slowly and it would do nothing else, no matter how many buttons were pressed or held in.

now, that is ALL the unit will do. when i have it in the car or at home on the AC adapter it will accept power but do nothing else... the red LED inside the case and the blue LED at the rear will blink evenly and regularly almost every two seconds, but nothing else will happen.

the hard disk sounds like it spins up, but nothing else happens.

i'm seeking a null modem cable in order to check things out in Hyper Terminal (i've connected before, can't find the cable now. arg)

any thoughts on what this might be?

Until we get that serial trace, we'd just be finger-in-the-air guessing. Remember that if you use Hyperterminal, you should use the Capture Text feature.

well, i managed to find my null modem cable. but now utterly nothing works. hooked it up to HyperTerminal (which has functioned for me plenty of times in the past) and i get nothing. i power off and power back on by pulling the cord and i get nothing.

even the red LED inside the case and the blue LED at the rear don't blink anymore. they just remain on, solid, whenever there is power applied. is my empeg likely fully dead?

(strange that the lights would stay on solid now, no? they were blinking right up until moments earlier when i disconnected power and hooked up the null modem cable)

well, now we're back to the two LEDs blinking at a regular interval (about two seconds) but nothing else. the led on the front face no longer is pulsing. HyperTerminal still shows nothing.

You didn't have a loose screw shorting stuff out in there, did you?

Have you opened the player carefully and looked for cables or connectors that have worked loose?

If we manage to get you past the "check the connectors" phase and things are still b0rked as described above.. then this sounds like a case where you might want to package it up and send it to me for repair.

But let's see about the cables and connections first.

no, it does not appear to be that. I'm quite comfortable taking the cover off and poking around inside (i've upgraded the hard disks in the past) and i cannot find anything of the sort right now.

In fact, not long ago my roommate surprised me by giving the unit a total teardown and Rid-Ox treatment, then a rebuild (back when it was acting just "funny" as opposed to "dead") and that seemed to make it happy for some time.

I trust him even more than me when it comes to things like circuitry, reflow and rework, etc. So the idea of something loose rattling around in there without either of is seeing it is remote.

i have only one drive and a single head cable, so no loose whatnot could be the problem there, either.

i've even tried power the empeg on with no IDE cable connected... and without the display board cable, either. in all cases it seems borked and HyperTerm shows nothing still.

are you Eutronix or a separate outfit? heh, if the former... you've had my unit in the past (for a rotary encoder)

I can't tell what's wrong with your unit without taking a look or seeing the hyperterminal output, but if the red LED was ever flashing that would possibly indicate a power issue as it should just turn on and stay on.

You might want to send it to someone experienced with sick Empegs as Mark suggested. Mark is one option and is located in Canada. Eutronix is another and is located in the US. They are totally separate entities.

Stu

I am Mark Lord, as you can see from my profile.
Eutronix is maczrool/Stu, who posted above.

Stu handles nearly all repairs and upgrades these days, whereas I am simply the repair of last resort guy. If Stu can't fix it, then I will.

But I only take on the dirty, broken, complicated repairs, not routine stuff. Except in cases of Canadian residents, for whom I'll take on anything empeg related, to save them cross-border shipping hassles.

Cheers

well... we're definitely looking at a "blink" situation of the LEDs almost 100% of the time now. so, given that it appears to be a power issue, i'd consider shipping it out.

and yes, i was confused, it wasn't Mark who had it last. I had sent it in to Eutronix. think you folk would be the best option again this time around?

(or, should i save everyone the time, trouble, and shipping delay by just asking right now... is there any chance this is likely to be repaired for under $150? because for that amount i might opt to purchase a different head unit and try some other things in my vehicle.)

Have you tried it with a known-good (external) power supply?

Peter

I think empegs are about that much right now. ymmv
Why change? Just get a couple spares!

hmm... so if i love having an empeg, what do folk think is my best (read: cheapest) option to repair/replace it? personally, i'd like to send it to Eutronix and say "here... can you get this thing working or replaced for $150"

Stu, what are the odds we could wrangle something like that? i've got a 250 GB disk in mine right now that i never did quite get to work correctly, maybe i'll even have the luxury of that functioning, too!

(or do i ask too much from this fragile, imperfect world?)

Stu is definitely your best shot. If anyone can get it working again, it's him. Knowing that, I'm sure that any price he charges is reasonable. If I needed him to fix my player, I'd be willing to pay quite a bit, because my player is quite precious to me. Whether his price is within your particular budget, well, I hope that you and Stu can work something out to your satisfaction. Stu's a good guy, he'll do his best for you.

then i'll email him and try to let him take another whack at it. i know we've corresponded in the past, long long ago.

he was able to do an amazing hacky repair job on my rotary encoder... vibrations and such had gotten so bad that the entire knob had cracked off the board (taking the solder pads with it and everything) and he was able to run thin traces of copper wire to replace the missing circuit pathways. it's just what i would have done in such a desperate situation if i had steadier hands and a good work station.

Bad Power supply?


Ross

I seem to recall that he said the issue was both in the car and in the house on AC power.

Ah, missed that. Thanks.

Ross

Fixed. Two open display fuses.

Stu

Awesome. Wish we knew what made those display fuses decide to go poof on their own every once in a while.

I know why these did; just didn't mention it. The pins were off by a row.

Stu

Given the display fuse on my Mk1 randomly died last weekend, and I'm on the other side of the world, maybe it is the fault of the recent solar flares.

On a more serious note, is there anywhere I can get replacement fuses? Digikey appears to be sold out, and I don't really think it's worth shipping my empeg overseas to get fixed. Alternately, would it be possible to wire in an M205 fuse such as this instead of the SMD fuse without any nasty side affects?

You can't link to the DSE website directly. An M205 fuse is 20mm long x 5mm in diameter. Massive compared to what you are replacing. That said, if rated appropriately it would work but it would be a very very ugly fix. You should be able to get a closer replacement from Farnell or RS. It will cost more and possibly there's a minimum order but I would do that long before trying to kludge an M205 in there.

e.g. something from here. At the very bottom 4c each for some older parts that are obsoleted. Might cost you $10 in postage.

Farnell NZ search here

I've got a fair number of SMD fuses. I could send you a few if interested in those.

Stu

Ah, so you can't, my bad


I realise it isn't an optimal solution, but I thought if I ran a couple of wires off it I could place an M205 Fuse in a fuse holder somewhere else inside the case such that if it blew again it would be a simpler replacement than SMD soldering.

That said though, I'll give Farnell a try first. I guess it's taken around ten years to blow, and I can probably afford to replace it every ten years.

Also thanks for the offer Stu, I'll try Farnell first since shipping should be cheaper and faster hopefully.

Farnell have minimum orders and the like. Probably $10 minimum order and then something like $15 postage. So not cheap. Order some batteries or something to get to the minimum order.

Stu's generous offer though would be a good way to go. They could just drop in a regular envelope for $1 or so postage even from the US.

Well, my fuse replacements arrived yesterday (Thanks so much to Stu, If you're ever down this way I owe you a beer). However, despite very carefully attempting to remove the hot glue holding the drive cable in place with a scalpel, unfortunately it still came off with the cable, ripping two of the adjacent capacitors off their legs too I got the fuse soldered in place and removed the old capacitor legs off the board, so now I need to find some replacement caps.

The capacitors have written on them "35v" and underneath "22", so I assume they're 22uF 35v capacitors. Mind you they also have written 85c, (m) and 214, but I'm guessing thats maximum temperatures and some sort of product ID.

Can anyone confirm the values of these capacitors? If anyone has the datasheet for an MK1 it's C91 and C95. I've attached a couple of images showing where the caps came from and what they look like (excuse the quality, I'm at work so they were taken with a webcam).

Yes, you're correct, they're 22u/35V electrolyte capacitors. Just remember, when you install them, install them the correct way around. They are polarized.

Stig

Awesome, thanks, I'll see if I can't source some tomorrow.

did you ever find some? (I'm assuming you did) -- if I would have seen this thread earlier, I would have just mailed you some. I have those on my bench.

Rats. I need to log in here more often.

-Ben

Yeah, I managed to get fuses from Stu, and I found some capacitors at an electronics store which were a similar form factor, a little taller than the original ones but they did the trick.