Hi guys
Just a little story, some of you may find it slightly amusing
I did a job at one of the local hotels here in Puerto Rico Gran Canaria last week. Basically I had to get their PA system working in the chill out bar - it had all been disconnected while some work was undertaken and someone had taken the speakers down from the walls
Now that turned out to be that one channel on the 400W PA was not working. So I brought it back to the workshop, the problem was due to a faulty stereo/bridge mode switch. I fixed it, and installed it all on Monday. Traced the speaker wiring, got the speakers back on the walls. got the mixer, graphic equalizer and amp all wired up and it worked real nice. One happy customer and one nicely paying job plus a free beer by the pool afterwards!
So on Weds I get this call from the spanglish speaking bar manager to say I had broken the CCTV system! He said the cameras all went off when I was reconnecting the speaker wires and it hadn't worked since.
So I went and had a look, scratched my head for a bit, went and vacillated in the corner.... then said I need to get into the office as I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I could have killed all the cameras, but they were hardwired to the DVR (in the office) and there was only one cable per camera so they must be powered from there
Anyway it turns out the office closes at 4pm so I was too late, and had to go back today
So I got shown into the office by the bar manager insisting the problem was not in the office, there was no power getting to the cameras. The office girl showed me the DVR and the screen and said 'las cámaras están muertas'. I know enough spanish to understand 'the cameras dead'
At this point I smiled to myself and asked her if she thought it was a little strange that she didn't have anything on the screen at all (no menu, date/time and four black boxes quartering the screen and each one saying 'Sin Signal'.... oh and isn't it a bit odd the monitor power light is flasing on and off?
So there you go - the cause of the dead cctv cameras that I had broke while fixing the PA speakers - a duff HP 1740 SVGA Monitor in a different room!!!
So I brought the monitor back to the workshop, muttering under my breath at the bar manager and office admin complete failure to diagnose the dead camaras... amd smiling to myself because this is just gonna be a few little bulging electrolytics, so another nice little earner yess!!
And I do have 3 or 4 bulging electrolytics on the secondaries as I knew I would - but what I then spotted behind the mains bridge rectifier came as quite a surprise!!!!
Now that's what I would call a bad cap. What's the hell happened here???
Rich
Just a little story, some of you may find it slightly amusing
I did a job at one of the local hotels here in Puerto Rico Gran Canaria last week. Basically I had to get their PA system working in the chill out bar - it had all been disconnected while some work was undertaken and someone had taken the speakers down from the walls
Now that turned out to be that one channel on the 400W PA was not working. So I brought it back to the workshop, the problem was due to a faulty stereo/bridge mode switch. I fixed it, and installed it all on Monday. Traced the speaker wiring, got the speakers back on the walls. got the mixer, graphic equalizer and amp all wired up and it worked real nice. One happy customer and one nicely paying job plus a free beer by the pool afterwards!
So on Weds I get this call from the spanglish speaking bar manager to say I had broken the CCTV system! He said the cameras all went off when I was reconnecting the speaker wires and it hadn't worked since.
So I went and had a look, scratched my head for a bit, went and vacillated in the corner.... then said I need to get into the office as I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I could have killed all the cameras, but they were hardwired to the DVR (in the office) and there was only one cable per camera so they must be powered from there
Anyway it turns out the office closes at 4pm so I was too late, and had to go back today
So I got shown into the office by the bar manager insisting the problem was not in the office, there was no power getting to the cameras. The office girl showed me the DVR and the screen and said 'las cámaras están muertas'. I know enough spanish to understand 'the cameras dead'
At this point I smiled to myself and asked her if she thought it was a little strange that she didn't have anything on the screen at all (no menu, date/time and four black boxes quartering the screen and each one saying 'Sin Signal'.... oh and isn't it a bit odd the monitor power light is flasing on and off?
So there you go - the cause of the dead cctv cameras that I had broke while fixing the PA speakers - a duff HP 1740 SVGA Monitor in a different room!!!
So I brought the monitor back to the workshop, muttering under my breath at the bar manager and office admin complete failure to diagnose the dead camaras... amd smiling to myself because this is just gonna be a few little bulging electrolytics, so another nice little earner yess!!
And I do have 3 or 4 bulging electrolytics on the secondaries as I knew I would - but what I then spotted behind the mains bridge rectifier came as quite a surprise!!!!
Now that's what I would call a bad cap. What's the hell happened here???
Rich
Attached Files
But today, I’m making an exception here. Why? No idea. Perhaps only because the repair details are still “fresh” in my head… which is ironic, given this is a 16 year old monitor that hardly anyone will care about today. It is new to me, though. 
I picked it up last November from someone on my local Craigslist. It wasn’t very close to where I live, but was close to a family friend that I had to go visit anyways. So after watching the posting on Craigslist for a few weeks and seeing it getting...
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