Roku repair for power supply issue is now $75. Ugh.

Barry and olllllo - Thanks for all the info you've posted. Have either or both of you thought of preparing a step by step detailed instruction guide for making the repair you mentioned? It seems you are well on your way already. I (and maybe other electronic novices) would be willing to contribute to a pay-pal account for such information as it would make me much more willing to try it. I'm tempted to tinker as is but...I'm also thinking I may just have to send it on in to Roku this time around.

halfsheep wrote:

Roku repair for power supply issue is now $75. Ugh.

Barry and olllllo - Thanks for all the info you've posted. Have either or both of you thought of preparing a step by step detailed instruction guide for making the repair you mentioned? It seems you are well on your way already. I (and maybe other electronic novices) would be willing to contribute to a pay-pal account for such information as it would make me much more willing to try it. I'm tempted to tinker as is but...I'm also thinking I may just have to send it on in to Roku this time around.

I would be happy to help anyone out, but, as far as producing a step-by-step guide... I'd have to go and rip the thing out of its home and crack it open. Not a money thing, really just time. Plus, I'm superstitious about fixing stuff that's not broke.

That being said, at $75, you have alot more to gain by doing it yourself. You'll get it done weeks ahead of sending it in.

Your unit is most probably out of warantee, open it up and see. Disconnect the old power supply connector. If you have an old ATX power supply around like Bill123, you can experiment with that.
You could get one at Fry's, (I'm not the only person to do this. C'mon.) jumper the connections (so you don't cut anything) and do a trial run. You can always take the thing back.

One you see how easy it is, you could have the old power supply out and have the exterior switch mounted to the chassis while you order the power supply replacement.

You could definately be up by the Holidays.

Oh yeah, if it blows up or you die it ain't my fault (or Barry's)!

I have been following the thread about replacing the PS since I have an early A version. Our power goes out quite often which causes a reboot. I have come back after a few weeks on the road to find the PB on and HOT.

Even though it has not failed, I am thinking about doing this as preventive maintenace. I assume that you can still use the remote and front panel power button to turn the PB on.

I am not clear on the purpose of the toggle switch.

Thanks in advance for the clarification.

Ed

There is absolutely no functional difference on the operation of the PB1000. All things that worked before will work the same way with a different power supply providing that the installation is correct (voltages go to the right places, the new PS has the power needed).

The toggle switch is to be able to completely shut off the unit. There are options on this.

1) Leave it out and disconnect the external portion of a DC to DC converter from AC power

2) leave it in and use it to connect/disconnect the primary power to the DC to DC converter (lets say 12 volts as in the examples herein)

3) leave it in and if the power supply is an ATX supply then use it to connect pin 14 to ground through the switch, or leave it out and jumper pin 14 of the ATX supply output permanently to ground.

Hope that helps

daviseh wrote:

I assume that you can still use the remote and front panel power button to turn the PB on.

Works exactly as it had.

daviseh wrote:

I am not clear on the purpose of the toggle switch.

This is a two part answer:
1.) Prior to this mod, the Roku, once plugged is always on. The toggle switch enables you to turn power off. I guess the analogy would be PC. The toggle switch is the power switch on the back of the PC.
2.) The power supply is off by default, even when plugged in. There is a pinout for a switch. Even if you don't want a switch, you have to jumper this pinout so that the power supply will turn on.

See other post in this thread:

olllllo wrote:

The only question I have is about the switch. Is it absolutely necessary? Is it a two position toggle or an instantaneous contact (like a reset button)?

In this pic (lower left) if you squint at the connector you can see a grey wire looped back. This is pin 14 looped to ground. This would suffice.

http://photobucket.com/albums/c345/olllllo/?action=view&current=IMG_9474.jpg

No switch required, but you are going to have to make the 12V DC Jack Cable (dc female to the pins on the power supply board) anyway, requiring a trip to Radio Shack. Barry is correct about the switch spec.
quote]

Thanks for the clarification.

I may just opt to disconnect the brick PS when not in use instead of installing the toggle.

I will tackle this project over the Holidays.

From the pciture it looks like the looped back grey wire is grounded to the printed circuit board. Is this correct?

Thanks again.

Ed

The black wires in the power supply to motherboard connector are grounds. They will connect the Power supply ground to the Motherboard (roku) ground. As long as pin 14 (if the Power Supply is an ATX type of supply, the original roku supply is not) coming fom the Power supply is connected to a ground it will turn on. You can do that in many ways, but the easiest is connecting it to a nearby black wire in the Power supply to Mother Board cable. Do not cut the black wire, just remove the insulation.
The Pin 14 wire must be connected to the Powersupply at one end, and ground at the other (connector end). The connector on the Roku Mother Board does not use this wire.

If you go to an auto supply store, a home depot, and probably a radio Shack, they will sell a little clamshell like device that allows you to put two wires next to each other and by squeezing the device shut, connect the two wires together.

barrygordon wrote:

The black wires in the power supply to motherboard connector are grounds. They will connect the Power supply ground to the Motherboard (roku) ground. As long as pin 14 (if the Power Supply is an ATX type of supply, the original roku supply is not) coming fom the Power supply is connected to a ground it will turn on. You can do that in many ways, but the easiest is connecting it to a nearby black wire in the Power supply to Mother Board cable. Do not cut the black wire, just remove the insulation.
The Pin 14 wire must be connected to the Powersupply at one end, and ground at the other (connector end). The connector on the Roku Mother Board does not use this wire.

If you go to an auto supply store, a home depot, and probably a radio Shack, they will sell a little clamshell like device that allows you to put two wires next to each other and by squeezing the device shut, connect the two wires together.

I see that since people are considering a power supply swap out with a toggle switch that there is likely no realy way to completly power down the unit short of pulling out the power cord from the wall or the back of the unit. Perhaps there is a X10 solution.

Is there any harm in disconnecting the power from the PB? In orther words, is there a reason to keep it powered on constantly?

Drew

Reasons to install the toggle:
1) Because you can.
2) To recover from a hairy lock up.
3) Vacation Mode.
4) Kid Mode.
5) Can't reach the cord.
6) Save the earth from green house gas.
7) Xtra modding points
Fun to say, "I toggled my Roku this weekend," to friends.
9) Desire to give Radio Shack your zipcode and address.

I know of no reason why the Roku must be powered on constantly. I am not sure how the video feed through operates, and if it is being used then power might be required for a buffer stage of electronics. In my setup it is always powered on.

Lets face it the Roku is just another PC with a couple of specialized components (Cards) built into an interesting form factor (low with poor ventilation) and a weak power supply that fails under long (moderate?) term self induced heat stress.

You should be able to turn off any "PC" with negligible stress on its electronics if reasonably designed..... Ahhhh, there's the catch, "reasonably designed". Continuous (once every millisecond) on/off of the power might be detrimental, but even then if .....

Do not get me wrong. I like the Roku. It fills a need for me. I use it to view photos (really needs an app to do that well) and listen to music (thank you Endless). I think it is criminal that Roku (rumor has it) is going to charge $75 to repair an out of warranty PSU that has failed. The damm warranty on any electronics with no moving parts should be LIFETIME!

All electronics in my HT is on a UPS that will hold it for about 2 minutes. The main audio power amp, The Subwoofer amp, and the projector are not on the UPS. I live in FL and where I live very brief outages are not at all that uncommon. Also when the local power company drops and restores power (or the chipmunk/car they blame) the transients are generally more severe than turning on or off a toggle switch.

My PhotoBridge too has stopped working.

Date of birth: April 14, 2004
Age: ~20 months
Model: HD1000, Rev A

It doesn't turn on from the remote or front power button. Long-running telnet sessions have stopped responding. It is cold to the touch, whereas previously it was always quite warm. It seems like the power supply has stopped working.

It is possible it had been suffering a slow death for a while. It had become less and less responsive to the remote control over the past several weeks or so. Today it stopped responding entirely.

I'll just post this even though I know its of no use. There really should be an easy way to completly power down the Roku Photobridge. Even if you had to send it a telnet command or something.

Drew

The only way to completely power down the stock Roku is to pull the plug from the rear of the unit.

my roku box died over the weekend here in the cayman islands.

it is now a DS1000

bought mine open box from GG in Colma, CA a few months back - Rev A

always ran hot, was a demo unit so this probably contributed to its early death by fiery bliss.

cost and hassle of getting this thing fixed back in rokuland is making me lean towards looking at other options. not sure I am enough of a tinkerer to rig my own PS.

but wanted to let others know of the issue.

and thanks to all the 3rd party developers who made it fun while it lasted.

Seems like this will eventually happen to anybody that doesn't keep their PB in the fridge. Maybe Roku should put in the manual that the ambient temperature must by 50 degrees or below because their case design is so crappy. Nothing else gets hot in my well-ventilated rack, but mine burned-out a couple months back as well.