Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Restaurant at the End of Universe Hitchhikers - Service, Repair, Custom Leads & Interfaces DSP5200 non-SL recap

Just finished doing a full capacitor refresh/service on a DSP5200 electronics panel (amp and DSP boards) which I believe to be a 2005 model. There has been a lot of discussion with respect to DSP5000, but my first impression is that early DSP5200 could benefit from a capacitor refresh/service. I've got two more speakers to do, so will report back my findings

Brief observations:

1) There was heat damage to the PCB behind the power resistors, but no damage to the resistors or the PCB tracks. See the black discolouration on the PCB in the image (not the shadow).



2) There appears to be signs of heating to some of the smaller capacitors. The closer the power end of the board the more discolouration to the cases. This is likely to affect the component value although I have no way of measuring them to confirm. I have included new caps in the picture with the long leads, for a colour reference. All the caps in the picture were the same series and therefore the same colour when new.



Image of the finished board.

Great job Tarik!

I have rather mixed feelings about this: the extent of the deterioration and thermal damage isn't great, but the repairability is.

Do you have any thoughts on the longevity of chips and surface mount components (in general in all products)? If repair comes down to replacing caps and resistors and thermistors etc., that's all doable, but some of the other stuff probably isn't.

Nice work Tarik - What are you going to do with it?

Cheers
Tom

I'm not an expert, so cannot comment on the effect on the chips and surface mount components. I was mostly coming at this from a sound quality perspective, the capacitors have been exposed to enough heat to change the colour of the packaging so my assumption is that they cannot be as good as the day they were installed.

Hi Tom,

No plans, it’s fulfilled its purpose so will now just clutter up my office. I built up my knowledge fault finding it to make it work, turned out to be a voltage regulator. Also used it to practice doing the capacitor refresh before I start on my pair.

Tarik,

I read this thread with great interest. I might want to try the recap and/or resistor replacement in the future as I have been having a problem with my 5200s. Do you have a parts list of what you replaced? Also, did you get a schematic of the circuit so you can check voltages?

Excellent work!

Regards,
Gary

PM sent.

Thanks for the info Tarik.

In that last photo, you can really see the damage to the PCB under the power resistors.

I'm thinking it might be worth the effort to raise and separate the four resistors to get some of the heat away from the board.

Here in Australia, in summer the rears of my DSP5200SL's get very hot, so I'm considering adding a heatsink to the rear across the output devices to get some heat away as well.

Cheers,
Jason.

Thinking about getting my DSP5200HC non-SL recapped, anyone have a list of the components required and a schematic?

Would also like to hear if anyone has recommendations for shops in the Los Angeles area that could do the work.

Thanks!
Chris

Check with George Meyer.

Ask them to also check the internal Coaxial cable. Mine was a green Van den Hul , the outer sleeve was badly damaged as it dries out en pulverizes

just finished re-capping one of my non SL 5200's, my boards looked identical. Both mine are cooked in the same way, i suspect not having any heat control on the LM337/317 regulators may be the main problem; Reducing lifespan -> higher current draw -> more heat in the resistors. Looking at heatsinking and or replacing mine: lots of idle heat. Outside of that the re-capped speaker with new ferro fluid in the tweeter sounds fantastic. almost all the FW caps were reading 50% or less (tested at 120hz), res/filter caps all tested fine. Opted for UKA instead of UFW caps, for the 105c rating. build date on my speakers is 08, with most of the caps from around then by the date codes.