Hello
I recently got this Line-6 POD X3 (a guitar effects unit) - it's absolutely dead no lights or anything.
Optimistically I'm hoping this could mean a power supply problem, rather than having it boot up but crashing or malfunctioning suggesting problems deeper into its circuitry. (The external power supply unit is good).
I opened it up and it's clearly had fluid spilled in it. There's white corrosion on the top-side of the board.
What would be the best way to approach this, if at all? What is the usual consequences of fluid spilled on digital gear like this?
Having a cursory look at the board, there are a number of voltage regulators - 780* in TO-220's - I could extract those and test them, plus remove and test all the elec caps. I could re-solder any connections which look poor. Beyond that I wouldn't really know where to go from there.
Thanks for looking at this,
Jim
I recently got this Line-6 POD X3 (a guitar effects unit) - it's absolutely dead no lights or anything.
Optimistically I'm hoping this could mean a power supply problem, rather than having it boot up but crashing or malfunctioning suggesting problems deeper into its circuitry. (The external power supply unit is good).
I opened it up and it's clearly had fluid spilled in it. There's white corrosion on the top-side of the board.
What would be the best way to approach this, if at all? What is the usual consequences of fluid spilled on digital gear like this?
Having a cursory look at the board, there are a number of voltage regulators - 780* in TO-220's - I could extract those and test them, plus remove and test all the elec caps. I could re-solder any connections which look poor. Beyond that I wouldn't really know where to go from there.
Thanks for looking at this,
Jim
Attachments
At first, remove those corrosion products with suitable liquid (Solvent). Then, check for voltage across those electrolytic caps. If any looks leaked, then replace it. Then check for oscillation in the µPC crystal. Check also switches, for broken pins, knocks in the potes, switchs and the like, and for broken solders with a magnifying glass in the SMD components, mainly resistors and bigger ceramic caps.
I would use hot water and washing up liquid to clean the board. See post #10 here:
Washing an amplifier board
It's hard to make out the spillage in the picture, however if the damage has eaten into the print and components then its probably not salvagable unfortunately.
Some PCB's can have white deposits from poor washing when they were produced, these can look almost like white salts.
Washing an amplifier board
It's hard to make out the spillage in the picture, however if the damage has eaten into the print and components then its probably not salvagable unfortunately.
Some PCB's can have white deposits from poor washing when they were produced, these can look almost like white salts.
Happy Ending
It's now working fine!
There was some very shoddy soldering all over the board - liquid damage aside - and, initially I thought I'd do the futile effort of improving these solder joints.
I don't know if these helped but when I saw that the through-hole connectors to the power switch weren't soldered on both sides, I soldered those. The unit sprung to life and now works fine.
The audio quality of this unit is very good, but the PCB build quality left a lot to be desired.
Thanks,
Jim
It's now working fine!
There was some very shoddy soldering all over the board - liquid damage aside - and, initially I thought I'd do the futile effort of improving these solder joints.
I don't know if these helped but when I saw that the through-hole connectors to the power switch weren't soldered on both sides, I soldered those. The unit sprung to life and now works fine.
The audio quality of this unit is very good, but the PCB build quality left a lot to be desired.
Thanks,
Jim
