Samsung wirless rear surround speakers let out the magic smoke! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2017, 05:49:04 pm
content: So, I watch the you tube channel religiously and have never posted here. I figured, why throw this out and not have surround... it's gotta be a blown cap or something... Well this is pretty damn obvious what happened. No caps are bulging or anything (the whole unit is like 2 years old MAX). Well, I opened it up and found some nice black spots. Looks like I can easily replace the broken components, but i'd like a second opinion. PLUS I think they're resistors but they're stuck to the board with this opaque yellow glue crap that I can't get off without destroying the caps it's attached it. I'm not sure how the attaching of images works here so i'm just going to see how it goes and then link to the full 15MP images on my personal webspace.The black spot on the back aligned with the burnt looking resistors on the front side of the board seemed like the obvious issue. Nothing else was discolored or weird looking.While I'm editing the images, i'll mention that i have something that looks like it could be a little bit of corrosion between two solder joints, but I don't know. I have two soldering irons, but no heat control maybe it's time to get an actual solder station and some solder removing wick if I'm going to replace these components. Maybe I'll remove the solder off of the the joints on the back and put fresh solder on there and see if that fixes the issue. I'm not sure if it's corrosion or heat transfer grease.My room mate and I would randomly hear a buzzing sort of sound from the rear surround speakers but figured it was interference, then one day we smelled the electric smoke and narrowed it down to this thing. I also have a GREAT TV that if I have since replaced, but the boards online are $150+ each and there is no way to easily know which needs to be replaced and, hell, it could he a friggin cap. It's a Sharp Aquos that I bought a long time agoand it's a great TV I don't want to throw away. Watching so many things where it's a single $1 part that fixes everything is just amazing. ll take apart and look for the telltale marks of component death and go from there.If you could help tell me if i'm totally off (doubt it, i mean it's like super obvious whats broken), but then tell me the values of the resistors if that's what they are. I work on computers not the components, sorry. And where the hell to buy these parts. Also how to remove the glue stuff and if I should just replace the three caps and burnt out parts in the same vicinity at the same time. Just de-solder them all and replace them all.OR if there is an easy way to test the caps with a basic crappy multimeter would he of great help. I have no fancy electronic testing tools.It's a Samsung Model: SWA-6000HELP!EDIT: All of the full resolution images that weren't potato quality... are located here.... bac0n.net/eevblog/EDIT2: .... resistEr... Doh! Fixed to resistOrs

author: abraxa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2017, 10:25:28 am
content: Those three are seemingly connected in parallel to share the thermal load between them. However, probably due to the epoxy spread all over them, they couldn't dissipate the heat and became so hot that the solder melted and the solder joint of the middle resistor became unstable (or maybe there was too little solder there to begin with). Judging by the second picture, the entire epoxy blob must've become very hot, in turn heating up the two capacitors beyond their rated temperature (105°C) as well. Hence, if you want to do a proper repair, I'd replace those two caps and all three resistors, ideally using resistors with a higher wattage when replacing (those look like 1/4W to me but it's a bit hard to tell, so I'd use 1/2W). This way, you also don't have to worry about damaging the caps when removing the epoxy.Of course there is the question whether something else was damaged when the smoke came out but for that, I'd like to request a bigger picture of the board itself. Also, it may be worth examining the other rear speaker - maybe the same issue is going to happen there, too.

author: BMack
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 02:48:26 am
content: You need to check for shorts. Don't forget to check the speaker and make sure it ohms out to spec.

author: t_ryner
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 03:27:00 am
content: Resistors- look up the color code for the resistor values.The yellow crap- try using acetone on it? Or scrape it off? Also- for the parts here's a well known site. If you want I could look at the components and link you to them, but probably not for a few days. (Such is the finals at the end of the year in HS)Digikey-https://www.digikey.com/

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 04:10:45 am
content: what Iv seen a few times is white gunk (silicone elastomer ?) getting old and starting to conduct electricity !!often happens in Samsung gear, for example BN44-00214A TV supply.

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 05:27:53 am
content: There wasn't actual smoke, just smelled an odd smell not really that obvious electric burning smell everyone knows, but it was still sure as heck there just probably mixed with that burning epoxy bleh (I smelled it as I ripped the epoxy open to get the parts numbers just now). I ordered a stand and some solder wick from Amazon so i'm not going to mess with it until I get those. I took some more pictures I'm going to upload too.One good thing is the stuff that I thought could be solder or corrosion between two contacts on the back was just the heat sink grease on the back I was able to wipe it off with an alcohol pad so that's good. There is another resistor that looks like it got real hot too near the other ones (same epoxy blob - see image).I'll take some images of the caps on there near it, if I'm replacing one or two I might as well replace all that are near it, maybe one or two extras.I just took a ton of pictures and took as much of the epoxy off of the burnt area and it looks like there was a big bubble in the epoxy when they made it or it all burned up and left a cavity.. dunno.I'm uploading more images I took today of the rest of the board. The problems appear to be confined to that general area.New reply coming with more pics and after I read the rest of these, I had a busy day and didn't get a chance to look at it until now.EDIT: .... resistEr... Doh! Fixed to resistOrs

author: P90
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 05:58:52 am
content: that yellow glue that turns to brown with age is the cause of the short. It's a way too often issue...

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 06:27:18 am
content: The two speakers used for surround came with the set and have plugs on them that only go into the correct side even so that's not the problem. The wireless surround receiver system was running for well over a year and I swear that there was some sound problems .... buzzing or other little odd things coming from them but it could have been the wireless phone set next to the receiver, not sure. I'm posting pics from under the epoxy but the epoxy burned a bit where whatever happened happened. Not sure what exactly happened kinda hard to tell.

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 06:28:44 am
content: I got some better pics and peeled off the yellow crap where I could to get to the values on the parts so i'll check the site out later tonight or tomorrow.Thanks!

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 06:32:43 am
content: WOW... very interesting! This gunk was touching a few resistors and possibly some of the terminals on the caps too. It's been on and plugged in since I got the TV and surround system. I'd assume that it goes into some sort of power saving mode when it's not receiving the wireless connection. The board looks similar too but mine is way more filled with parts, but I noticed some of the epoxy junk on other parts changing color as if it got hot ... not sure if it's abnormal or not because I never opened this until it started smelling like burning haha.EDIT2: .... resistEr... Doh! Fixed to resistOrs

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 08:23:25 am
content: Here are some more pics I took of the whole board, back and front and a bunch of closeups of the burned up area lol as I picked at the yellow crap.There are a bunch of pics at the links below, didn't want to spam the thread with them, but a ton of them.The resistors appear to have cracked / blown up, but if the yellow stuff is known to start to become conductive then that would sure make sense I guess. Yikes!I couldn't find any other markings on this part other than 180, but you can see the yellow stuff got hot and turned brown around the end. It happened on both of these pieces, not sure what they do maybe they just get hot normally or it was from the "issue"The picture colors are off a bit because it was late and my lighting was just CFLs coming from behind me, I tried a few with my cell flash but it always reflected off of the board I still left a few of those though.As I was picking away the epoxy stuff, thankfully the only things are the resistors, a few caps, and this piece. What is it exactly? I'm pretty sure i'll be able to get the epoxy off and remove/replace the broken parts, but if I somehow break this I want to be able to replace it. I don't see any markings so this is the only part that worries me really.Here is another view of the part. I can only get to one side of it from the front side. you can also kind of see where the epoxy crap turned brown around the other resistor possibly from the heat when it bugged out.I'm thinking that at a minimum I should replace these caps and resistors... correct?I linked below to the full resolution images separated into a few folders. Sorry for some of the potato quality images they were all taken with my cellphone camera and crappy CFL lighting from behind because my house is old and has no lights in the ceiling, plus these were taken at night so sorry about that. In some of the images you can see it's sitting on a sheet of paper to give you an idea of the greatness of the lighting situation... it's white printer paper and looks nice and beige in some haha, ugh. I didn't have enough time to edit the photo sizes down or fix the color problems, sorry.Images of the back of the board:http://bac0n.net/eevblog/2/back/Images of the front of the board and components:http://bac0n.net/eevblog/2/front/Pictures of the progress of picking that burned crap away:http://bac0n.net/eevblog/2/removing_junk/I'm not quite sure what caused it, but there are some good ideas here. I grabbed these markings from the two different types of caps..Brown cap:Sam Young (M) 105°CKMG 50v 470µF34 W(1) (SUPER LIGHT VERY HARD TO SEE!)Blue/Purple cap:JHCD263 105°C 3276D(E)50 V 1000µFResistors:Not sure which way to read the colors, but they are .... GREEN, BLUE, RED, GOLD(?)Thanks for all the help so far!

author: P90
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 09:10:48 am
content: the mystery part is a choke. as for the resistor colour codes...give a man a fish...teach a man to fish...something along those lines...http://www.resistorguide.com/resistor-color-code/

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 09:52:36 am
content: I've been there TOO MANY TIMES with that infernal glue CRAP doing it's TEMPeramental circuit chaos thingItSERVES NO PURPOSEbut as custard pie filler,force fed to the company CEOs and their sweat shop lackeys that spread it over components, STILL to this dayIn many cases if you can 'cleverly' PRY that BLOB glue off without trashing the board, components (and sanity)or at least separate components 'bonded' together and clear some tracks etc (it won't look pretty btw)then check the tracks and soldering,there is a-maybe to good chance-your equipment will magically fire up,and emit a sigh of relief after being trapped in conductive quicksand for so long.Worst case you may have to fix eaten tracks and replace a few components

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 07:57:16 pm
content: Thanks ill check the video out after work today.

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 07:59:21 pm
content: Sweet. I had a digikey code guide up but while it gave the info this looks a lot more helpful ill check it out later after work.

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 08:10:45 pm
content: Yeah, that crap is useless on this piece of equipment. It has to be plugged into the wall to work. Honestly I wish the main entertainment system just had the option for physical L/R surround speaker plugs if you chose them. While until this issue it never gave me any problems it just seemed pointless.The caps weren't dangling and the resistors had nice thick wire it was totally pointless to blob that crap on there. I didn't take the stuff off of the board yet I left the burnt bits covering the tracks for now. Once my desoldering wick arrives I'll take the parts off and then try to clean it off and check the leads and make sure they're good before buying the parts to fix it.There are a few other spots if you wanna go through the pics I linked sorry didn't build a real page with thumbnails etc just file directories you can see where it's still at and what I was able to remove. It took a lot of patience to get what I did off without doing damage to anything important ugh.Thankfully everything in that area is through mounted and the are no surface mounted parts!

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2017, 08:26:23 pm
content: One thing I did notice when picking the epoxy away was the blueish cap next to the burnt resistors looks like it may have had a small hole forward the bottom which maybe let the liquid come out and soak into the epoxy which was full of air bubbles. I couldn't get the epoxy off of the spot that seems to have leaked? There is a picture of it near the bottom of this directory of images if you're curious.http://bac0n.net/eevblog/2/removing_junk/

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 12:05:23 am
content: If the crap is really stubborntry heating it up with a hair dryer, or put a heat lamp over the area,or put the device outside on a hot day(and catch up on some yard work, keeps the ladies happyseeing you out of the man-tech-cave)If you're lucky, the stuff will come off cut ~easier~but watch out you don't pull tracks off, getting too confident and -speedy-FWiW this crappy glue silently sabotaged a lot of my equipment a few years ago and I lost LOT of money directly and indirectly because of it,plus the mountains of stress and lack of confidence in the equipment etctill I finally worked out how this apparentSCAMworks by trial and error,and NO more issues since I spent weeks going through a LOT of gear removing all the glue crap,and amazingly didn't replace any components, not even capacitors that checked ok on the ESR meter, although I did repair some eaten tracks with wire etcYou may understand why I don't have any love for profiteering twats and their mindless production line drones that fill expensive equipment with this USELESS glue,obviously in order to force it to fail or become intermittentat some future dateHoping that Hell has a special place for them, in the basement..

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 12:15:09 am
content: OMG! I just watched that video on the glue turning conductive over time that's just crazy. My system is only 3 years old MAX it was purchased brand new too! You'd think Samsung of all companies would know better but I guess we'll see. I have a ton of Samsung stuff great brand but they did have that whole exploding Note issue lol.

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 12:21:12 am
content: I had my best luck cutting at it with some small snips, small needle nose pliers, small flat head screwdriver and a pokey tool no idea what it was but I was focusing on clearing it off the caps near the problem area. It doesn't appear to be touching much more other than over the top of some caps and a few other places if u wanted to spend the time looking at all the extra pics you might see where it is. I'll be super careful around the board and traces.

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 12:32:47 am
content: Quote from: illavbill on May 24, 2017, 12:21:12 amThat's the way I do it, you know as much as I do now,it's all about patience and 'tool inventions' to get as much out, to revive the gearIf it gets nasty and personaldrop it and do more at another time, don't let the glue winI don't buy anything nowadays unless it has a way to be easily unscewed/disassembled and checked for glue.If it has glue that can't be removed easily or in tight places, I take device back for a refund, end of story.I don't need such POS and even if I doI'll shop for an equivalent or a workaround.Not sure about the white stuff YET, so far so good in the last 10 years in gear I have,maybe other experienced EEVites with more caustic and rubbery 'white encounters' than me can shed some light on that stuff

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 02:42:27 am
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on May 24, 2017, 12:32:47 amI wonder if that's really what happened to mine because it's only a couple of years old. I bought it in ... Wow like 2013 it looks like a. It older than I thought. The board has a date of December 2012 on it. It goes with the 3D Blu-ray entertainment center system model HT-F5500W. I actually didn't want it, I was happy with the 3D Blu-ray player that went with the new TV but I have lathe & plaster walls and the mount was just slightly too? low (less than an inch!!!!) To fit my current receiver I was using. My options were to move the mount and screw up the wall more... Nope, get a smaller TV ... NO WAY!!!, Or get this all in one small stereo so I went this way bleh!My old TV broke so I had to upgrade I still have it and I want to now (and has been the plan all along) open it and try to find the fault and fix that. It's a 44' Sharp Aquos, I got it when the first good native resolution 1080p LCD TVs came out. I always have my TVs setup to my PCs so I need to have native resolution I can't stand pixel sharing or stretching...yuck!It wasn't the end of the world just frustrating.I get this error on the main unit that says something like FAN NG then turns off sometimes. If this stuff end up being conductive I'll take it apart again and start looking for that. It started doing it often so I ended up opening it up and disconnecting and reconnecting everything I could which made it not happen as often but I got the part number for the fan. It got annoying so I took it apart again to replace the fan but repeated the connect and disconnect and cleaned everything with air and alcohol ... That made it happen only once a month or so ...(obviously after buying a new fan!!!) It's still in a bag next to it haha.One good thing is that these are easy to get into and appear to be easy to replace parts on but we'll see how that goes haha.

author: P90
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 02:59:00 am
content: Quote from: illavbill on May 24, 2017, 12:15:09 amThey know exactly what they're doing...that stuff goes bad a year after the warranty expires...

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 03:12:58 am
content: Quote from: P90 on May 24, 2017, 02:59:00 am"THEY" need a good public porking, AND a GLUE and FEATHERING with their component glue, to ensure the feathers don't rattle loose during 'production'

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 03:15:29 am
content: Quote from: illavbill on May 24, 2017, 02:42:27 amThe ones I had to rescue were next to impossible, but I buckled down and did it as it was pricey equipment I couldn't afford to replace,impossible to sell off, and with my run of bad luck, I would get into more debt replacing it with new gear...full of FRESH amber glue, lolhey why am I laughing, this actually started happening before I picked up on the entire fiascobtw all the rescued gear works fine years later and getting my money's worth use from it at lastGood luck with it, hope others here benefit and get off a lot cheaper than I did

author: P90
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 03:19:04 am
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on May 24, 2017, 03:12:58 am

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 05:48:09 am
content: The damn warranty from manufacturer was like 1 year I think. The audio video companies free extended warranty was 2 years this happened about 3 hahahah.I have had so many things break right after their warranty runs out obviously not everything breaks but things seem to NEVER, EVER ,EVER BREAK ... During the warranty period. I have a lazeboy computer chair that was like $400 to $500 snap a weld where the chair connects to the part with the casters. THE F-IN BOX SAYSTEN YEAR WARRANTY. The store... Oh we don't have anything we can do for you it's been 5 days since the 1 year warranty it came with when it was bought . My parents bought it before Christmas just a few days because it was out of stock. Companies suck so much. I'm going to try calling Lazeboy one more time then try social media like Twitter my Facebook is dead on purpose mine only exists still so people who don't have my phone# (that I wanna talk to), or don't have my current email that's changed from AOL when that was all there was and I lived at home and it was my parent's money so it was their choice -> MSN (connecting direct through a dialup networking for gaming was awesome!), then Yahoo (worst decision ever), finally my personal domain email managed by Google / Gmail soooo nice!!!!! It's like $10 a month now to use Google hosting service ., G Suite it's called, but I got in on the beta and they left it free for me¡I'm just off topic now. ¡I'm going to get my super awesome multimeter from Hazard Fraught a.k.a. "Harbor Freight" out and check that junk out!Sorry for typos or weird words I'm doing this on mobile and auto correct does weird stuff plus I'm tired as heck.

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 05:50:03 am
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on May 24, 2017, 03:12:58 am

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 24, 2017, 09:54:14 am
content: Quote from: illavbill on May 24, 2017, 05:48:09 amAt least you can be sure the Harbor Freight meter won't have any conductive glue in it,the price of the glue may cost more than the meter parts,and the added labor( at 5 cents (?) a day or week)to jizzz it all over the components like hot caramel fudge is wayyy too expensive

author: illavbill
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2017, 02:48:59 am
content: Quote from: Electro Detective on May 24, 2017, 09:54:14 amThat HF multimeter sucks, well at least the leads I was using did. All of themeasurements were non-existent. Like I'd touch them together and nothing same with metal and other things would barely measure. I switched to one with leads that DNT come off and it works a bit better but on this board I dunno what to touch to test the goo to see if it is conductive. I did good to goo but no change though I did pull most off it off near the problem area, it's only on 3 more spots and thankfully those aren't exposed pads or metal spots...eerrr.. I guess the top of the caps ccunts right?The are the two meters I have the red one is the Harbor Freight one I have the same one but in yellow with alligator clips leads I made obviously not shown.The "CEN-TECH" I don't think there is a model number to be found... maybe inside haha.This one I've had for years, is it any good?The GREENLEE DM-20

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2017, 06:40:16 am
content: I gave up on similar "cheap meters for occassional use" many years agoand bought some decent (for that time) Tandy/Radio Shack and Jaycar meters.They were much better meters, reliable with good leads, I got a lot of work done with those and they are still going.But once you work with a Fluke meter (and look after it) you don't look backThe EEVblog meter will get you 'there' too without trashing your pocket