I have a little problem, i have just bought another empeg (search for 18months and then two arrive at once!), this time only a 6gb, with a view to upgrading this one to a flash drive first,

serial No is 080000166, empeg car,

i bought it on that auction site, in the listing it said 'spares or repairs, powers up but i don't know how to use it',

well it doesn't, upon questioning the seller, it appears it did power up when last fitted in a vehicle he bought...5yrs ago. since then it's been in his garage.

i've connected it up with the power supply, and through the sled, even wiring direct to the connector on the back of the rio to eliminate faulty wiring as the cause, but still no joy, no lights, no spin up, nothing,

any idea's what i can try next?

i'm no computer tech, but being an ex service engineer, i can quite happily pull things apart to investigate, and 99% of the time put it back together again, so i'm fairly comfortable with having a further poke around, I've only gone as far as removing the top and facia so far, and might need a little advice on the best way to remove the disc drive tray, but otherwise... hit me with it!

(in plain langauge for a simpleton please!)

Hugh

ps, the good news is that the first empeg i bought last week (rio car), works 100%, hooked it up to the surround sound in the living room and had a play earlier, awesome piece of kit!

anyone? please?

i've searched the faq's but can't find anything that seems to relate to why it might not be powering up.

thanks.
hugh

If you really need help to remove the disk tray, then I suggest you might want to send it to somebody else for repair!

Or just undo the four little screws on the outside of the chassis, two on each side, that hold the tray in place.

If there are no LEDs on at all, even inside, then check both the AC adapter and the internal empeg power supply circuit. There are some red jumpers near the 5.0 and 3.3 volt supplies, which you can remove (jumpers) to isolate the power regulators from the rest of the empeg. Then measure voltages at the pins where the red jumpers once were.

Cheers

And since you have a known-good working unit at hand, you can use it to compare voltages at various points with the dead one, to isolate the failure point.

Cheers

You may also find useful tips in my earlier thread on Debugging dead empeg PSU circuitry, if you don't see +3.3V and/or +5.0V at the red jumper points.

lol, i hadn't actually looked past the tray, so hadn't looked at how it came off, just didn't wanna go about it the wrong way, much equipment i used to repair had be taken apart in a certain order or you'd end up with all sorts of trouble!

thank you for the replies though, as soon as i finish my year end accounts (what a drag!) i'll test the unit.

thanks again!
Hugh

Once you have removed the tray screws, be careful lifting the tray out -- the hard disk cable runs under the tray to the header on the mainboard, and is VERY SHORT. And the header is VERY FRAGILE.

So just lift the tray up enough that you can reasonably grab onto the disk cable connector underneath, and gently unplug it from the mainboard header.

Most empeg troubles are due to fatigue on that header, so due care is needed here to avoid adding new failures to the already dead machine!

Cheers

ok, thank you, are spares available anywhere if the cable / anything needs replacing?

thanks.
HUgh

Spare cables are available, but you really don't want to damage that header. Just be nice to it, that's all.

Note that the current symptoms are due to something else.

Cheers

I think more people get into trouble putting Empegs back together, than they do taking them apart. You need to be super-careful that you put the ribbon cables back on correctly; being off-by-one on the drive cable means it won't boot until you fix it, but being off-by-one on the front-panel cable will blow a fuse, necessitating a surface-mount repair job.

Peter

thanks guys, for now i'll just see if i can test the voltages without removing the disk tray. if i have to then at least i now know the pitfalls!

Hugh

If you do try to remove the disk tray, the procedure is detailed here.

hi people,

have had the player apart again today, no joy.

there is power on the white 4pin connector which runs to the car docking plug, there's power there too (since it clearly leads from the white plug)

i don't have the olages written infront of me, but from memory there was (from left to right)12v, neg, 12v, 9v. and a number of 12v and 8-9v reading from the connectors on the car dock plug, and the two white connectors beneath it.

i removed the jumpers (blue 5v and red 1v?) but there was no power there, just residual mV readings. there are no led's lit inside the empeg either.

as a next step i was considering getting some even finer soldering tips than i currently use .7mm) and just retouching all the solder joints around the power in (white plug) circuits, many problems i've discovered with things over the years were down to simple dry joints, is this something that's likely to be the case here?

if i can't find the problem myself, is there anyone repairing these still? the FAQ stuff looks pretty old now, but last it mentioned was that the guy was into a years wait or more.

cheers.
Hugh

Stu (Eutronix) repairs them as part of his business.

When all else fails, I currently act as the "repairs of last resort" person -- for the really difficult fixes that stump others.

Cheers

Here's a photo of the area just north of the PSU components.

The pair of blue jumpers (upper left) should measure 5.0 - 5.5VDC. If not, remove the jumpers, and measure from the right-hand pair of pins there. If still not, then the 5V supply is not working.

The single black jumper (upper right) beside that metal tab thingie is for the +3.3V supply. Again, it should measure about 3.3VDC. If not, remove the jumper and measure from the topmost pin. If still not 3.3V, then the 3.3V supply is not working.

That'll do for starters..

thanks Mlord,

this might be a silly question, but i notice you say measure from the right or top pin, where are you grounding / earthing the neg side of your meter? I was simply puting neg and pos on each pin, expecting there to be a current flowing, i can't see why i'd need to ground elsewhere, but let me knwo if i do!

thanks.
Hugh

Seriously, if that's your knowledge of a multimeter and electronics, possibly you shouldn't be digging around inside an empeg.

Current and voltage are entirely different things and if you don't understand that you could potentially break it further.

The voltage will be referenced to ground. The metal case is most likely ground or that screw in the picture where it screws down on the PCB should be ground.

The meter should be on a voltage range (not current).

The reason Mark said use the "right" pin is because that will be the output of the supply. Disconnecting the jumper isolates it so that if there are faults/shorts elsewhere they won't affect things. An isolation test.

Use the positive (red) probe on the pins suggested, and touch any ground point (eg. the metal case of the empeg) with the negative (black) probe.

But really, this makes me suspect that I should stop helping here, as it sounds very likely that this activity could further destroy the player.

EDIT: but do report back with your findings, and we'll see.

Cheers

shonky / Mlord, it was a silly reply on my part, i'm not a technical genius, but just wanted to check,

when testing the majority of voltages on the plugs, i was grounding to the neg pin on the power input, but laterly wondered whether that in itself might give me an odd reading, it's been a while since i messed about with electrical stuff to find faults, prob 6-7yrs+ now, like everything else, if you stop doing something everyday, it soon loses it's 2nd nature status and you have to begin thinking again! re testing the pins, it was just a case of brain not in gear, i'll check em again later.

i'll let you know

Using the negative of the power supply pin should be fine since as far as I'm aware there aren't any fancy isolated supplies inside the empeg. That screw or the case are probably easier to access though.

hi mlord.

finally found the time to check the voltages on the jumpers, here's the results...

i put the posi probe on the pin, and the neg on the outer casing of the psu plug, a couple of strange things happened when the probe pin touched both the psu input and empeg case together,

i'll try to explain...

when i simply go + to the jumper and - to the black neg wire on the pcb power in (big white rear right - screen facing you) it reads 9.4v, this is on 3v and 5v jumpers.

now, if i use the outer side of the psu plug to ground the _ probe, the same readings are apparent, but, if i let the - probe touch the chassis, it seems to damp the voltages down to what they should be. a small red surface mount led comes on (forward right corner) and a blue led (facing outward from rear centre).

nothing else seems to happen though, no boot screen, power up, etc.

my wild guess might be that there's an earthing fault somewhere?

any idea's welcomed!

regards.
Hugh

Try again, and ignore the PSU plug. Just measure the voltages from the +5 and +3.3V supply jumper posts, with the black probe touching ONLY the empeg chassis (the steel case).

Ah.. waitasec.. blown fuse, I think.

Between the AC-Adapter jack, and the +3.3V jumper, is a flat-ish silver thing. This is a 2.5A fuse, which connects the negative contact of the AC-Adapter jack to the ground of the empeg.

It has two contacts where it is soldered to the board. Measure the resistance across the two contacts (should be zero ohms, but probably isn't in this case).

-ml

thanks mlord,

will check it later, do i need to remove the pcb or can i test those flat parts either end? (not fussed but no point removing unless i need too! )

thanks.
Hugh

No need to remove the pcb just to test it. In the photo above, the two contacts are at the top and bottom. Use nice skinny probes to avoid shorting the top probe onto the face of the fuse (won't hurt anything, but also won't test it properly).

If the fuse is indeed bad as it appears to be, then the whole pcb will have to come out to remove it and solder on a new one.

I don't know where to get the exact same fuse from, but it has a part number on the top surface, and is a 2.5A fuse. At worst, one could just get a regular axial lead style of micro fuse and solder that upright onto the pads.

Cheers

thank you Mark,

Hugh

right, not sure it was the most accurate way to do it, ie, my probes aren'y the smallest, so i fixed a scalpel blade to the probe to get at the side next to the chassis, it may have affected the reading, but i'm getting a 9.5 to 10.1 ohm across the fuse.

i did notice that the front screen comes on if i short the neg of the plug to the chassis, so being rather impatient i plugged the drive back in and... it booted just fine, all the menu's and playlists are there, so just this power problem to cure now!

Try just shorting the fuse itself (contact to contact), deliberately. Does everything also work when doing just that?

The one next to the chassis is unimportant -- it is the same as just touching the top of the fuse. The side furthest from the chassis is the trickier one to get at, but not bad.

Remeasure without the scalpel attachment ?

i think i'll have to take the board out as i can't get the probes in there. will try shorting the fuse first though.

reading on the fuse is now 12ohm, i'm getting a continuity through it, i think (perhaps i'm still touching the casing or something), probably best if i take the pcb out tomorrow and do it properly.

cheers.
HUgh

edit, now only reading 2.9 - 3ohm ?

edit again...
shorting the fuse doesn't seem to do it