Need advice from repairers/ those with electronics know how!

[rolfie_boy]

I accidentally pulled a cable out from its socket when opening up my German branded CD-Streamer, and since I had to visit family in Germany anyway, I thought I brought the unit and post it to the manufacturer to get it fixed.  Previous to sending the unit, I've used it for a month or two with the cable temporarily attached using paper clip (see photo) and it worked fine. My other complain of the unit is that the volume sometimes revert to a set minimal from whatever volume that was playing.

Anyway few weeks later I receive an email from the manufacturer stating: ".. It has a lot of errors, and we are pretty sure this was caused by a massive overvoltage, possibly even lightning. The bad news is, that we have to replace the whole electronics board in order to make this work again.."

I find their explanation hard to believe to be honest, but then again my knowledge on the subject is limited.  Won't massive overvoltage render the unit dead as in it can't switch on let alone function? Mine did work despite having had the volume error.  Is their explanation plausible or BS?   Appreciate the opinion of experts here at SNA. Thanks!

 

[tubularbells]

That ribbon cable you circled doesnt look like its fully inserted. To do this gently unclip the black plastic shroud on top of the connector then press in the ribbon as far as it will go into the bottom part and then press down of the black shroud (it should click) to lock in the ribbon.

 

As for the board errors partial damage caused by overvoltage may cause the issues you've described but I tend to think there just being a bit lazy and doing the old board swap to make it an easy fix for them and an expensive repair for you.

[rolfie_boy]

Thanks, Doug! .   Reading between the lines, an overvoltage (depending how big the deviation is I guess) would not necessarily rendered the unit totally dead. It could still function but with some small error/ partial damage. Got It.

[Monkeyboi]

Hmmm..... an interesting fault.  Does it function correctly if the commands are sent from the remote control or using the smartphone app?  That ribbon cable only connects the jog wheel on the upper panel to the mainboard.  I suspect as @tubularbells said the ribbon cable probably isn't correctly inserted into the connector on the board.  It looks like it might be on a slight angle and is either shorting out and / or not making proper connection.  This could explain the symptoms you are having with the unit.  The other explanation is the small board that has the jog wheel on it has a faulty optical or mechanical encoder on it.  Yes, they can and do fail.  Simple replacement if it is by a tech experienced in replacing these parts.

 

While it is entirely possible the fault might have been caused by a voltage surge that has corrupted the programming of the unit, normally such events are more catastrophic than just affecting one function.  A full mainboard replacement would probably be as costly as replacing the entire unit.  Unfortunately, the modus operandi of many service centres is to swap out entire boards for various reasons.  The common motives are they are unable to identify the faulty component, for economic reasons (usually time involved in finding and rectifying the fault), inadequate skills to diagnose to component level or simply company policy.

 

Have you tried resetting the unit to Factory Defaults (all your custom settings will be deleted) as per Page 17 of the user manual?  This might clear the fault if everything else is okay.  Remember before doing this you might want to record all your wi-fi, network and other preferences before doing this so you can easily restore them after the reset.

 

If that doesn't work I'm happy to take a look at it for you but you'd have to post the unit to my workshop.  If that is a course of action you think you'd like to pursue, PM me for details.