At the risk of tempting fate, I'm curious to know who's still running a Soundbridge Radio with the ORIGINAL QUESTIONABLE power supply. Mine is 17 months old and still going strong. Gulp!!!

But don't you and your wife find it very inconvenient to use by having to keep it in your refrigerator so that all the crappy poorly-rated capacitors that the Chinese have used don't overheat?

jdc1947 wrote:

But don't you and your wife find it very inconvenient to use by having to keep it in your refrigerator so that all the crappy poorly-rated capacitors that the Chinese have used don't overheat?

You're not suggesting getting the power supply replaced while the radio is still working, are you?

Perhaps not quite 'now', but I bet a guy we both know down is Austin Texas is clearing his workbench at this very moment

But joking apart Bill . . . . what a sorry state of affairs to be discussing this regrettable situation in this manner . . . . particularly as there have been some reports that even those that have "the label" have failed.
A real shame for what potentially could have been a truly great product to support the superb M1001.

Yes I'm sure I'll be shipping my radio "deep in the heart of Texas" one of these days. Just hope Matt's still in business when I need him.

Pete, Matt or any other specialists: Do you suggest that replacing the capacitors in a working unit should be done? My unit is working since 17 months now, replacing the cheap caps of the PSU is no problem for me(only a few hours of work).

My question is: If the PSU dies, is it possible that it damages other components by over-voltages? Or is it simply "off" when it dies with no voltage?

Djans.

That is the $64,000 question

If it were my unit then I probably would replace all the caps, along with one or two other parts as well.

They will become obvious once you have the unit apart.
Just look for the evidence of heat spots in the glue.

However in my case, both of mine had already failed, so that "maintenance" wasn't required.

Judging from the amount of units that I have noticed satelite speaker failure on.I think there is the remote possibility that a fault in the PSU could cause speaker failure. The voltage rating of surface mount capacitors in the satelite speaker enclosures is quite marginal at 25V.
So it would not take much of an overvoltage condition to cause damage here.

I have never had a fault with the PSU causing overvoltage however.
Always the 19V rail has been spot on.

Pete

The R1000 was released in March of 06, right?
To answer the first question, I got my R1000 from the Dec 2006 "adopt a Fry's" campaign and it was still working up until I pulled it apart about two months ago to run some tests between it and one that I fixed. So since I was in there, I rebuilt it because they are a ROYAL PAIN TO OPEN...
It was plugged in 24/7 in the kitchen too.

As for DJans’ question, it would not hurt and I am of the same thinking as Pete that there may be something going on in some cases before a PSU fails (or right when it does fail) because I am seeing too many units have a bad satellite speaker after a PSU rebuild. Now I test each unit with a custom harness I made up to supply external power to the unit prior to the PSU repair to make sure there are no hidden issue once the PSU is fixed. I believe Pete is doing this as well. So basically when I get a unit in, I split the two halves, then supply my own power (bypassing the unit’s PSU) and this lets me test the unit as well both satellites and the woofer.

But I am lazy when it comes to my own stuff (much like how a plumber’s pipes leak, an auto mechanics car runs poor and a doctor’s kids are always sick) and don’t know if I would have been proactive on my personal unit if it were not for me wanting to runs some tests…

Hope this is helpful, Matt

I guess I probably have one of the oldest original units here ... I have a preproduction unit that dates from March 06 Still going strong !
Patrick

Well, I was thinking of posting this same question last week. I bought my Pinnacle R1000 in Dec 2007. And then last Sunday, it died. Not fate of course, just inevitable.

I ordered my R1000 on 27 October 2005, before they were available.

I received it on 1 June 2006 (!) and it has been working perfectly ever since.

Until last week, that is, when it went dark and won't turn on. I presume it has the PSU cap failure.

I don't think there is anything else out there that has the same great feature set. I feel badly buying another R1000 now when it appears that they will no longer be supported. Hopefully, someone will build another product like it sometime soon. I suspect that part of the Roku Soundbridge problem was that it hit the market several years too early.

--Jim--

OK - now 65 months old and still working great!