Hacking the Logitech Z5500

[zombieryder]

Originally Posted by Mortenhoe

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 ??

[Mortenhoe]

Originally Posted by zombieryder

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.

[demck85]

I cracked open the back of my z5450 subwoofer. How would or where would I wire an RCA/LFE port to this.

[spacies]

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 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

[sertimins]

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

[sertimins]

I meant 5300

[KILLER_K]

I need a final working picture for the old style rca type Z-5500's to make a bypass cable. The last one I tried on here made me have a burnt regulator on the amp. So I have to get a replacement for that and finish it up. Thanks

[scooby117]

Originally Posted by spacies

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 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

[Mordi1984]

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

[scooby117]

I have no sound on any channel. Previously, everything was OK. Control panel is ok - tested on another z-5500.