Pioneer car stereo stopped working.

[TheDragon]

Hi, all. I seemed to be having a bumper electronics meltdown starting this year.

My Pioneer DEH-P7500MP stereo has recently just died on me. It's an older model, but sounded good and clean so a repair would be ideal and at the time I paid a good deal of money.

Very short back story.

Few weeks back I started my car and turned on the system and it had gone into demo mode. I didn't really understand why and didn't think too much of it at the time, but now I know it was an early indicator of some sort. I just reset my settings and continued using it.
I did also have a repair done few months into running, regarding a buzzing noise. Was repaired under warranty and never suffered that issue again.

Now - What I observed during its failure: After turning it on, the screen flickered a few times and then just stopped working.

Basic checks :

All Loom connections are fine
Car fuse is OK
Unit's Fuse is ok too (10 amp)

Considering it's been working for about 10 years I would assume that maybe (hopefully) that a cap or two have died and need replacing.

I've attached a photo with the inside view (CD unit removed).
Plus a schematic pdf

What could be the most likely component failure and I should check?

My MM is only basic with a max testing of 100uf.

Thanks for looking

[stj]

Re: Pioneer car stereo stopped working.

try resoldering all the crystals.

[TheDragon]

Re: Pioneer car stereo stopped working.

try resoldering all the crystals.

Thanks, I only see one. I'll check that out once I get the board out from the chassis.

As an observation, had it connected up to a power supply and connected one speaker. It stays on for about 5 minutes then stops working. Pressing the power button does not turn it back on but,
When I disconnect from power for a few minutes and the reconnect, it works for again, about 5 minutes.

[stj]

Re: Pioneer car stereo stopped working.

the schematic shows alot of crystals.
if your having "that" type of problem then do the following 2 things.

first resolder anything that bolts or clips to a heatsink or the case.
specially large transistors and the amp chip(s)
(some pioneer amps contain the power switch)

second. if that does not help, get some freezer spray and try to find what's shutting it down when it gets warm.

[TheDragon]

Re: Pioneer car stereo stopped working.

the schematic shows alot of crystals.
if your having "that" type of problem then do the following 2 things.

first resolder anything that bolts or clips to a heatsink or the case.
specially large transistors and the amp chip(s)
(some pioneer amps contain the power switch)

second. if that does not help, get some freezer spray and try to find what's shutting it down when it gets warm.

Thanks, I'll test that procedure too. Hopefully it's not the amp because its not driven hard. The front channels are connected via rca to an AMP and only the rear speakers are connected directly to the head.

[TheDragon]

Re: Pioneer car stereo stopped working.

Hi, Well I re-soldered the crystals and any silicon connected to heatsinks etc. I even applied some silicon based compound laying around from by computer builds.

I still had the same problem. The transistors would get quite hot, one in particular. And the amp would get fairly warm even with one speaker. I noticed they got much hotter with the radio than with cd/aux in.

It still only lasted about five minutes and then shut down.

I then thought how about the caps, they're over 10 years old. I had a few new laying around from my last job. So I swapped out the few I could near to the Power supply section.
Pow!! The system lasts more than 5 minutes, in fact I had it running through a few cd's over the duration of 2 hours plus an hours worth of radio.

The Transistors and Amp were still hot, but much much less than before.

So, now I've ordered the last few remaining caps nearest to the psu section, with an educated guess to which ones need changing. The biggest one being a rubycon 3300uf 16v, immediately from the 12v line coming in.

I would therefore assume, that the system should give me trouble free music for a few more years yet.

Thanks for the advice tho. It's always an education with bundles of curiosity.

Now I need to fix my satellite receiver, another psu problem I've been told. All G-luxon caps too...

This is now the 3rd household electronic device that has died since 2015 and one car based one..I've fixed 3/4. Some serious voodoo going on tho.......