I recently tried to use mine after several years of it sitting around, and realized it didn't work anymore. No lights would come on when it was plugged in. It acted like it was completely dead. Thought I'd share my fix in case it helps someone else.
I opened it up -- very brittle plastics, by the way -- and found that the single through-hole electrolytic cap on the board had leaked out the bottom.
I cleaned it all up and replaced the capacitor. The original was a 560 uF 6.3V cap, but I didn't have that exact value on hand. I did have a 470 uF 10V cap though. Ehh, close enough. I'm probably a terrible person for doing that...oh well.
I plugged it in, and it still didn't work! No lights, nothing. So I got out my multimeter and traced things out. The input 12V power from the AC adapter comes into the bottom pin on that connector next to the cap. I tried to find anything else that had continuity with it on either side of the board, but I found nothing.
Taking a bit more time to investigate carefully, I noticed there's a via right under the connector that goes into the input pin of an LM3578A switching regulator (U8). I did more checking to make sure I wasn't confused, but I'm very sure that's where 12V is supposed to go on the board. It's the via just to the bottom right of the 8 in the U8 silkscreen text. The cap goo must have rotted it out on the top side of the board. I can't see it because it's underneath the connector, but I have no other explanation. That via is very close to the cap.
There's no easy way to run a bodge wire from the connector to the other side of the PCB. It's pretty cramped in there. So instead, I de-pinned the 12V input wire from the connector, cut off the crimped pin, brought it out separately to the other side of the PCB, and soldered it to a convenient place where it would have a lot of mechanical support. Don't mind my dirty-looking solder joints on the replaced cap. I fixed them afterward.
Now it works great again. I had to superglue the case shut because of the plastic breaking like crazy inside of it.
If you have one of these, you should open it up and recap it before it's too late!
I opened it up -- very brittle plastics, by the way -- and found that the single through-hole electrolytic cap on the board had leaked out the bottom.
I cleaned it all up and replaced the capacitor. The original was a 560 uF 6.3V cap, but I didn't have that exact value on hand. I did have a 470 uF 10V cap though. Ehh, close enough. I'm probably a terrible person for doing that...oh well.
I plugged it in, and it still didn't work! No lights, nothing. So I got out my multimeter and traced things out. The input 12V power from the AC adapter comes into the bottom pin on that connector next to the cap. I tried to find anything else that had continuity with it on either side of the board, but I found nothing.
Taking a bit more time to investigate carefully, I noticed there's a via right under the connector that goes into the input pin of an LM3578A switching regulator (U8). I did more checking to make sure I wasn't confused, but I'm very sure that's where 12V is supposed to go on the board. It's the via just to the bottom right of the 8 in the U8 silkscreen text. The cap goo must have rotted it out on the top side of the board. I can't see it because it's underneath the connector, but I have no other explanation. That via is very close to the cap.
There's no easy way to run a bodge wire from the connector to the other side of the PCB. It's pretty cramped in there. So instead, I de-pinned the 12V input wire from the connector, cut off the crimped pin, brought it out separately to the other side of the PCB, and soldered it to a convenient place where it would have a lot of mechanical support. Don't mind my dirty-looking solder joints on the replaced cap. I fixed them afterward.
Now it works great again. I had to superglue the case shut because of the plastic breaking like crazy inside of it.
If you have one of these, you should open it up and recap it before it's too late!
