Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

[sofTest]

A Saturday a few weeks back, my ADSL routermodem froze up completely (I've had short "hiccups" on the line for a while before that, but thought nothing about it), and as I bent over to to power cycle it, my eyes fell on the capacitors half visible through the vents. I thought two of them looked like bulging. After opening it up, I sure found two bulging Capxon 6.3v 1000uF KF-series. There were also five 35v 470uF of the same series that were not visibly bad. I pulled them, and the ESR was in the range 0.10 to 0.15. I decided to replace them also, but physical size (16 mm hight) would be a problem with almost all 35v's of the same capacitance. I measured the voltage across them, and that was a little over 24v. I therefore replace the five 35v with 25v 470uF Panasonic FMs, and the two 6.3v's with 6.3v 1000uF Rubycon MBZ'. The result; not a single "hiccup" or freeze since the recap. The unit wasn't more than about 20 months old when I recaped it. Before and after pictures enclosed. The quality isn't great, as they are from my mobile phone camera.

[japlytic]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

I know someone who has a Speedtouch modem which keeps restarting from time to time. But I haven't yet opened the modem to confirm bad capacitors.
Also, I've seen a few Speedtouch modems at a local junk shop.

[shadow]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

I have read on the Whirlpool forums that the Speedtouch modem/routers are very good units. They are relatively unknown and hence not used that often get sold for next to nothing.

These routers lack many of the advanced features in the web interface when comparing them to other routers. However most of the advanced functionality is available through the CLI. That is a pain in the ass in a way because it takes a lot of effort and time to familiarise oneself with the CLI. Basically you have to know what is going on, you can not just tick a few boxes and write a few numbers and see if it works.

The main complaint against them is heat, apparently they run quite warm so I am guessing that is why these modem/routers have capacitor problems (along with using crappy ones).

I will be testing these claims soon. I bought a brand new Speedtouch 536v6 from Ebay for $15.

[ant3202]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

anyway..... nice recap, thanks TS for sharing, I will try to do a recapping of my affected modem when I am free cheers.

[sofTest]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

I have read on the Whirlpool forums that the Speedtouch modem/routers are very good units. They are relatively unknown and hence not used that often get sold for next to nothing.

In Norway they are sold by or on loan from some of the major ISPs, often with custom firmware, so they are quite common here.

The main complaint against them is heat, apparently they run quite warm so I am guessing that is why these modem/routers have capacitor problems (along with using crappy ones).

Yes, but I think the temperature has gone down after the recap. The new capacitors does have a higher ripple tolerance than the old ones, so that might prevent them heat up so much. I don't have any before temperature, but now the escaping air is around 44 deg C above the capacitors, which is were the air is hottest.

[banger]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

A Saturday a few weeks back, my ADSL routermodem froze up completely (I've had short "hiccups" on the line for a while before that, but thought nothing about it), and as I bent over to to power cycle it, my eyes fell on the capacitors half visible through the vents. I thought two of them looked like bulging. After opening it up, I sure found two bulging Capxon 6.3v 1000uF KF-series. There were also five 35v 470uF of the same series that were not visibly bad. I pulled them, and the ESR was in the range 0.10 to 0.15. I decided to replace them also, but physical size (16 mm hight) would be a problem with almost all 35v's of the same capacitance. I measured the voltage across them, and that was a little over 24v. I therefore replace the five 35v with 25v 470uF Panasonic FMs, and the two 6.3v's with 6.3v 1000uF Rubycon MBZ'. The result; not a single "hiccup" or freeze since the recap. The unit wasn't more than about 20 months old when I recaped it. Before and after pictures enclosed. The quality isn't great, as they are from my mobile phone camera.

My speedtouch 546 has started playing up. I was getting lots of CRC errors on my line all of a sudden. This came a week after a Phone Line repair by BT. So I tried the router in the test socket to make sure it wasn't my extensions and the router began rebooting constantly. Fortunately I have a spare 546 that I got off ebay so swapped the routers. No problems with the spare and hardly any CRC errors on the line after 3 hours. Now the nature of line faults can be intermittant so will have to monitor for a bit but hoping this is the cause of my unstable line.

After swapping the 546 with the spare I opened up the one that that seemed faulty and I found two bulging 1000uF 6.3V. The 470uF 35v seem ok so I have ordered some replacement Panasonic Caps from RS Components.

Getting the size right is difficult especially when you find the right one and it's out of stock because it's a new model. Anyway will recap the board when the caps arrive. I've ordered RS Stock Nos. 628-3920 and 365-4098 if anyone is looking for the same caps. The have a projected lifetime of 2000 hours but this under 105 degree conditions so should last longer. They are both 10 x 16 mm packages with a lead pitch of 5mm. Will post further after delivery and recap.

[banger]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

So far so good. Have recapped both 546v6 routers, just the power supply caps of 1000uF 16v, 2 each, and no CRC errors over two short 15 min tests. Replaced the bad CapXon caps with Panasonics, originals were 6.3V have replaced with 16v caps to allow plenty of headroom. Now to test for a week each, am hoping this is a permanent fix.

[pedropt]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

I have 2 speedtouch 546v6 , sometimes they work perfectly over hours , but then they start rebooting over and over without stop .
I spoke with my ISP and they told me to replace the modem at their store with a new Speed Touch TG585 without any charge .
I love the 546 because internet show me a lot of tweaks for this model , and also this model can maintain my speed at 17Mbit download .
Right now i am using a dlink modem with an Australian firmware , this dlink only allowed 8Mbit down/1mbit up , but with the Australian firmwave it can go up to 14mbitdown/1mbit up .
I will give a look at my speedtouch modems , and replace the capacitors in order if i can fix this issue , in mean while here it his some HD photos from the interior of the modem .

[darkcon]

Re: Speedtouch 546 T2 v6 ADSL routermodem

I had one of these it had AC (cant remember volts) and DC 22v listed as its power supply, and with its original power supply it ran for awhile and stopped, repeat, I replaced it with a 30v dc adapter from an old printer I had laying around and it worked great for 2 years nonstop, untill I stopped using adsl.

I wouldn't recommend you do the same, safety issues and all, but just saying it worked for me