I just bought a Linn Karik and a Linn Kairn for spares or repair. Both were dead or showed very little life, I paid £120 for the two with remotes.
The Karik was completely dead and showed no life, it had a silver slimline Brilliant supply in it that a HiFi shop had tried to fix but failed. Using a MM there seems to be nothing out of that Brilliant.
The Kairn would only show the green LED, dimly. It also has the silver slimline Brilliant in it and that showed life on the MM.
I swapped the Brilliant from the Kairn into the Karik and the Karik now works fine
The "repair" on the other Brilliant is Sub Optimal as in there are at least two capacitors that were loose and on one of the large capacitors the solder pad has come away from the underside of the board. Am I right in thinking that the only connection to those capacitors is on the upper non pad side? If so I will attempt a repair of the pad.
However that still leaves me with the Kairn. This does not seem to be a PSU issue as the PSU originally in it is working fine in the Karik.
(Unless the Karik does not use all the Rails from the Brilliant?)
I have had a quick look at the main board for obvious Caps damage and the like and I cannot see anything. Any advice on what usually goes wrong on these?
However, when I took off the front I could see that the battery is corroded but I cannot see much damage from corrosion on the PCB and have tested out the lines I can see with potential damage and they seem OK. One SM Capacitor is hard to read but that could be because it is in circuit(?)
Any ideas on what to look for?
The white is the damaged tracks but they are showing continuity. Purple is the capacitor I cannot reliably/at all read. I have removed the battery in this pic.
Corrosion/Leaking Battery
The Karik was completely dead and showed no life, it had a silver slimline Brilliant supply in it that a HiFi shop had tried to fix but failed. Using a MM there seems to be nothing out of that Brilliant.
The Kairn would only show the green LED, dimly. It also has the silver slimline Brilliant in it and that showed life on the MM.
I swapped the Brilliant from the Kairn into the Karik and the Karik now works fine
The "repair" on the other Brilliant is Sub Optimal as in there are at least two capacitors that were loose and on one of the large capacitors the solder pad has come away from the underside of the board. Am I right in thinking that the only connection to those capacitors is on the upper non pad side? If so I will attempt a repair of the pad.
However that still leaves me with the Kairn. This does not seem to be a PSU issue as the PSU originally in it is working fine in the Karik.
(Unless the Karik does not use all the Rails from the Brilliant?)
I have had a quick look at the main board for obvious Caps damage and the like and I cannot see anything. Any advice on what usually goes wrong on these?
However, when I took off the front I could see that the battery is corroded but I cannot see much damage from corrosion on the PCB and have tested out the lines I can see with potential damage and they seem OK. One SM Capacitor is hard to read but that could be because it is in circuit(?)
Any ideas on what to look for?
The white is the damaged tracks but they are showing continuity. Purple is the capacitor I cannot reliably/at all read. I have removed the battery in this pic.

Corrosion/Leaking Battery


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