Hacking the Logitech Z5500

Hello guys. This thread has been truly inspirational! I'm very thankful that it's even possible to find this much information about hacking the Z5500.

I'm in NO WAY an audio geek. I have almost no knowledge what so ever in this field. I'm an electrician and I also like working with computers, inside and out.

At work someone told me they found a speaker in a house that had been auctioned away, and it was to be thrown out. I looked at it, and it was the subwoofer/amplifier from the Z5500 system, and it looked to good to be trashed.

I took it home, and thought it might be usable, but no. There was no control pod.
Then after some googleing i find you guys!

Now. What to do. My plan was making this into an active subwoofer, that would work together with my Sony 5.1 amp. It's got a preamp phono jack out, for subwoofer connection.
One of you had reverse engineered the pinouts, so it made the job quite easy.

I'm an electrician, so I have testing tools. I started measuring from pins on the connector on the back, to the circuit board inside, and found out where pin 6, 7, 8 and 13 ended up. Then I soldered 4 wires on. I mounted an RCA connector in the back of the subwoofer amp plate, and soldered the 4 wires to ground. The I found out that pin 2, Sub In, was the grey wire in the wire bundle, so I cut that and wired it to the center of the mounted RCA connector.

And it worked! My Sony amp can turn up and down the volume on the subwoofer individually.

Now I'm thinking about modding even more. I'm trying to find out, how I could alter the frequency range. The woofer is playing to much of the sound spectre.(Yes, that probably not how you say it)

solder a 15k resister between the pre and amp (grey wire), this is how manage to lower the sound and set the crossover frequency of sub to 40 on receiver. i have a problem with humming. It doesn't hum wen its on but as soon as it gets audio feed it starts humming. do u have this problem ??
 
solder a 15k resister between the pre and amp (grey wire), this is how manage to lower the sound and set the crossover frequency of sub to 40 on receiver. i have a problem with humming. It doesn't hum wen its on but as soon as it gets audio feed it starts humming. do u have this problem ??

I was thinking about soldering a 50k potentiometer on the audio line. This would control the volume, but not the frequency?

Mine has no humming. Plays quite nice, I might say.
 
I have a different sort of problem. I have 2 sets of Z5500, both the same spring clip type, same model number and the PIDs are 748 and 750.

Both control pods work on one sub but they don't work on the other (new set I picked up very cheaply).

The fuse is good :p and I have opened the plate amp and can hear the transformer inside humming. I have measured voltages at several points inside and they seem to be ok. Is there a chip inside on the PCB that could be faulty?

Any help appreciated.

BTW, I have another control pod with the PID of R108 that came with the new set. Its not compatible with both of mine so if anyone is looking for one, let me know.

Many thanks :)
 
Z5500 VS Z3500

Hello folks,
I find this forum to be the only source of info for this project so I'm greatful to find this. My question is, is the pin layout on z5500 same or similar to z3500? If not the same, how about the wire color. Did anyone answer the question to limiting the cross over frequency. resister spec?
Thank you
 
I have a different sort of problem. I have 2 sets of Z5500, both the same spring clip type, same model number and the PIDs are 748 and 750.

Both control pods work on one sub but they don't work on the other (new set I picked up very cheaply).

The fuse is good :p and I have opened the plate amp and can hear the transformer inside humming. I have measured voltages at several points inside and they seem to be ok. Is there a chip inside on the PCB that could be faulty?

Any help appreciated.

BTW, I have another control pod with the PID of R108 that came with the new set. Its not compatible with both of mine so if anyone is looking for one, let me know.

Many thanks :)

Tell me what you have voltage between the pins:

1 and GND
2 and GND
3 and GND

should be:

1. +8/10 V (I don't remember)
2. -18V
3. +18 V

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
 
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Good Morning
And Hello.

Yesterday i tried to hack my z5500 RCA version cause the pod is dead.
I connect all so pin 7&8 to 5v and the sub and other speakers like on page 4.
First i got a buzzz sound and when i plug in the jack it was gone. and i was able to listen to music. I changed the source from mobile to computer and canhear something. I changed the source again and the buzz was gone. I tried my mobile and all speakers are dead. No sound anymore. I think i killed something. My experience is not sooo high. Maybe u know whats going on. Preamp dead? Is it possible to bridge that so that u go direct to the amp? Or set a direct signal to the amp to switch it on?
Greetings from germany
Mordi
 
Hi, Today i was watching again because this Stress me out a lil.
So i have in front of the Resistor? 6,.. V and after that Zero,
think this isnt normal,
hope u can help me, please

Greetings from Germany
and by the way sorry for that bodily harm cause of my english!
 

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Ir-receiver in control pod

Hey guys..

does anyone of you guys know a part number or pinout of the ir-receiver posistioned in the top the control pod? as i was tweaking with mine and accidently burned it before figuring the pinout? so i need to get a replacement one wich is kinda hard without knowing anything about it ;(

Hope someone can help?

Smilykoch
 
Hey guys..

does anyone of you guys know a part number or pinout of the ir-receiver posistioned in the top the control pod? as i was tweaking with mine and accidently burned it before figuring the pinout? so i need to get a replacement one wich is kinda hard without knowing anything about it ;(

Hope someone can help?

Smilykoch

Take a picture, or write the numbers of elements that interest you.
 
Sorry for the newb reply, but I have a post-636 sub with the bypass cable purchased on ebay. When I connect an audio source with the bypass cable, without speakers connected to the subwoofer, I can barely hear the music coming from the sub, but if I connect speakers to the outputs on the sub, those are loud and distorted. It almost seems like the sub channel is not working correctly?

Is there something I should check on the amp for the subwoofer frequencies?
 
Is somebody there who can told me the voltage out from Hct139. I have connect the sub and was set about 8V Voltage on the in channel from right speaker. Cause i was connect it like the pod in and dont think about that they make some cross in. So my amp will not switch on anymore. I hope somebody tell me the voltages into the amp that iam able to messure it to fix my misstake. All channels make nos sound output anymore. I think i killed something on my preamp. Maybe somebody maked the same misstake and got a solution for this.
Please help me!

Mordi
 
Tell me what you have voltage between the pins:

1 and GND
2 and GND
3 and GND

should be:

1. +8/10 V (I don't remember)
2. -18V
3. +18 V

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

Gday Scooby,

Thanks for the reply. Yes it should be 8v.

I visually traced the source of the 8v backwards from the control pod to the toroidal transformer with the thought I would start measuring voltage from the toroidal back towards the pod to find the problem, and bingo, first hit, the little round Bridge Rectifier (BR) was taking in 14vAC (always AC before a BR) but only letting out 2vDC when it should be 8v.

DSCF1061.jpg


$0.70c later it is back up and running.

Happy again!
 
Here is my short story.
Logitech Z-5500, springs-clamp version. Was buzzzing from all channels when turned on. CS* IC was not fried so I started to listen signal on POD-out. It was clear. Then I checked voltages on Amp board and noticed, that -rail is lower than +rail.
Problem was in bad solder jont, or even cracked trace around solder joint under one of power caps.
Here are photos with my solution.
 

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Hi, Now i fix it again, my Transitor or regulator to +18V was blown, now i fix it and it works again, but my center and my rear speakers are very very quiet, maybe my r45801 are blown? or what do u think about? have somebody got this problem too?
by the way my speakers make a strange noise like u get dust in a volume trigger, somebody got this problem too? but most important is the r45801 maybe somebody know where to buy this? or have solved this problem?

Greetings Lucas