Electronics "Repair": nvr give up! RC6GS v2 BACK TO LIFE

[TL01magic]

about six months ago had an RC6GS v2 crapped out on me while trail walking my mojave.

The TX was still on but lost connection with the RX.

Tried ALL sorts of things to fix, including updating TX firmware, tried binding to different RX...no luck.

Radiolink was AWESOME with their support; quickly sent a replacement via amazon.

and with that serial number now done I could open up the TX and look for anything obvious (visible lol). i have VERY little experience with this stuff, so not much I could do.

everything looked fine so I just re-seated connections.....that didn't fix it. so boxed it up and tossed in closet.

about a month ago, I pull it out to simply try my luck....maybe some electronics fairies snuck in and repaired it....tried it and still same...won't bind to any RX's I had (all radiolink)


just this morning I was reading the RC8X thread and page 7 SrC says

"Yeah I've had Failed binding with some SPektrum Rx's. Took me 30 min to figure out that if I stood across the room it would bind. Drove me crazy."

That's like the ONE THING I didn't try, even in instructions it says to bind some close distance. So was excited to give it a shot....I pulled the TX out of the closet, dusted it off and tried to bind it from across the room....no luck


Figured with it out may as well open up the TX again and dig a bit deeper.


well.....

the transmitter amplifier board is super distinct, and right next to it was a QC pass / manufacture date sticker covering some of the main pcb board.

it was covering some of the labeling of the transmitter board inputs. so peeled it back and see the 3.3v.

while I do suck at electronic repair, I do know how to check voltage like this (ground was marked too lol) and aware power regulators fail often (compared to all chip failures).

checked it and sure enough no 3.3v......something to go on!!!! repair potential!!!

next step....look for 3.3v on the board...and found 3.3v on the part circled below

so just with my hands I use a short wire to bridge the 3.3v to the transmitter module's 3.3v input...and then fumbled to press bind button on RX and

IT WORKED!!!!! IT BINDED!!!!

even "dumber" more perplexing, it just works now, i don't even have to hold the wire for the 3.3v....it's getting it from wherever it's supposed to (I never / couldn't follow the trace for the 3.3v from the transmitter module)

I 've tried "throttle" and steering channels and they both work.

I've not tested beyond a couple minutes, and a couple of feet of distance...and I won;t rely on it for much beyond trail walking...but man was that ever a surprising payoff for poking at it for the umptenth time over the period of half a year (a guess)

all buttoned up and only lost one screw

so I guess I wouldn't say "never give up" applies to electronic repair....BUT maybe you suck at electrical repair and maybe the reason something isn't working is a simple fix....maybe stars align and you fumble into fixing it!!!!!


all I can think of is there is a 3.3v power regulator or diode of sorts...just some piece of silicon that only works because of quantum mechanics that I put power to that "re-pathed" a conductive trace in said silicon...

idk...but so far it works lol

 

[Tex Koder]

about six months ago had an RC6GS v2 crapped out on me while trail walking my mojave.

The TX was still on but lost connection with the RX.

Tried ALL sorts of things to fix, including updating TX firmware, tried binding to different RX...no luck.

Radiolink was AWESOME with their support; quickly sent a replacement via amazon.

and with that serial number now done I could open up the TX and look for anything obvious (visible lol). i have VERY little experience with this stuff, so not much I could do.

everything looked fine so I just re-seated connections.....that didn't fix it. so boxed it up and tossed in closet.

about a month ago, I pull it out to simply try my luck....maybe some electronics fairies snuck in and repaired it....tried it and still same...won't bind to any RX's I had (all radiolink)


just this morning I was reading the RC8X thread and page 7 SrC says

"Yeah I've had Failed binding with some SPektrum Rx's. Took me 30 min to figure out that if I stood across the room it would bind. Drove me crazy."

That's like the ONE THING I didn't try, even in instructions it says to bind some close distance. So was excited to give it a shot....I pulled the TX out of the closet, dusted it off and tried to bind it from across the room....no luck


Figured with it out may as well open up the TX again and dig a bit deeper.


well.....

the transmitter amplifier board is super distinct, and right next to it was a QC pass / manufacture date sticker covering some of the main pcb board.

it was covering some of the labeling of the transmitter board inputs. so peeled it back and see the 3.3v.


View attachment 269774




while I do suck at electronic repair, I do know how to check voltage like this (ground was marked too lol) and aware power regulators fail often (compared to all chip failures).

checked it and sure enough no 3.3v......something to go on!!!! repair potential!!!

next step....look for 3.3v on the board...and found 3.3v on the part circled below







View attachment 269776


so just with my hands I use a short wire to bridge the 3.3v to the transmitter module's 3.3v input...and then fumbled to press bind button on RX and

IT WORKED!!!!! IT BINDED!!!!

even "dumber" more perplexing, it just works now, i don't even have to hold the wire for the 3.3v....it's getting it from wherever it's supposed to (I never / couldn't follow the trace for the 3.3v from the transmitter module)

I 've tried "throttle" and steering channels and they both work.

I've not tested beyond a couple minutes, and a couple of feet of distance...and I won;t rely on it for much beyond trail walking...but man was that ever a surprising payoff for poking at it for the umptenth time over the period of half a year (a guess)

all buttoned up and only lost one screw

so I guess I wouldn't say "never give up" applies to electronic repair....BUT maybe you suck at electrical repair and maybe the reason something isn't working is a simple fix....maybe stars align and you fumble into fixing it!!!!!


all I can think of is there is a 3.3v power regulator or diode of sorts...just some piece of silicon that only works because of quantum mechanics that I put power to that "re-pathed" a conductive trace in said silicon...

idk...but so far it works lol

View attachment 269781

Congratulations!
On your bullheadedness/Not Giving Up attitude and resuscitating the old transmitter
Great job!


Now I have a $1,200 Denon 7.1 Surround receiver (vintage from 2006) that's not putting out sound @ main outputs , everything else turned on..
Perhaps you can bless it with some of your techno magic..?

 

[TL01magic]

Congratulations!
On your bullheadedness/Not Giving Up attitude and resuscitating the old transmitter
Great job!


Now I have a $1,200 Denon 7.1 Surround receiver (vintage from 2006) that's not putting out sound @ main outputs , everything else turned on..
Perhaps you can bless it with some of your techno magic..?

THANKS!

funny you mention that era AVR; that's what got me interested in EE repair (well mostly 2010 era).....and what showed me I ain't smart enough to internet my way through repairing those let alone electronics in general lol

joking aside, I think the hurdle with those is obsolete transistors + things like DSP chips failing (no repairing those, they're often bespoke chips, licensed & quickly obsolete)

That said, 2006 DSP would be the "add on" feature and not the primary. Meaning for example my Onkyo 809 only triggers amp if DSP chip sends required signal to relays. The DSP chip is BGA type and has weak connection.....once the chip warms up enough connection is made and amp works.....they engineered the AVR where if DSP chip fails whole thing is junk lol (DSP is just Digital Sound Processing)

now-a-days (even 2010 from my experience) DSP is the norm and analog is not, so I think that is why design changed. but yea, sucks an amazing amp can be useless because of a DSP chip or some other failed obsolete IC.

maybe your Denon is not triggering the speaker relays....to protect speaks all AVR's have various designed ways to stop too high DC voltage / potential imbalance.

listen for that relay click when powering on....if you hear nothing that maybe it.

Next step is to place in closet for months and periodically tinker with it lol


Then Boom!! it works


I had a Denon AVR1908 that had volume imbalance between left/rght channels, I tried to isolate if it was an AMP issue or the digital balance adjustment chip (the volume and balance of various channels is a single chip)
even with the very good schematics available I could not fix it

but I didn't try the closet trick!!!!

 

[Jerold]

Good work. It's hard enough to debug a circuit with a schematic but you did it without one!

all I can think of is there is a 3.3v power regulator or diode of sorts...just some piece of silicon that only works because of quantum mechanics that I put power to that "re-pathed" a conductive trace in said silicon...

It could just be a cracked solder joint on the output of the IC you pointed to. When you put the jumper on there you may have put enough pressure on it to jam it together and it stuck "good enough" for now type of thing.

If it fails again and you have a small soldering iron you might try touching up the solder joints on the IC and the place you jumped it to.

 

[Moonstonemike]

Maybe a capacitor got cha

about six months ago had an RC6GS v2 crapped out on me while trail walking my mojave.

The TX was still on but lost connection with the RX.

Tried ALL sorts of things to fix, including updating TX firmware, tried binding to different RX...no luck.

Radiolink was AWESOME with their support; quickly sent a replacement via amazon.

and with that serial number now done I could open up the TX and look for anything obvious (visible lol). i have VERY little experience with this stuff, so not much I could do.

everything looked fine so I just re-seated connections.....that didn't fix it. so boxed it up and tossed in closet.

about a month ago, I pull it out to simply try my luck....maybe some electronics fairies snuck in and repaired it....tried it and still same...won't bind to any RX's I had (all radiolink)


just this morning I was reading the RC8X thread and page 7 SrC says

"Yeah I've had Failed binding with some SPektrum Rx's. Took me 30 min to figure out that if I stood across the room it would bind. Drove me crazy."

That's like the ONE THING I didn't try, even in instructions it says to bind some close distance. So was excited to give it a shot....I pulled the TX out of the closet, dusted it off and tried to bind it from across the room....no luck


Figured with it out may as well open up the TX again and dig a bit deeper.


well.....

the transmitter amplifier board is super distinct, and right next to it was a QC pass / manufacture date sticker covering some of the main pcb board.

it was covering some of the labeling of the transmitter board inputs. so peeled it back and see the 3.3v.


View attachment 269774




while I do suck at electronic repair, I do know how to check voltage like this (ground was marked too lol) and aware power regulators fail often (compared to all chip failures).

checked it and sure enough no 3.3v......something to go on!!!! repair potential!!!

next step....look for 3.3v on the board...and found 3.3v on the part circled below







View attachment 269776


so just with my hands I use a short wire to bridge the 3.3v to the transmitter module's 3.3v input...and then fumbled to press bind button on RX and

IT WORKED!!!!! IT BINDED!!!!

even "dumber" more perplexing, it just works now, i don't even have to hold the wire for the 3.3v....it's getting it from wherever it's supposed to (I never / couldn't follow the trace for the 3.3v from the transmitter module)

I 've tried "throttle" and steering channels and they both work.

I've not tested beyond a couple minutes, and a couple of feet of distance...and I won;t rely on it for much beyond trail walking...but man was that ever a surprising payoff for poking at it for the umptenth time over the period of half a year (a guess)

all buttoned up and only lost one screw

so I guess I wouldn't say "never give up" applies to electronic repair....BUT maybe you suck at electrical repair and maybe the reason something isn't working is a simple fix....maybe stars align and you fumble into fixing it!!!!!


all I can think of is there is a 3.3v power regulator or diode of sorts...just some piece of silicon that only works because of quantum mechanics that I put power to that "re-pathed" a conductive trace in said silicon...

idk...but so far it works lol

View attachment 269781

Nice job. Maybe a capacitor is dying and you basically gave it a jump start. Now to see if it continues to hold power.

 

[Tex Koder]

THANKS!

funny you mention that era AVR; that's what got me interested in EE repair (well mostly 2010 era).....and what showed me I ain't smart enough to internet my way through repairing those let alone electronics in general lol

joking aside, I think the hurdle with those is obsolete transistors + things like DSP chips failing (no repairing those, they're often bespoke chips, licensed & quickly obsolete)

That said, 2006 DSP would be the "add on" feature and not the primary. Meaning for example my Onkyo 809 only triggers amp if DSP chip sends required signal to relays. The DSP chip is BGA type and has weak connection.....once the chip warms up enough connection is made and amp works.....they engineered the AVR where if DSP chip fails whole thing is junk lol (DSP is just Digital Sound Processing)

now-a-days (even 2010 from my experience) DSP is the norm and analog is not, so I think that is why design changed. but yea, sucks an amazing amp can be useless because of a DSP chip or some other failed obsolete IC.

maybe your Denon is not triggering the speaker relays....to protect speaks all AVR's have various designed ways to stop too high DC voltage / potential imbalance.

listen for that relay click when powering on....if you hear nothing that maybe it.

Next step is to place in closet for months and periodically tinker with it lol


Then Boom!! it works


I had a Denon AVR1908 that had volume imbalance between left/rght channels, I tried to isolate if it was an AMP issue or the digital balance adjustment chip (the volume and balance of various channels is a single chip)
even with the very good schematics available I could not fix it

but I didn't try the closet trick!!!!

I have Already tried your closet method...


Thank you for your insight on the vintage DSP circuitry and feedback!

Yeah, its very much like all these companies making it very difficult to replace batteries in our smartphones, impossible to reach and replace the sparkplugs in your cars ,or to just change RAM or drives in your laptops..


Well, I can't remember IF i hear the relay click or not... Guess it's about time to drag it out of the closet & juice it up and see..

 

[TL01magic]

Good work. It's hard enough to debug a circuit with a schematic but you did it without one!



It could just be a cracked solder joint on the output of the IC you pointed to. When you put the jumper on there you may have put enough pressure on it to jam it together and it stuck "good enough" for now type of thing.

If it fails again and you have a small soldering iron you might try touching up the solder joints on the IC and the place you jumped it to.

That's agreat tip!!

I have seen the inside of allot of electronics and the varying degrees of quality. I'm impressed with the solder work & tiny resistor placement. only one cap has questionable mounting however is solidly in place and component it's touching is insulated flat inductor thing.

while a bad / cracked solder joint can be tough to spot by eye, the solder work on this is good (looks clean, and robust. tiny resistors all mostly straight and proper amount of solder)


will definitely reflow a few connections if it fails again, and will be certain to do the one you mentioned!!