Redlight of Death Repair

[cactikid]

I gave up on mine and sold it off as not working thinking it was caps and reg issue.He came back to buy my old solo and said there was more wrong think he said board and power issue which i have not heard of before.

 

[liveaboard]

All possible; on the other hand, all those problems could be the result of failing capacitors. And we know they fail.

I realize most people would just replace at this point, but I'll try and keep mine going.

 

[cactikid]

Yes but he knew these boxes very well and had done caps before on a few boxes,might see if i can an answer to what he found and post back.

 

[liveaboard]

There must be 50 or 100 of those large capacitors; I suspect they're all bad. Like 20% or more out of spec.
It would be interesting to know if anyone has removed and checked a large number of them.
I have no capacitor tester at the moment [last one went under the tractor, oops...].

 

[cactikid]

He got back to me and quoted this
"Problem was with software(crashed)
Only way download new image is via no modem cable
And power supply problem
5 capacitors needs to replaced
If you replace 1or 2 burst one, not gonna solve problem "

 

[liveaboard]

Thanks for taking the time to check that out.
It squares with what I found too.
I've made a shopping list; I'll order around 60 capacitors, and next time the box dies [which it surely will] I'll change most or all of them.
Yeah, I'm a little bit nuts!
Setup of a new box is not fun for me.

 

[cactikid]

But flashing a new image fairly easy and guides on forum for doing it on a new faster box might be cheaper than loads of caps.

 

[liveaboard]

We live in southern Portugal; a few years ago, Astra launched a new bird with a narrow beam for UK channels, and since then we get zero signal on a 1.8 meter dish.
So I switched to intelsat 907; it has just a few BBC channels, encrypted.
No one is allowed to discuss that here, not even using the site's PM system; other sites have the info, but not specific for VIX or the VU+.

I succeeded, but it took a silly amount of time; and I don't remember what finally did the trick.
We rarely use it anyway. BBC has so few interesting programs, that when there is one we usually miss it.

I ordered around 40 GBP of Panasonic capacitors. I didn't make a precise inventory, just noted the values of most of those used. I could have gotten cheaper ones.
The processor struggles with HD signals + decrypting. if I try and freeze or timeshift, it goes to pot.

Maybe that will be better when/ if I change all the caps?
I'll post it here if that happens. Just in case anyone else is as stubborn as I am.