Harman/Kardon Bluray player DTS set repair
Yesterday my nephew brought his secondhand recently bought Harman/Kardon HS 350 BluRay player Digital Theater Surround Sound set that was completely dead. He asked if it was possible to repair this replacement set because his previous Philips HTS5560/12 set blew up the amplifier and refused to give any sound afterwards. (I am already waiting two months on replacement parts with which I hope to fix his previous Philips set again like I did before when I replaced a couple of defect e-caps on the output stage of that amplifier board). This repair is about the Harman/Kardon HS 350.
I opened the set by removing 4 bottom screws and 5 back plate screws, after I easily could remove the black top cover.
And I began to inspect the Amplifier output stage board on the left and the Power unit on the right. As can be seen on next photo looking in from the front side of the set.
Above photo shows the Amplifier board with the 5 bad e-caps looking in from the back.Next photos show the 10 bad e-caps in the Power Unit. Which brings the total of bad e-caps in this set on 15!
Next photo shows the position of the small capacitor on the solder side that could be the start-up capacitor (220uF/25V). And next all now replaced bad replaced e-caps on the Power board.
Below the 5 bad replaced e-caps from the Amplifier board. (All 470uF/50V).
The soldering of the above-mentioned e-caps on the Amplifier Output stage board was almost impossible to do with my good-old Ersa MS6000 soldering station.
Because the copper layers were so thick that the warmth of my solder iron almost did not melt the tin. Next photo shows the board after the 5 bad 470uF/50V capacitors were removed.
Because I could not heat up the solder in the cold copper of the board enough it meant that their holes were still completely closed with tin after the bad caps were taken out.
Why placing new 470uF/50V caps was not possible at first. Neither my soldering iron nor my S993A desoldering gun were hot enough to be able to remove the tin in the holes, why I also used my Gordak 952-A Hot-air station – Air mode set to 4.5 – Heater set on 5.5. Together with my hot-air nozzle it allowed me to heat up the board and the tip of my S993-A tin desoldering pistol so that the solder finally became hot enough to perfectly remove all the old tin. And I could place the new e-caps. By-the-way: the brown sticky stuff that was visible on the capacitors in the Power board was just some glue that the manufacturer must have used to glue the e-caps closely together. But it was apparently badly added because it also ended up on top of most e-caps.
Above photo showed the board after the bad 470uF 50V capacitors were removed. And next photo shows the Amplifier board after all new e-caps were placed. (the five replacement 470uF/50V and the two 1000uF/50V caps are smaller and taken from his previous originally Philips HTS 5560/12 set).
After replacing all 15 bulged e-caps, the harman/kardon player was back alive again as the last photos show! My nephew will be pleased that he can enjoy watching his movies and listen to his music again.
I think that seeing the inside of this set the quality of the electronic parts used here it is better made than the previous Philips HTS 5560/12 set he had. But that set had nearly as much bulged e-caps as his new Harman/Kardon now had.
Green power button works , and standby red/orange button works. And also Power On and Power Off works on the very bright display.
And also Reading and all other display messages work on this perfect visible display! And the also very nice illuminated green Volume knob works like new!
This Harman/Kardon set also has a very nice programmable IR remote control.
Mission accomplished!
Albert van Bemmelen, Weert, The Netherlands.
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Note: You can read his previous repair article in the below link:
https://jestineyong.com/important-maintenance-on-a-kenwood-cs-5130-40mhz-oscilloscope-with-read-out/
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Anwar Shiekh
January 16, 2019 at 4:16 pm
Am surprised you did not replace them all
Albert van Bemmelen
January 16, 2019 at 8:00 pm
I know but I didn't have them so I took the ones I could find out of the Philips HTS5560/12 BD player set. That Philips Amplifier now only got about 8V DC instead of the usual 34V DC voltage on its Endstage. And now probably is beyond repair because it most likely has a defect transformer on its Power board because all semiconductors including the AZ7500 controller were fine!
Parasuraman S
January 16, 2019 at 4:53 pm
Vow! Looks like that has beaten my records on replacement of capacitors! Anyhow, a good job! By the way, I think, your nephew should do something to take care of the power surges in his house. First Philips blew and now this, and both in the same way!
Albert van Bemmelen
January 16, 2019 at 8:12 pm
I am sure that the record is still in your hands dear Parasuraman! I am not sure however if both amplifiers got blown at his parents house because he could have used them at his girlfriend's home too. Both sets were already second hand when my nephew bought them, so had been used already before. And both sets needed e-caps replaced and were defect already when he got them. But it could be true that my brothers house is closer to a power plant and its causing higher AC outlet voltages and many early blown energy-saving light bulbs at his home. (that is at least what my brother was thinking after seeing so many lightbulbs ending up in the trash).
Menahem Yachad
January 16, 2019 at 5:41 pm
Albert
Firstly, I would have replaced ALL the ecaps. The others will destroy themselves soon.
Secondly, did you know that since Nov 2016, Harman Kardon, JBL, and AKG are ALL owned by Samsung.
So expect to see a huge drop in quality in the components which are installed into the equipment of those brands.
More work for us technicians.
Regards
Menahem Yachad
Albert van Bemmelen
January 16, 2019 at 7:50 pm
Sadly I didn't have any matching replacement capacitors left. I had to order them after the repair was done. I know that it always is better to replace all of them but I still have to do the same in my 30 year old Tektronix oscilloscopes. I know you already have done that in yours which must have been a hell of a job. And as you know I already had to replace 2 identical capacitors of which one had blown on the AC input of the Powerboard of my 2465A that suddenly got up in a lot of smoke. If I have more money to spend and a lot of patience I will undertake this heavy task and maybe buy one of your replacement sets if you still sell these capacitor kits(;)
Robert Calk Jr.
January 16, 2019 at 8:28 pm
Good job, Albert. It will be interesting to see how long those other e-caps last.
Albert van Bemmelen
January 17, 2019 at 2:18 am
We know they don't last forever so why replace them before they burst open don't you agree, Robert?
If that time comes it can still be done without negative consequences.
Like I now did.
Robert Calk Jr.
January 20, 2019 at 9:54 am
No, I do not agree. Better to replace them if you have some, or they are not expensive.
Randy
January 17, 2019 at 6:44 am
Time to step up to a Hakko FP-102, can get used ones on ebay for around $100 with tips, the only soldering iron I use (except for a Weller 80 watt when I need to remove can cap lugs from the chassis).
Albert van Bemmelen
January 17, 2019 at 3:40 pm
I do not think it would make any difference Randy. Besides the fact that the FP-102 I saw had the wrong 120VAC power input which must be 230-240VAC in the EU. The very thick copper tracks in this Harman-kardon set make it almost impossible to heat up the solder by using just the normal tools. And the cold winter doesn't help to heat up the room temperature either. As you know Tj = TA + (ƟJA)×(Pd). Where TA is the room temperature, Pd is the power dissipation in Voltage (V) × Current (I) where the Typical Voltage and Current values are as normally found in the datasheet of a semiconductor, and ƟJA is Junction-to-ambient thermal resistance or the thermal resistance value in °C/W (Theta JA of the package). And that applies in a way to the heatspot of the solder as well.
Robert Calk Jr.
January 20, 2019 at 10:03 am
I am glad that I got a heating platform for heating the bottom of PCB's. It works great and they are not very expensive. I also recently purchased the small LED strip rework station from Shop Jimmy. It will be easier replacing and reflowing solder on LED strips and tiny boards using it instead of my larger platform station.
Albert van Bemmelen
January 22, 2019 at 3:29 am
I had a look on those heater plates Robert. But they simply were too expensive to order including shipping and handling to the EU. Things become twice as expensive to get them here.
So 'not very expensive' is relative and they probably are only affordable if ordered within the US of A.
I have a very cheap heater plate with a PTC heater element from China though. That were the only affordable ones. And I bought an affordable stand to mount my Hot Air Heater in for those special Hotfix jobs. So I have my hands free while working on pcb repair. This one:
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/Hot-Air-Blower-Heat-Gun-Clamp-Stand-Bracket-Holder-Repair-Platform-For-BGA-Rework-Reballing-Station/32954973650.html?spm=a2g0z.10010108.1000016.1.66aa69ebDJkuJO&isOrigTitle=true
Robert Calk Jr.
January 22, 2019 at 11:18 pm
It helps to have some heat under the board, that is for sure.
beh
January 17, 2019 at 10:42 am
WELL DONE ALBERT .
Albert van Bemmelen
January 17, 2019 at 3:47 pm
Thanks Beh, these electrolyte capacitors keep failing a lot especially in these Amplifier sets at higher currents of the Endstage at around 50V.
monim
January 18, 2019 at 6:19 pm
good job
Rossco
January 18, 2019 at 7:01 pm
What a great job Albert, I would have expected Harman Kardon would have used better quality caps.
Menahem Yachad
January 20, 2019 at 1:05 am
Since Nov 2016, Harman Kardon, JBL, and AKG are ALL owned by Samsung.
So expect to see a huge drop in quality in the components which are installed into the equipment of those brands.
Albert van Bemmelen
January 20, 2019 at 3:30 pm
I noticed that you mentioned that before Menahem. I only wonder how that is bad since Samsung makes besides LCD TV's also those purple Li-ion 18650 cells that they say are amongst the best? About 40 to 50 years ago it was Sony and other companies from Japan that they said made the best products. And in the early days Sony was just a small starting company and their slogan was something like: "we are small so we want to make the best products you can buy to grow". The center of the electronics industry keeps shifting to other countries all the time. And with these failing e-caps and other components it is hard to know exactly who made them.
Albert van Bemmelen
January 22, 2019 at 3:41 am
I didn't have left any of those 50V e-caps since I already had replaced a lot of them in other home consumer electronics. So I know that we keep on replacing them anyhow! And opening these sets is a piece of cake and doesn't take much time at all. Large Big TV sets would be a whole different story because they need a lot of space before we can start replacing bad e-caps. But also in that case you only start opening the device AFTER the e-caps start making trouble.