Globalscale Sheeva Plug

[midibob]

This device is only a few years old but it started losing it's Ethernet connection intermitently. Just recently it was getting worse and would only stay on line for about a minute before dropping the connection. I thought I'd open her up and see if there was anything obvious.

Surprise surprise it's a flipping CapXon. Bulge at the top said just about everything. The ESR meter tested open circuit! Unfortunately I don't have these in stock and Ebay is a definite no no! All rubbish Chinese makes or silly prices for 'possible' good ones.
It's going to have to wait till my next order to RS or Farnell's so that I can be sure of getting a decent one.

[redwire]

Re: Globalscale Sheeva Plug

It looks pretty cheap in there, the first generation was a cheaper PSU. It looks like Sheevaplugs die due to capacitor fails.

Does it even have a mains fuse?

[stj]

Re: Globalscale Sheeva Plug

RS has no minimum order for free delivery

[midibob]

Re: Globalscale Sheeva Plug

No mains fuse!!!!

OK on RS too. I'll probably still wait till I need a few more bits which won't be long I'm sure.

[midibob]

Re: Globalscale Sheeva Plug

Actually it has got a fuse, one of those tiny ones that looks like a ceramic resistor. Didn't spot it untill I had a closer look.
Once the main cap was swapped out it wouldn't fire up. After a few power cycles it did burst into life once so I suspected the other caps were probably all shot too. After applying a little warmth to see which cap(s) it was I was greeted with a quiet 'crack' and it was no more! The PWM chip had blown plus a couple of SMD resistors and not worth the effort to fix. The chip is a STK A6053.
I've bought a 2A wall wart PSU which I'll use instead. Surfing the web shows these PSU's are failing all the time!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Globalscale Sheeva Plug

Looks a lot older than a few years old, looks like 2010, by the digits printed on the green PCB. Looks like the usual 4-digit time-of-manufacturing. On the far left photo, on the bottom left of the transformer.