News

Cleared the new year backlog

29th January 2012
Apart from a one or two tricky items of equipment, I have cleared my new year backlog! :D

Happy new year!

3rd January 2012
Wishing everyone a happy new year. We're open for business.

Bose Wave optical assemblies/lasers back in stock!

29th December 2011
Back in stock ready for shipping :D

Christmas and New Year holidays

20th December 2011
From the 22nd December 2011 to the 3rd of January 2012 I will not be taking on any repair work and calls will be directed to answer-phone.

Merry Christmas to all :)

20th December 2011

Thanks to all customers who have used us over the past year, hope you have a lovely Christmas.

Bose, Stanton, Citronic and Reloop optical assemblies out of stock

20th December 2011
The optical assemblies for the Bose Wave, Stanton C324, Citronic MPCDS6 and Reloop RMP-2 are all sold out. New stocks will become available in the new year. I will update the Spares shop as soon as stock becomes available.

Spares - Reloop RMP-2 optical assembly

20th November 2011
The component to repair the common fault of 'Disc Err' for the Reloop RMP-2 CD deck is available in the spares shop.

Spares - Bose Wave top loading cd player optical assy

9th November 2011
Replacement optical assemblies for the Bose Wave top loading cd player AWCRxx are now available. They come with a detailed replacement guide and do not require soldering.

Mobile broken!

11th October 2011
My mobile is broken as so I will be unavailable on the number above. Please ring the landline instead. Update: Mobile is available again.

More news soon

10th October 2011
Been very very busy here with so many things to repair, so I haven't had time to include them here. I will add them when I go through my paperwork.

Spares - Citronic MPCD-S6 laser/optical assembly

24th August 2011
Replacement optical assemblies for the Citronic MPCD-S6 are available in the spares shop. These will fix decks that have problems reading disks, or do not read disks at all. They come with a detailed replacement guide with photos and fitting does not require soldering.

Citronic MPCD-S6 cd deck

24th August 2011
Reported Disc Err. Reason was failure of the laser/optical assembly. Replacement restored unit to good working order.

Spares - Stanton C324 laser/optical assembly

20th August 2011
Replacement optical assemblies for the Stanton C324 are available in the spares shop. These will fix decks that have problems reading disks, or do not read disks at all. They come with a detailed replacement guide with photos and fitting does not require soldering. You will however need some assembly/disassembly skills and tools to fit them!

Audiohead AH1000 1kW power amplifier

20th August 2011
A power supply capacitor had failed, exploding. The damage from the cap was repaired and the cap replaced, restoring the amplifier to working order.

Technics 1210Mk2 x 2

19th August 2011
Decks has faulty phono cables and one had a dangerous mains lead. All leads were replaced.

Pioneer CDJ1000Mk3 cd deck

17th August 2011
Broken PLAY button. Replaced PLAY/CUE switches and reinforced button caps. Repaired sagging CUE button cap. Cleaned and replaced rubber feet. Deck was returned to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ1000Mk3 cd deck

17th August 2011
Broken PLAY/CUE and TRACK buttons. Replaced switches and reinforced button caps. Cleaned out spilled liquid, cleaned optical assembly and replaced rubber feet, restoring deck to good working order.

Studio Technik MPP30 hi-fi

17th August 2011
Turntable was not working due to seized drivewheel. Volume/EQ controls were also scratchy and the cassette deck internals were very dirty. The drivewheel was cleaned and lubricated, the controls reconditioned and the cassette deck cleaned out.

Important news #3

16th August 2011
We have a new phone number: 02920 555 465. Please update your records.

Important news #2

11th August 2011
I will be available for repair work from Tuesday 16th August. Workshop has been moved, now for the rest of the house!

Tannoy Revolution Signature dC6T floorstanders

1st August 2011
Dead combined bass driver/tweeter from overloading. A replacement was sourced from Tannoy, restoring these high end speakers to good working order.

ElectroVoice 12" speaker cabinet

1st August 2011
Torn bass driver. Replaced with 300W RMS quality vented bass driver.

Technics 1210 vinyl deck

1st August 2011
Tonearm and bearings were damaged from an impact. The bearings were dismantled and straightened, restoring proper operation of the tonearm.

Important news

29th July 2011
We will be moving again from the 3rd August. For the period of at least 1 week, I will not be available for repair work unless it is emergency work to vital equipment like CDJs or amplifiers. If you can wait, please do so until we are settled in new premises. I will be contactable by mobile on 07906 550 363 and by email. The landline number is likely to change again, so if you get no answer and no answerphone please try my mobile or email. I will endeavour to get all work completed within a sensible timeframe, however there may be delays. I will update the website with any important details as they arise.

CDJ1000Mk3 CD deck

27th July 2011
A drink was spilled on this deck, the jog display was not working correctly and the PLAY/CUE buttons were worn out. The drink was cleaned out. Replaced PLAY and CUE switches. Reinforced cracked PLAY and CUE button covers. Reconditioned the jog wheel, cleaned the optical assembly, repaired crack to jog display PCB. Fitted new feet. The deck was returned to good working order.

B+W Zeppelin iPod dock

22nd July 2011
The dock would not switch on. This was due to poor quality capacitors in the power supply (this is a £400 unit!!!). The capacitors were replaced and the dock returned to good working order.

T.Amp TA1400 1.4kW power amplifier

20th July 2011
The amplifier would not switch on. Fault on remote power relay board prevented main power switch on. Unit clogged with dust. The amp was cleaned out and repaired and tested into a dummy load for several hours. The amplifer was returned to perfect working order.

Pioneer CDJ1000Mk3 CD deck

18th July 2011
This was sent to us from a club in Pembroke. It had a large volume of sticky drink spilled in it, which seeped into the whole of the jog wheel, killing the touch pads and making the wheel very stiff, into the buttons and switches, cd loading mechanism, cd optical and motor assembly, card reader and audio board. Only by luck did the deck avoid being written off. The entire deck and its sub assemblies were dismantled and cleaned in solvent by hand. Corrosion on PCBs and metal was cleaned up and repaired. PLAY and CUE switches were replaced and the jog wheel was reconditioned to perfect working order. The touch membrane switches were repaired without needing replacement. The pitch fader was cleaned. The deck was returned to perfect working order and excellent condition.

Phonic 865 Plus Powered Mixer

13th July 2011
Unit was dead, due to failed transformer in PSU. The transformer was replaced, returning the unit to good working order.

Denon UDR-90 component stereo

12th July 2011
The stereo kept turning itself off and had a distorted channel. The problem was due to a fauly power supply regulator and bad solder joints in the amplifier and PSU. The stereo was returned to good working order.

Icom 706Mk2G HF transceiver

8th July 2011
The radio had low output power - just a few watts. Upon inspection the PA had some previous work done - final replacement - which looks to be unsuccessful. The PA was blown then the repair botched. I improved the quality of the previous work and replaced a blown gate resistor. The amplifier bias was found to have been twiddled, restoring it recovered some power output. Then the SWR detect, TX chain chain, ALC on HF and 6m alignments had all been twiddled. Realigned and returned radio to good working order.

Yaesu FT-980 HF transceiver

8th July 2011
The radio was off frequency. The reference oscillator was realigned and further problems were found with the PLL board. Realigned the PLL board curing IF shift fault. The case was missing some feet so they were replaced. The radio was returned to excellent working order.

Yaesu FT-290R 2m transceiver

5th July 2011
The radio was in very poor condition. The power socket was smashed - changed. Fixed loose and broken front panel. Removed poorly installed mods and undid damage to wiring loom. Realigned PLL/VCO, SSB modulator, carrier balance and ALC. Cured a horrible audio noise and whine by custom modification to VCO. Replaced top and bottom cover from another radio. Replaced microphone and reconditioned mode switch. Reconnected unattached ground points across the radio. The radio was returned to good working order.

Stanton C324 CD deck

5th July 2011
The deck had an unreliable loading mechanism. The mechanism was lubricated and a drivebelt was changed, restoring proper operation.

Yamaha 15in band speaker

1st July 2011
Dead bass driver. Replacement high quality, high power driver fitted, returning unit to working order.

DAB radio

28th June 2011
Broken antenna. Replacement fitted.

Sennheiser headphones

28th June 2011
Jack plug was broken. Replaced with a quality all metal plug.

Studiomaster Powerhouse Horizon 1508 #2

23rd June 2011
No operation of the reverb unit. This was due to a severed wire from someone trying to repair the mixer previously. There was evidence of water/liquid damage. Repaired the wire and removed the leached compounds from the PCBs. The front panel controls were all scratchy, they were reconditioned. The unit smelled strongly of an offensive odour, so the entire unit was cleaned with solvent and odour reducing spray applied to the flight case. This reduced the stench to something less offensive. God knows what it was - urine or death or both ... blergh!

Hitachi CD/DVD player AV unit with sub

22nd June 2011
The CD/DVD drive was not reading properly, due to a failed optical assembly. This was replaced and returned to good working order.

Studiomaster Powerhouse Horizon 1508 #1

21st June 2011
Channel B was dead. Upon inspection, unit had been left in a damp place for some time, corrosion and damp had affected a number of switches and pretty much all the controls. The amplifer units were dismantled and a fried resistor replaced. The switches and controls were reconditioned. * This was returned due to more problems. Corrosion on the inside on some ribbon connectors were found to be the problem, also some controls which had returned to poor working order were given some more attention. The work was completed free of charge *

Quad 304 Amplifier and Preamplifier

20th June 2011
Both items were not working. The amplifier was easy - just a broken loudspeaker banana connector. The amplifier was tested into a dummy load and found to be working great. The preamplifier was a different story. No fault could be found, but there was no output. A circuit in the output of the preamp was found to be responsible. As nothing wrong could be found, the circuit was disabled and output returned.

Pioneer CDJ1000Mk2 CD deck

17th June 2011
PLAY/CUE buttons dead. The switches were replaced. The button covers were found to be cracked and were strengthened with epoxy resin to prolong life.

Pioneer CDJ100s CD deck

16th June 2011
The deck was skipping due to faulty laser/optical assembly. It was replaced, returning the deck to good working order.

Behringer B412DSP active speaker

14th June 2011
Tweeter dead, bass distorted. Another completely blown active speaker. Tweeter dead, HF amplifier dead, woofer dead, LF amplifier damaged. The tweeter and woofer were replaced. The HF amplifier had blown its main output MOSFETs, which were replaced. The LF amplifier had a curious fault - its 15V supply was low. After some time checking with no problems found, the circuit was modified to give a good 15V. This returned proper bass amplifier operation and the speaker was returned to good working order.

Onkyo AV amplifier

13th June 2011
The front L and R channels were not working. Discovered lifted tracks and poor joints on amp riser board. Amp was tested into dummy load for several hours and was returned to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ400 CD deck

11th June 2011
The PLAY and CUE switches were worn out. Also the Vinyl light was not working due to a failure of the signal from the CPU. The switches were replaced and no action was recommeded for the Vinyl light problem as it would have required CPU replacement.

2 x Cerwin Vega dual 15in speakers

7th June 2011
Both 'sounded funny'. One had a dead tweeter and crossover. The other had a dead crossover. A replacement tweeter was obtained and both crossovers repaired. The speakers were returned to good working order.

JBL Eon 15 active speaker

7th June 2011
The speaker was completely dead. It was found to have a dead mains transformer, a dead tweeter, a dead tweeter amplifier IC and a few blown fuses. Replacing all of the deadness restored the speaker to good working order. Amazing how so much could be blown up.

Yaesu FT-902DM

27th May 2011
Low power output was reported and the radio was in poor condition. The low power output was due to a bash to the mode switch which damaged it. This was repaired, the meter backlights were replaced, the VFO was lubricated, all the knobs were cleaned, the front panel and case was cleaned and damage to the paintwork touched up. Alignment was checked and found to be OK. The radio was returned to good working order and very good physical condition.

iPod dock

23rd May 2011
The remote control was not working. The replacement battery was found to be counterfeit ... a CR2032 shaped 1.5v alkaline battery!

Computer control unit of medical machine

20th May 2011
A computer control unit was brought to me for changing of some relays by a trade customer. The relays were soldered into a thick through plated PCB making removal difficult. The relays were changed and the board returned to the customer.

Skytec active speaker

19th May 2011
The speaker was making a loud banging noise due to two problems. There was bad solder on the main PSU capacitors, and vibration had sheared off the pins on the main volume control. The volume potentiometer was replaced, restoring the speaker to good working order.

Old 1970s pub jukebox

18th May 2011
A sticky loading mechanism was stopping the machine from putting the record onto the platter. The mechanism was freed up and lubricated.

Ancient old 'Stereogram' record deck/radio cabinet

9th May 2011
The automatic record deck was not working due to seized mechanism. The mechanism was lubricated and restored. Scratchy volume and tone controls were restored.

Technics 1210 vinyl deck

9th May 2011
A pair of decks were brought in with the tonearms broken and ripped off. Replacements were fitted, restoring both back to good working order.

Rotel RB-850 amplifier

9th May 2011
One channel was down, amplifier was DC when in bridge mode, killing speakers. Repaired the amplifier, resoldered some duff joints and tested into a dummy load.

Rotel RB-850 amplifier

9th May 2011
Amplifier given a good check over and a number of failed solder joints resoldered. Tested in bridge mode into a dummy load for several hours at high volume.

Acoustic Energy Evo speakers

9th May 2011
A mid driver was replaced due to it going up in smoke because of a faulty amplifier.

Marantz SR series tuner/amplifier

5th May 2011
The rear phono connectors were intermittent due to failed solder. The input card was removed and soldered, returning amplifier to working order.

Shuttle X-PC

19th April 2011
The PSU had failed. A replacement was sourced and fitted, returning the PC to working order.

Telephone 'microphones'

14th April 2011
Some old telephones needed to be modded to work as microphones. Leads were fitted and glued into place with epoxy and XLR jacks fitted suitable for the mixing desk.

Video problems at 411 Nightclub

13th April 2011
The video leads to a flat panel display were damaged and the required feed to two small LCD TVs was not of the right type to be able to display composite video. The damaged lead was repaired and adaptors and splitters fitted to get the LCD TVs working properly. The remotes to the TVs were also missing so a replacement was found.

Cambridge Audio A5

13th April 2011
The amplifier had an intermittent left channel due to a failed solder joint. This was repaired, returning the amplifier to good working order.

Sanyo compact projector

7th April 2011
The projector would not switch on. This was due to a failed component in the power supply which was tricky to replace due to the complexity and high density construction of the projector. The repair was successful and the projector returned to good working order. It was also given a good clean out internally to ensure good cooling.

Magnum DeltaForce 10m multimode transceiver

6th April 2011
The radio did not power on. This was due to an S-meter backlight mod that has shorted out and damaged the main circuit board. The channel change was also intermittent and not working properly. The S meter backlight was replaced, the channel changer was reconditioned and the main circuit board repaired. The radio was checked for alignment and returned to excellent working order.

Reloop RMP-02 cd deck

6th April 2011
The unit was not reading disks due to failure of the laser and optical assembly. It was replaced, returning the deck to good working order.

Shop updated

31st March 2011
A shopping cart has been added to the shop, avoiding the need to purchase items via ebay and making the process more streamlined and convenient.

Pioneer CDJ-1000 cd deck

31st March 2011
The deck had been severely dropped. While the case was ok, the internals were severely damaged. The disk retention mechanism was broken, the loading mechanism was broken, the jog wheel display was smashed and the circuit board snapped and the main display was not functional. The CD player mechanics were repaired and the display board and jog wheel display board replaced, restoring the unit to good working order.

Soundcraft Spirit LX7 mixing desk

29th March 2011
The desk was brought in for a service. Fader knobs were removed and leaned in a chemical solution. Fader stems were straightened. The desk was dismantled and given a good check over and clean out of accumulated dust and crumbs. Faders were cleaned, dirty switches causing failure of channels were fixed. Worn away paint and rused case spoiling the appearance of the desk was cleaned up and sprayed with paint, restoring the physical appearance.

Allen + Heath GL2400 mixing desk

27th March 2011
This large mixing desk was brought in for a thorough check over and was found to be in perfect working order.

Cyrus high end CD player

22nd March 2011
The cd player had broken phono sockets at the rear and was intermittently reading disks. The unit was completely dismantled, the phono sockets replaced and a crack found on a flexible cable causing the reading problems. The crack was repaired, restoring the cd player back to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ-800

22nd March 2011
The deck was not reading disks. This was due to failure of the laser and optical assembly. It was replaced, repairing the unit.

Stageline STA-322 1200W audio amplifier

22nd March 2011
The amplifier indicated fault. The output stage had been destroyed due to shorting of the speaker output. The output transistors and driver transistors were replaced, bringing the amplifier back to good working order.

Stanton C324 CD deck

16th March 2011
The deck was not reading disks and the loading mechanism wasn't working. The loading mechanism was rebuilt and the optical unit replaced, returning the deck to good working order.

Cambridge Audio Azur CD player

16th March 2011
The loading mechanism was tired and not functioning properly. It was lubricated and a new belt fitted, returning the CD player to good working order.

Studiomaster Mixer with 1200W internal amplifier

15th March 2011
The amplifier was blowing fuses, the faders were not in good condition and the gain controls were scratchy. The amplifier was blowing fuses because of an intermittent short in the right channel. The faders were reconditioned and the scratchy gain controls repaired, restoring the mixer to good working order.

President Lincoln 10m transceiver

14th March 2011
The radio had been dropped, required a new CPU, backlight, realignment and removal of modifications. The RF power control was smashed and the case surrounding it. The case was repaired with epoxy resin and a replacement potentiometer modified to fit in the space required. The CPU was changed (a 64 pin DIL through hole ic on a double sided board ... eek) and a new backlight fitted, the DIM function restored and given a full realignment of the PLL and carrier oscillators. The radio was returned to good working order and good condition too.

Mipro portable PA system

10th March 2011
The unit would not charge due to a failed internal power supply. The fan had failed, leading to overheating and failure of the PSU. The fan was replaced, PSU repaired and some scratchy controls reconditioned to bring it back to good working order.

Ancient JVC amplifier

10th March 2011
Did not switch on due the cable being yanked and pulling a wire out of the plug terminal.

Icom 7400 HF transceiver

10th March 2011
There was no TX at all from the radio, due to dead RF amplifier chip on RF board. It was replaced, bring the radio back to excellent working order.

Pioneer CDJ1000Mk2 CD deck

9th March 2011
The deck was not functioning, with only the centre display lit up brightly. This was due to a failed circuit protector, which was replaced. The deck was cleaned internally and returned to good working order.

Running machine

7th March 2011
The running machine, turned on briefly before switching itself off. The problem was a failed 5V regulator on the CPU board.

Technics 1210 record deck

2nd March 2011
The audio lead had failed. It was replaced with a high quality cable, returning the deck to good working order.

Behringer BH01 guitar effect pedal

2nd March 2011
The pedal only worked when it was fully depressed. This was because the optical assembly had become misaligned and also because a slit in the mask in the optical assembly was not quite large enough or in the right position. Filing the mask into the right shape returned the pedal to good working order.

Camco Vortex 6 high power amplifier

1st March 2011
This very high power amplifier has been bugging me for weeks. Finally today I got it working and past all the amp tests to ensure its reliability. The output stage has shorted, taking out a lot of components and damaging others so that they measured ok but failed under voltage and load. The amp had to be dismantled so many times I've lost count. It also died three times under testing. At last its working properly! :)

Crown Audio CA6 power amplifier

25th February 2011
One channel was indicating clip at low volumes. The amplifier was checked over and run into a dummy load for a few hours without problems. Likely fault was a short in the speaker cable.

Alienware gaming PC

24th February 2011
The computer was crashing while playing games. This was due to a failing power supply which was replaced. The PC had to be rewired due to the PSU change. The PC now ran games without issue.

Yaesu FT-847 HF transceiver

24th February 2011
This radio was brought in for modification to improve the 4m band operation. A low noise 4m amplifier was fitted, improving the reception gain by 25dB. The PA and ALC circuit were modified to allow greater output on 4m. All modifications were performed with success. The radio was also opened up to allow use on the extended portions of the amateur bands.

Filmtech custom over the shoulder mixer

23rd February 2011
The master volume controls and CH1 and 4 pan controls were noise. All were reconditioned, repairing the mixer. Interesting Welsh made mixer :)

Ampeg SVT-350 guitar amplifier unit

23rd February 2011
The amplifier was blowing the mains fuse. The fault was a blown mains power transformer, a replacement repaired the unit. Also a worn fan bearing was found and noisy front panel controls. All were reconditioned, returning the amplifier to good working order.

RCF N980 high powered tweeter

22nd February 2011
Another one of these tweeters. This time the coil has been overdriven and had overheated and opened. The coil was repaired and the tweeter restored.

Yaesu FT-450 HF transceiver

21st February 2011
The radio was in new condition, however the S meter settings had been played with. The alignment procedure in the service manual was carried out. Where S9 was inaccurate, it was adjusted slightly to give a more realistic reading.

Pioneer DJM909 mixer

16th February 2011
The mixer had its channel fader replaced, however the work was not done to a good standard and the pcb had been damaged as well as a blob of solder shorting out the fader. The fader was removed, the PCB repaired and the fader reinstalled bringing the mixer back to good working order.

Rotel RA870BC amplifier

15th February 2011
Dead channel reported. Found to be working, was given a full test into a dummy load at 100W RMS total for 3 hrs.

Some new spares added

13th February 2011
Some new spares were added to the shop today. Replacement switches and install guide for the CDJ series, small replacement EQ knobs for the Allen and Heath Xone 02 and a value pack of slider knobs suitable for the Pioneer DJM 300, 500, 600 and 3000. See here.

Brother DCP-340CW multifunction office printer

12th February 2011
This was my office printer. Cyan was not working and black was all blocked up. The printer was dismantled, cleaned, the head was removed and cleaned with isopropyl alcohol. Alcohol was squirted into the print head to loosen any possible clogs. The waste ink reservoir was cleaned out and the printer reassembled with new cartridges. After a few cleaning rounds, the printer returned to good working order. Working with inkjets is a messy business!

Apple Powerbook G4

12th February 2011
The laptop did not power on due to faulty adaptor. It was replaced, restoring operation of the laptop.

RCF N980 high powered tweeter

11th February 2011
The coil and diaphragm were seized in the magnet housing. Luckily, the coil was only mildly seized due to a small amount of corrosion. This was cleaned up and the tweeter was returned to good working order.

CAMCO Vortex 6 6kW audio amplifier

10th February 2011
This powerful amplifier was not turning on. The problem turned out to be a dead capacitor in the start-up circuit. However, it was not fixed yet. After power on, it was apparent that part of the output stage was shorted. The amplifier was completely dismantled (due to its single large board surface mount design... why?!) and the shorted components replaced. The amplifier was returned to good working order.

BT Robin telecoms multi-meter

9th February 2011
The meter was not working due to the selector knob not being indexed in the correct position. This was corrected, returning the meter to good working order.

BT Robin telecoms multi-meter

9th February 2011
The meter was not working on the ohm settings due to dirty selector switch and dry joint on the circuit board. Meter was repaired successfully.

Horizon satellite finder meter

9th February 2011
The computerised satellite finder and information meter had been plugged into the wrong charger which broke the charging function. The repair costs charged by the manufacturer are ridiculous, so the owner brought it to me instead. A fried diode was replaced, restoring the charge function and fixing the meter.

Sony SW-100 portable SW receiver

9th February 2011
The battery case and door were broken. A small metal bracket was made and attached so that the battery door could be clipped in, returning the radio to good working order.

Gateway 15in widescreen laptop

8th February 2011
The laptop had been dropped, seizing the hinge and subsequent operation of the lid broke all the plastic material off around the hinge. The operating system was also unusable. The laptop was completely dismantled and the material forming the pillar for the hinge rebuilt with epoxy resin. The hinge itself was taken apart and the interference bearing removed so that moving the lid results in little twisting force on the repaired case. The laptop was rebuilt, building up missing parts of the case with epoxy each step of the way. The hinge was repaired with success. The Vista operating system had to be reinstalled and driver incompatibility issues fixed. The laptop was returned to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ1000Mk2 cd deck

7th February 2011
The pitch control was not working, the PLAY and CUE buttons were worn out and the jog wheel has intermittent problems. The pitch control was repaired and a full service was carried out. CUE and PLAY were replaced, the jog wheel was reconditioned, broken CUE and PLAY button plastic repaired and the unit given a good clean out. The deck was returned to good working order.

Landline installed! Different number though!

4th February 2011
Finally the landline has been installed! The new number is 02920 610 377. Please update you records.

Hitachi mini stereo

3rd February 2011
There were several problems with this stereo. The tape door eject was glacially slow. The CD drawer didn't work, nor did the volume control and the FM antenna connector was snapped. All were repaired, bring it back to working order.

Pioneer CDJ-1000Mk3 cd deck

2nd February 2011
Did comprehensive service on this deck. Resoldered some cracked solder joints on the audio output board, reconditioned the jog wheel, cleaned out the optical assembly and case, replaced CUE and PLAY buttons, replaced sticky feet and cleaned up spilt drink in CUE/SEARCH buttons and switches. The CD deck was returned to perfect working order.

Lab Gruppen fP6400 power amplifier

1st February 2011
The amp was given a service, cleaned out and checked over for any problems. It was tested into a dummy load for an extended period at high power and given a good bill of health.

Marshall B150 guitar amplifier

1st February 2011
The amp was suffering from buzz and loud crackling due to a scratchy volume control, scratchy Deep switch and dry joints on the input board. The volume control and Deep switch were reconditioned and the dry joints repaired. The amplifier was brought back to excellent working order.

Audio Developments Mercury high end audio mixer

31st January 2011
The mixer had a faulty switch and crusty fader on Channel 6. The switch was removed for reconditioning, however it was found to be unrecoverable. It was replaced with a miniature toggle switch and a label made for it. The fader was reconditioned back to excellent working order. A missing knob was also replaced. The mixer was returned to good working order.

Technika 19in LCD TV

29th January 2011
There was no life in the display due to a failed inverter board. This was replaced, but the TV started to cut out and overheat. This was because the insulation on the backlighting tubes had broken down in two places, shorting out the HV supply intermittently. The wires were repaired, returning the TV to good working order. This is a common problem resulting in the failure of this particular model after a few years.

M-Audio BX-8a

28th January 2011
The speaker had a loud buzz at switch on, the bass speaker went full throw then cut out. The cause was failure of a component in the power supply and the speaker was repaired.

Philips separates stereo

27th January 2011
The stereo has an intermittent main display, broken cassette tray, slow tape deck and no tape counter display. The faulty display was due to poor solder joints, the loading tray was missing a vital plastic piece so a replacement hinge was made. The tape decks were adjusted to the correct speed and the tape counter display problem was due to a failed IDC connector which was repaired. The stereo was returned to good working order.

Yaesu FT-900

26th January 2011
This radio had no TX. The problem was eventually traced to no operation of the TX/RX replay and ANT/ATU relay. This was because the previous person who dismantled the radio had got several interconnections plugged into the wrong sockets. Luckily no damage was caused. TX returned, however there was high SWR when the tuner was in operation. This was due to a faulty relay. The relay was repaired restoring operation of the tuner. It was noticed that the ATU tuning positions were not being remembered - dead memory backup battery. SSB mode was tested, finding a nasty buzz. This was due to a faulty mic lead. The faulty portion of the lead was chopped off and new connectors fitted on both ends. Intermittent TX and some further strange issues related to odd varying SWR readings into a dummy load and changing ability to tune were due to a series of broken solder joints and tracks on the LPF board. At last the radio was fixed!

Yaesu FT-900

25th January 2011
No TX due to disconnected drive to PA. Intermittent RX due to partial disconnection of receive antenna cable from LPF. Fault reported was drift, which was measured and found to be normal. The main reference crystal oscillator is underneath the PA, so heat from the PA will cause a small amount of drift, around 10Hz cold to hot. The radio was given a good check over and put on frequency and returned to good working order.

Yaesu FT-980

24th January 2011
This was a radio that had been worked on previously (and hadn't been picked up yet) where the notch filter wasn't working. At the time I decided to leave the notch problem and fix the rest of it, however the owner wanted it fixed so I attemped to repair it again. To my surprise I got it working fairly quickly and so the radio was returned to 100% working order.

Mackie 32.8 mixing desk

20th January 2011
Channel was dropping out due to poor solder connections on audio bus connectors. The main panel was removed and checked over for poor solder joints. The mixer was repaired.

Quad 521f high end amplifier

18th January 2010
One channel was down, this was due to an open winding on a transformer in the input module. Luckily the winding was open at the terminals, not inside, so it was repaired easily. A further problem showed under testing at higher output levels resulting in smoke! This was due to an active PSU capacitor discharging circuit becoming activated when it shouldn't. Both channels suffered the same fault. The problem was fixed by simply disabling the circuit. The amplifier could then be run at high volume levels. The amplifier was returned to good working order.

Vestax CDR-07 tabletop CD player/recorder

17th January 2011
The deck had loading mechanism problems and disk reading problems. A severe build up of dust inside the CD unit was discovered. The CD unit was dismantled and thoroughly cleaned. The loading mechanism was overhauled and a drivebelt replaced, bringing the player back to good working order.

Behringer EP2500 2.4kW audio amplifier

16th January 2011
The amplifier was indicating clip fault on channel 1 due to a bias fault. Luckily no major components were damaged due to additional bias protection. Some amplifiers would have gone up in smoke with this fault. A zener diode was replaced, returning the amplifier to working order.

Major communications problems

14th January 2011
Can I apologise to the many people that have tried to get in contact with me over the last two weeks. What seemed like a simple phone line switch has turned into a nightmare leaving me with no phone and no internet combined with very poor mobile reception. The problems will be solved in due course, but nowhere near as quickly as I would like. I now have internet thanks to a mobile internet dongle so please email me should you not be able to get through to my mobile (quite likely). A text also gets through. I will be checking my email very regularly now that I can do so. Thanks for bearing with me during this quite frustrating period.

Pioneer CDJ-1000MK3

14th January 2011
No jog wheel operation. This was due to broken jog wheel roller and hairline crack on a circuit board which severed the signal lines to the jog wheel position sensor. The jog wheel was reconditioned and the circuit board repaired, bringing the deck back to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ-1000MK3

12th January 2011
Faulty PLAY button. Replaced PLAY and CUE and returned the deck to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ-800

7th January 2011
Emergency repair of CDJ-800 with broken CUE button and switch. Repaired the CUE button plastic and replaced the CUE and PLAY switches. The deck was returned to good working order.

Mobile number restored

7th January 2011
Old mobile number restored.

Temporary mobile phone number

4th January 2011
Everything seems to happen at once - lost mobile phone! New temporary number is 07538 829 224. The old number 07906 550 363 will be available again in a week or so when I get a replacement SIM card.

Moving to new premises

3rd January 2011
Over the period of 3rd January to 16th January we are moving to new premises. This means potential disruption to phone and internet services as well as setting up a new workshop! If you cannot got through by telephone please email. I am still taking on repair work for important/emergency jobs, but if any repair work can wait until after the 16th January then please do so to allow me some time to sort everything out. The website will be updated with the new details in due course. The new premises will allow the repair of a larger amount of work as well as larger items of equipment. It also means significantly increased desk/bench space suitable for permanent setup of a range of test equipment and storage space for spares.

Happy new year!

3rd January 2011
Wishing everyone good luck for 2011.

Vestax PMC-05ProII mixer

17th December 2010
An internal 12V regulator had failed, taking out the PSU too. A replacement PSU was ordered and a replacement 12V regulator fitted, repairing the unit.

Yaesu FT-707 HF transceiver

15th December 2010
The radio was deaf, had no TX on SSB and was off frequency on LSB. It was deaf due to blown input protector, which was fairly annoying to change. TX on SSB was intermittent due to dirty relay. Radio was realigned on LSB and USB. The transceiver was returned to good working order.

Spares sales

9th December 2010
Sales with the small range of spares in the spares shop has been good over the last month. Many mixer knobs have been sold and all the stock of fader potentiometers for the DJM909 and 707 have been sold. New stock will arrive in mid-January. Thanks to those who purchased these items. Further handy spares will be added in the near future.

Soundcraft Spirit mixing desk power supply

9th December 2010
The original 4 pin female XLR plug had been damaged over years of use. A replacement plug was fitted.

Chevin Research 6kW power amplifier

9th December 2010
What a beast of an amplifier! Significant power. Fault reported were a dead channel and service required. The dead channel was due to failure of fuses in the power supply, either by aging from the inrush current at each switch on, or from a fault condition e.g. shorted output. The fuses were replaced and the amplifier given a good clean out of all the dust that had collected over the years. Some suspect looking solder joints were resoldered too. The amplifier was returned to good working order.

Eeeek!

7th December 2010
Had operation on nose yesterday. Suspect use of hammers and power tools. Not feeling too good at all - recommended time off by doctors for recovery 2 weeks. A few days in practice perhaps ... ;)

Pioneer CDJ-1000MK3 cd deck

5th December 2010
The CD deck did not unload CD properly. It got stuck, making a nasty clicking noise and the CD had to be ejected using the force eject tool. Unfortunately, the deck had been used for some time after the start of the fault. The fault was due to excessive magnet strength on the CD retention mechanism. This caused wear on some gears until CD unload failed. Further use of the player caused more damage to the gears. The gears were repaired with epoxy resin and the magnet strength reduced by modifying the retention mechanism with a spacer. The deck was returned to good working order.

Yaesu FT-980 HF transceiver

1st December 2010
There were a few faults reported with this radio. No transmit, off frequency, notch not working and s-meter reading low. Upon switch on, the radio was switched to indicate the PA supply voltage which smacked the needle against the side of the meter. Measuring with a voltmeter the supply was 40V instead of 24V! The cause was a failed output transistor which took out another transistor and a zener in the PSU. The 40V had been connected to the PA for some time as there were several fried resistors inside. Thankfully the PA transistors had survived. An additional fault was discovered in the second driver stage of the amplifier caused by the pressure of the PA case against a component which had caused cracking and splitting of a large solder joint. The meter backlights were faulty, which were replaced. The radio was put back on frequency and the s-meter sensitivity adjusted to a sensible value. The notch filter could not be repaired, but apart from this minor inconvenience the radio was returned to good working order.

Denon AVR-3805 7.1 AV amplifier

30th November 2010
The amp was going into protect mode at switch on. This was due to a damaged SR channel due to shorting of the speaker leads while amplifier was on. The amplifier was dismantled - quite a significant task due to the construction of the amplifier and two SAP16N and SAP16P devices replaced, three resistors and two zener diodes. This brought the amplifier back to good working order.

Bose SoundDock

25th November 2010
The solder on the ipod plug had failed - common problem on this very poor design. The socket was refluxed and reflowed and epoxy resin was added around the plug and over the base to provide additional strength. The sound dock was returned to good working order.

Yaesu FT-847 transceiver

24th November 2010
Radio did not respond to PTT from the mic socket. This was due to a burned resistor on the AF/DDS board - some voltage must have got into the mic socket. The radio was also off frequency on 2m and 70cm. This was realigned. The FM discriminator display was also off and was realigned. The radio was returned to good working order.

2 x 15in top speakers

22nd November 2010
The input jacks had failed. They were replaced, returning the speakers to working order.

15in bass bin

22nd November 2010
The bass driver had failed due to overheating. A high power replacement was fitted and sealed.

RCF ART 300A active speaker

21st Novemeber 2010
The volume control was scratchy - this was reconditioned, bringing unit back to good working order.

RCF ART 300A active speaker

21st November 2010
The speaker was suffering from a nasty buzz and very loud crackle. The cause was a large failed electrolytic capacitor in the PSU. To change it, the amplifier module had to be dismantled quite extensively due to its construction. The volume control was also scratchy, this was reconditioned. The speaker was returned to good working order.

RCF 1.2kW power amplifier

21st November 2010
The mains fuse was blowing. Cause was failed bridge rectifier in PSU. The construction of the amp made it a little difficult to replace. Once replaced, the amplifier appeared to be working. However on further checks it was discovered that the amplifier bias had drifted to a very high value for both channels. It was high enough to make the amp overheat whilst doing nothing. The bias was reset to 100mA for both channels. The amp was returned to perfect working order.

Icom 735 HF transceiver

19th November 2010
Another 735 with garbled audio. Realigned BFOs and HPL1-4 which were pretty much OK. The connection between ANT socket and PCB pad on the filter board was broken. The PA was dismantled and the track repaired. The radio was returned to good working order.

Icom 735 HF transceiver

18th November 2010
The receive and transmit SSB audio was garbled after warm up. This was due to drifted HPL1, 2, 3 and 4. No signs of the capacitor failure that seems common with this model. There was no memory backup to due a dead lithium battery, which was replaced. The radio was slightly off frequency, more so on USB. A full alignment of the BFOs and reference oscillator cured the problem. Some of the backlights had failed, so all four were replaced. The radio was returned to excellent working order. Update: The radio was returned suffering from RX distortion. The internal speaker had failed, which was replaced.

Acer Aspire 2930 laptop

17th November 2010
The laptop failed to switch on, Windows Vista was corrupt and unbootable and the trackpad did not work properly. The power management needed a reset to get the laptop back to life. Vista needed some recovery work to get it to boot, after which it was cleaned up and all service packs and updates installed. The trackpad problem was more difficult. The laptop had to be dismantled to get at the trackpad, which was also glued tight to the case. The glue was softened with solvent and the PCB removed and cleaned thoroughly. It was discovered that the trackpad worked without the case in the way, so the trackpad surface was carefully removed and the case plastic removed in the trackpad area with a lot of cutting and filing. The surface was applied to the bare trackpad, restoring the cosmetic appearance and the operation of the trackpad. The laptop was returned to good working order.

MJ Acoustics Pro 50 MK II subwoofer

17th November 2010
The sub had no power due to a failed mains transformer. A generic toroidal transformer of the right type was not available from UK suppliers. MJ Acoustics would not supply a replacement transformer because they want to keep all repair business to themselves. Why some companies do this I have no idea. They could have sold me a transformer and made  some profit. Instead they sold nothing and were added to my list of companies never to buy anything from. I had a custom made transformer built by Canterbury Windings for a reasonable price which brought the sub back to good working order. It must be noted that this sub does not have enough heatsinking for long term use at high volumes. Ridiculous, since it costs £300 and that to add some proper heatsinking would have cost under £5.

Cambridge Audio CD 5 cd player

17th November 2010
The CD transport drivebelt had stretched and as a result the player would not eject. The drivebelt was replaced, but there was not enough power to work the mechanism. Part of the mechanism was modified and the motor driver circuit modified to deliver more power to the motor. The CD was returned to good working order.

Cambridge Audio CD5 cd player

9th November 2010
The LCD display lit up but there was nothing on the display and no response from the buttons or cd drawer. The fault was in the power supply, no 5V. The PSU was repaired, then it was discovered the drawer mechanism drive belt had stretched. It was replaced and the cd player brought back to good working order.

Kenwood mini audio amp

8th November 2010
This amp was heavily modified by the owner. Unfortunately the audio select circuitry had been damaged. The audio was rerouted directly into the input of the amplifier.

Yaesu FT-900 HF transciever

5th November 2010
The radio had no RX audio whatsoever. The AF/SQL knobs had also received a bash and were bent and not free to turn. The front was dismantled and the main board and AF/SQL Notch/Shift potentiometer assembly removed. The assembly had cracked due to the impact, severing the AF/SQL connections, causing the loss of audio. Unfortunately, the short crack severed connections on both sides of the PCB. The assembly was dismantled and the damaged pot removed. The pot was completely dismantled to see if it could be recovered. Two shafts were bent and also the metal was fatigued so any attempts to straighten could result in snapping of the shafts. They were straightened as best could be done without excessive force, then the outer shaft widened so that the inner shaft could rotate. Material was also taken off the inner shaft. Once both were free to rotate, the pot was reassembled. The snapped PCB was glued back together with epoxy resin and the severed tracks jumped with wire. After reassembling the front panel, unseen material was removed from the control knobs so that they could rotate without fouling each other and making the controls useless. The radio fired back into life with healthy audio, bringing it back to good working order.

Technics 1210 record deck

5th November 2010
The tonearm was wobbling around due to a loose bearing grub screw. The bearing was adjusted properly and the grub screw locked in place.

New spares shop added

29th October 2010
We now stock a small range of spares for restoring mixers. The first items are replacement fader knobs for Pioneer and Allen & Heath mixers and replacement faders for the Pioneer DJM 909 and DJM 707. See here.

Allen & Heath Xone:02

29th October 2010
The mixer was brought in with a catalogue of complaints and in fairly poor condition, missing knobs etc. It had been dropped, bending the corner of the front panel. Output level was very low. There was no sound on one channel and intermittent connections - crackles and pops when the mixer was tapped. Crackles on EQ too. The mixer was stripped down and given a good check over. Many of the screws were damaged and stripped of their threads. A pair of burnt 10 ohm resistors were replaced and connectors re-soldered where necessary. Stickers were removed from the front panels. The remaining knobs and front panels were put in a cleaning solution to strip off all the accumulated gunk and sticker adhesive. The bent front panel was straightened. The mixer was carefully reassembled with new screws and new knobs attached. What looked like a tired old mixer now was returned to excellent working condition and near good as new.

Ashdown EVO II 500 bass magnifier 500W head amp

27th October 2010
The amplifier was blowing the main fuse at switch on. The customer had already bought a replacement set of output transistors and fitted them, however the fuse still blew on switch on. The cause of the short was a faulty smoothing capacitor in the power supply. However, upon fitting new capacitors, a further problem was present. The output was distorted which upon testing was found to be due to a failure in the bias circuit. TR16 was faulty, however it measured OK on the multimeter so the problem evaded me for some time. A replacement cured the problem, bringing the amp back to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ1000 MK3 cd deck

23rd October 2010
The deck had been sent through the post by an ebay seller, but had been damaged on the way. God knows what the courier had done to the parcel, the deck had been crushed and dropped from a great height. The crushing had separated the main display from the circuit board, but thankfully not broken it. The drop had caused hairline fractures in the PSU which cut off power to several different parts of the deck. All of the damage was repaired, bringing the deck back to good working order.

Myryad high end integrated sound system

22nd October 2010
This nice CD player and amplifier from an ebay seller had been crushed and dropped in the post. The impact smashed the feet and part of the internal CD transport. The case was also mildly damaged. The internal and external damage was repaired and new feet fitted, bringing the unit back to good working order.

Work for Modus Consulting

21st October 2010
A Samsung M40 Plus laptop was failing to boot as was a Dell desktop machine. Interestingly both suffered from the same problem, a corrupted filesystem leading to an Unbootable Volume error. Both machines has installed some updates on the day they stopped working, so it could have been an update that caused the problem. The filesystems were repaired and both machines brought back to working order.

Acer Aspire One netbook

14th October 2010
The netbook did not boot due to damaged operating system. Ubuntu 10.10 netbook remix was installed and switched to the standard desktop, with panels switched to autohide to make available as much screen space as possible. Media codecs, Dropbox, Office software and other useful items were installed. Google Chrome was chosen as the main browser, as its title bar and toolbars are very slim, leaving plenty of room for the main content. It also starts up quickly, important for a underpowered netbook. The customer was very pleased with the performance.

Inca Tech custom high end amplifier

13th October 2010
The amplifier had an intermittent input selector switch due to being in storage for some time. The switch was cleaned, returning the amplifier to good working order.

Lift multi-cd record shop player

12th October 2010
A similar cd player as previously described. This one had a faulty CD player which was replaced and the headphones were replaced too, returning the unit to good working order.

Lift multi-cd record shop player

11th October 2010
This cd player was from Spillers Records in Cardiff and had been well used and been in storage for some time. The unit did not power up. This was due to a corroded via on the CPU board. The suspension on one of the CD players was damaged so the unit was replaced. Replacement headphones were fitted as the old ones were rather manky and, well .. sweaty. The unit was returned to good working order.

Compaq Presario CQ61

11th October 2010
The internal CD/DVD writer was not writing discs correctly. Rather than failure of the laser or optical assembly, the drive just needed cleaning. The optical assembly was cleaned out with air and the lens cleaned returning the drive back to working order.

JVC UX-MD9000R micro system

7th October 2010
The unit was not reading disks. This was because the laser in the optical pickup unit had failed. A replacement was fitted returning the stereo to working order.

Sony TA-FB940R audio amplifier

3rd October 2010
The 'source direct' switch was intermittent and causing problems with the audio, crackling and loss of bass. It was reconditioned returning the amplifier to good working order.

Aiwa DX-Z9400M 5 disc CD changer

1st October 2010
The audio was skipping due to failure of the laser and stiffness in the spindle motor bearing. The pickup assembly was replaced and the motor bearing lubricated bringing the CD player back to good working order.

Yaesu FT-857D HF/VHF/UHF transceiver

25th September 2010
The radio was suffering from nasty crackle and the signal meter was stuck at maximum (not RF gain related). The crackle was caused by a faulty filter which was replaced and the S meter problem was caused by corrupted alignments. Also, the top band RX gain was corrupted. The s-meter was realigned and receiver gain returned to a sensible value returning the radio to excellent working order.

Pioneer VSA-AX10i high end 7.1 AV amplifier unit

23rd September 2010
This flagship 7.1 AV amplifier had no sound coming through the speakers. This was quite a nightmare job - the amp is packed with electronics, computers, analogue to digital converters , digital to analogue converters, digital signal processors, video switches etc. Dismantling the amplifier to get to the relevant PCBs was particularly time consuming and needed the removal of an insane amount of screws. During partial disassembly and inspection, the amplifier started to indicate AMP ERR too. This was due to several faults on the amplifier module that by chance showed while on the bench - 12 protection resistors had risen in value with age and heat and eventually one had gone open circuit. Once these were replaced the amplifier powered on without error, but still had no sound! A faulty circuit protector was found in the power supply and was replaced. Still no sound. The problem was eventually traced to problems on the DSP board. These were fixed and finally after about 4 days of pulling my hair out the amplifier returned to good working order. It was tested out in all its glory by attaching a load of speakers and watching Lord of the Rings in Dolby THX Ultra. Pretty damn good too.

Opera 110 mobile PA speakers

22nd September 2010
The speaker was buzzing and the volume was faint with no bass and all treble. This was due to failure of the phono sockets ground connection which had fractured and split from socket movement during use. The amplifier board was removed from its backing plate, a wire soldered to the ground plate and connected to a nearby grounding point. This returned the speaker back to good working order.

Yaesu FT-726R 6m/2m/70cm transceiver

21st September 2010
The radio was suffering from a number of age related problems. RX and TX were intermittent, the radio was off frequency by varying amounts for each band and TX on 70cm was intermittently dead. The intermittent RX and TX common across all bands was due to scratchy front panel controls which were reconditioned. The radio was off frequency due to drifted oscillators in the main radio as well as the band modules. Everything was realigned such that it was on frequency for all bands. 70cm TX failure was due to bad solder joints and a worn relay contact in the 70cm module. Each fault was repaired bring the unit back to good working order.

Yaesu FT-One HF transceiver

19th September 2010
The cooling fan was switched on full all the time, creating a lot of noise. It was assumed the fan switching circuit has failed, but on inspection it was discovered that it was connected to +13.8V on the circuit diagram and in the radio so was working as originally designed! The radio was an early model - later models may have had an additional control circuit for the fan. The fan was slowed down to about 40% on receive to cool the internal PSU and returns to 100% on TX to provide enough cooling for high duty cycle transmission modes.

Korg D32XD mixing and recording desk

18th September 2010
The sound from the headphone sockets on the front of the unit was strange. Upon examination, the L+R channels were found to be subtracted from each other. This was due to some screening foil contacting the headphone socket and shorting out the internal contacts and switch contacts. The screening foil was removed and the desk returned to good working order.

Yaesu FT-980 HF transceiver

15th September 2010
The transceiver was off frequency on both USB and LSB, one worse than the other. The problem was the reference oscillator which was realigned and the BFO VCO PLL which required realignment. The radio was returned to good working order.

Return to work on Monday 13th September

8th September 2010
Our baby has arrived safely and is getting settled in to our new family :)
I will be available from Monday the 13th of September for repair work. If you have rung and not been able to get through or have not received a call back by the end of the week, please ring on Monday.

Baby on the way!

29th August 2010
My wife and I are expecting our first baby on the 1st September. This means I will not be able to take any calls or work from this date for a short period. I will be available via email at repair@prscardiff.co.uk for questions and arrangements for picking up or dropping off of equipment, which will have to be done at our convenience. Normal service will resume and be announced here when things are more settled.

Hewlett Packard HP550 laptop

28th August 2010
Laptop would not power on or charge. Cause was broken power plug - a replacement fixed the computer.

Vestax PMC-06Pro mixer

26th August 2010
The mixer would not power on. This was due to broken insulation around the grommet on the power brick. The faulty cable was removed and replaced allowing the mixer to be turned on. The headphone mix fader was faulty - this was removed and reconditioned bringing the mixer back to good working order.

Sennheiser EM100 radio microphone

24th August 2010
The microphone was making very loud banging noises when shaken. This was due to cracked solder and loose screening cans inside the microphone due to impact. The damage was repaired and the mic returned to good working order.

Kenwood TK-3101 PMR radio

22nd August 2010
Another radio used on a motorbike where the unit had to be stored underneath the seat, limiting its range. A BNC socket was fitted in place of the old antenna so a good external one could be attached.

Alesis M1 MKII active monitor speaker

21st August 2010
The switched mode power supply inside had died, blowing the 5A internal fuse. The causes were: 1) Fixing glue of the wrong type which had gone conductive over time, shorting out whatever it came into contact with. 2) The PSU recifiers had blown. 3) The main PSU capacitors had also failed and were swollen and had leaked electrolyte. 4) A surge protector had also shorted out. All of these components were replaced, the glue removed and the PCB repaired where glue had eaten into the board and charred from the later short circuit. The speaker was returned to good working order.

Alesis M1 MKII active monitor speaker

21st August 2010
The other speaker has suffered a similar fate to the one above. Additionally, some 1N4148 diodes had also died and there was more severe damage to the PCB which was cleaned up. The speaker was returned to good working order.

Stageline STA-322 1200W amplifier

15th August 2010
The amplifier was indicating overheat and protect after use. The reason was failure of a 24V fan cooling the amplifier module. A replacement restore cooling and proper operation of the amplifier.

B&W CDM-02 high end speakers

15th August 2010
Unfortunately, the bass woofer in these nice speakers had blown. B&W do not make or supply the replacement speakers anymore, so a high quality 100W RMS woofer was fitted and the fascia trim modified so that it fitted nicely on the new speaker and looked like a good job. Apart from the black cone, the speaker sounded identical to the original and the customer was happy with the work.

Pioneer CDJ1000 MK3 CD deck

14th August 2010
The deck was skipping and freezing. The CD pickup was cleaned, but the problem remained after some time playing a CD. A replacement optical pickup was ordered next day delivery and fitted, curing the fault - just in time for the customer's club night on Saturday.

Pioneer CDJ1000 MK1 CD deck

9th August 2010
Sadly another case of an ebay seller supplying faulty goods. The customer bought a CDJ1000 however the unit that arrived was dead down one side. The customer sent it back and received another unit that almost worked except the jog dial didn't. The cause was initially traced to a faulty optoelectronic sensor, but after replacement it was discovered that an I/O line on the System Control Processor IC had failed and was holding the line low. This meant either a costly new main board at over £400 or try to get a replacement IC. Luckily the IC is stocked by Pioneer so one was ordered and fitted which repaired the deck. The IC is a high density surface mount component which was replaced using specialised equipment here at PRS. The deck was returned to good working order for a little over a third of the cost of a mainboard and fitting.

Audiolab 8000A high end separates amplifier

5th August 2010
The plastic on the phono connectors had aged and broken, resulting in the sockets literally falling apart. They were removed and replaced with new ones, returning the amplifier to good working order.

Kenwood TK-3101 PMR radio

5th August 2010
This radio was being used as a communications system for a motorbike, however the radio was being kept underneath the seat which was restricting its range. The antenna was removed from the radio and a BNC connector fitted so that a good external antenna could be attached.

Roland SH-101 synthesizer

30th July 2010
The synth did not power on and had been in storage for some time in damp conditions. The reason the keyboard did not switch on was due to a blown internal power supply. The power was restored by replacing a power transistor. Poor connections on the line output and headphone sockets were re-soldered. A broken pitch bend control was repaired. Upon testing, it was discovered that a section of the keyboard was not working. This required the complete dismantling of the keyboard, upon which it was discovered that the printed circuit underneath had corroded due to the damp conditions and opened a common circuit line that served the top section of the keyboard. Damp had damaged a number of traces which had to be repaired. The keys were given a good clean as they had been removed and the synth was returned to good working order and excellent physical condition.

Korg MS2000R hardware synth

30th July 2010
The synth did not power on due to a broken power socket. The solder had failed and the pads lifted from the circuit board.

Pioneer CDJ1000 MK3

27th July 2010
The deck had a faulty pitch fader and the customer had purchased a new one and had it fitted by a phone shop. Unfortunately this phone shop did not know what they were doing and did a poor job of de-soldering and replacement of the fader and ended up blowing up the power supply. Tidying up the poor work and repair of the power supply brought the deck back to good working order.

Marshall Valvestate 100V guitar amplifier

13th July 2010
The amplifier was suffering from low volume and distortion. The cause was a failed solder joint on the power supply capacitors. The input jack was restored as it was intermittent and a missing foot replaced. The amplifier was restored to good working order.

Marantz PM-66SE separates amplifier

13th July 2010
The left channel was low in volume and noisy. While the fault did not show on the bench, it was noticed that many of the solder joints were on the way to failure. The joints were resoldered and the amplifier returned to good working order.

Pioneer AVH-P5700DVD in car DVD player system

7th July 2010
The low level signal inputs and output were clicking and picking up noise. This was because a small fuse, tucked away inside the radio had blown due to a small current flowing through the ground system of the low level input and outputs. If I were being cynical, this pointless fuse is to catch out people installing the sound system so Pioneer can charge extortionate amounts for repair and installation of the failed system. The stereo was modified to repair and prevent the problem from happening again. The stereo was returned to good working order.

Sennheiser EM2004 radio microphone

5th July 2010
The radio mic receiver base station required an investigation into its sensitivity as it appeared to perform poorly against another unit. The base station checked out OK, in fact its sensitivity was excellent. The problem was due to a weak transmitter on the radio mic caused by weak batteries. The microphones RF output power drops significantly, reducing its range when the battery is weak - even though visually it appears to work fine right down to near zero output.

Advent 7206 laptop

4th July 2010
Laptop would not power on, something was also rattling around inside. Upon inspection it was discovered that the rattle was a loose screw... bad news if that shorts anything out on the laptop mainboard! It possibly could have been causing the switch on issue and had moved when the laptop was transported. The screw was removed and the battery taken out and reinserted to cycle the PMU and the laptop started up without problem. A few checks later found no problems.

Nakamichi 630 tuner/preamplifier

4th July 2010
This nice professional FM tuner unit was dropping a channel intermittently. The cause was age of some edge connectors inside the unit. The daughterboard connections were cleaned thoroughly and each sprung contact formed and cleaned to make a better connection. It was noticed that the front panel indicators and illumination had burnt out, so the indicator bulbs were replaced too. Tarnish was removed from the phono connectors and where there was damage to the front panel such that light from the illumination leaked through, matching paint was applied. The tuner was returned to good working order.

Work for Modus Consulting

3rd July 2010
A small monitor was repaired due to a problem with its power adaptor. Some strange issues with explorer.exe on a PC were fixed. Wireless internet connection issues were resolved on several laptops and a desktop machine.

Sony PCG-Z1XMP laptop

3rd July 2010
Laptop was suffering from bluescreen issues - cause was old wireless drivers. Updated and problem disappeared.

Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop

1st July 2010
The laptop would not charge its battery despite being connected to power and was also overheating. The shift key had also come off and the underlying mechanism lost. The cause of not charging was particularly annoying - Dell have made the power adaptor 'intelligent' so if you plug any other adapter in apart from Dell's the laptop will refuse to charge. Of course, with this new feature comes the usual bugs we have come to expect with insufficient product testing - a show-stopping computer killing bug for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever. The bug was overcome, then the BIOS updated to permanently fix the problem. The shift key was repaired and the computer cleaned up. The laptop was returned to good working order. Update: Upon further testing prior to returning it to the customer it was discovered that the soldering to the power socket had failed AND the charger was intermittently faulty! Sometimes things are not what they seem.

IItronics 8Gb MP3 player

1st July 2010
The MP3 player would not connect to the computer when connected to a USB port. The cause was failure of the soldering on the USB socket. This was re-soldered and the player was returned to good working order.

Yaesu FT-23R 2m handheld transceiver

30th June 2010
The transceiver refused to TX, RX was ok. The cause was not PA failure, but increased internal resistance of the battery - the voltage dipped below the required level on TX and reset the internal computer. The battery was tidily split apart and re-celled with 2500mAh NiMH cells for excellent battery life and returned to good working order.

Kenwood TH-79E FM handheld dual band transceiver

29th June 2010
The display on this handheld transceiver was intermittent and flickery. The cause was a poor conductive rubber contact between the processor board and the lcd display unit. The transceiver was repaired and returned to good working order.

Mackie Fussion 3000 active speaker cabinet

23rd June 2010
The customer brought this in with the previous failed speaker. While no syptoms of failure were affecting the sound of the speaker, on inspection the PSU capacitors were failing. 12 were replaced refurbishing the unit back to good reliable condition.

Mackie Fussion 3000 active speaker cabinet

22nd June 2010
This huge active speaker were suffering from a buzz when it was hot after some time at high volume. The reason was failure of the PSU capacitors for the bass, mid and high amplifiers. They were swollen and significantly reduced in capacitance which was worsened when hot. 12 were replaced bringing the speaker back to working order.

Technics 1210 vinyl deck #2

18th June 2010
Deck did not switch on due to a power surge which killed the power supply. The power supply was repaired, the deck was cleaned up and the speed control lubricated so it was smooth again.

Technics 1210 vinyl deck #1

18th June 2010
Deck did not switch on due to a power surge which killed the power supply. The power supply was repaired, the deck was cleaned up and the speed control lubricated so it was smooth again.

Alesis RA-500 Reference studio amplifier

11th June 2010
The amplifier has been purchased as untested and had suffered some damage in the post. The speaker binding posts had also been damaged and snapped off! The amplifier also did not switch on. The supplied power lead had a 3A fuse which was insufficient for powering the amplifier. It was replaced with a 5A and the amplifier powered on without fault. The speaker binding posts were replaced, the chassis bent back into the right shape and the amplifier tested at 120W/ch RMS into 8 ohms for an hour without issue, getting nice and toasty in the process.

Pioneer CDJ-400 cd deck

10th June 2010
The deck did not switch on. The problem was initially traced to a faulty surge protector, however after testing for several hours the fault returned. On inspection, there was a short measured on the regulator board. The fault must have blown the surge protector previously then cleared itself.  Because of the design of the deck, to get at the board to faultfind and replace components the front of the deck had to be dismantled making the job hours longer than it should have taken. The fault was traced to a wire link carrying 12V that was folded over onto the groundplane of the board, shorting out the supply - a manufacturing defect. A thin layer of varnish had been preventing the short, however on a hot day and being used for several hours, the thermal expansion of the board had squeezed the layer of varnish and pierced it! The link was desoldered and replaced and the deck was returned to good working order. It is lucky that the fault showed on the test bench, as this is a type of fault that would cause headaches for both the customer and myself, as the fault would inevitably had cleared by the time the deck has cooled down and been returned to me, only to return when used in a hot enviroment!

Pioneer DJM-909 professional mixer

9th June 2010
The mixer has a broken channel 2 fader and also the fader shape controls at the front of the mixer were damaged and broken. The headphone socket was also loose. The fader was replaced, the fader shape controls repaired and the headphone socket fixed so that it will never loosen again. The mixer was returned to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ-400 cd deck

9th June 2010
The deck was intermittently freezing, which can easily ruin a mix. The deck was given a good check over and its internal software program was updated. This cleared the freezing problem and repaired the deck.

Numark Dimension 4 1.9kW amplifier

4th June 2010
The amplifier was brought in with the thermal cut-out circuit breaker faulty. The customer hoped that the cut-out was just the problem, however channel  B had failed catastrophically and the large overload current caused by this was tripping the breaker. The breaker had been reset so many times that it had burnt itself out. The customer decided that the repair cost was uneconomical (due to the number of transistors that would need replacing) and decided not to go ahead with the repair. The customer gave the broken amplifier to me for spares which I am grateful for, thank you Damon.

Professional Repair Services is 1 year old!

1st June 2010
Well time does go quickly! I would like to thank customers that chose to use us over the last year. Things started quite slowly and have gently accelerated over the following months, leading to the last two months which have been the busiest ever! New customers have come to us through the website which has climbed in popularity to the top result or very near the top result in a variety of Google searches for audio, CDJ and radio repairs in the Cardiff and South Wales area. Many customers return with additional equipment to repair. Repairs to amateur radio equipment have also been increasing too, with people from outside the area sending in their radios via courier.

Due to the increase in business, we are considering moving to some new premises in Cardiff in order to expand. We are also considering developing some interesting products for those of you out there that like to wield your own screwdrivers and save yourself some cash. Watch this space.

Our goal has always been to provide a service that makes it worthwhile to repair medium value electronic equipment and will remain so over the next year.

Advent 7206 laptop

20th May 2010
The laptop was freezing 3 times a day and on startup error boxes were displayed. The memory and hard disk tested ok. The processor cooler was cleaned and the computer was cleaned up and given a thorough check over. It was restored to good working order.

Behringer DJX700 mixer

19th May 2010
Soon after switch on, a nasty buzz came out of it and the signal meters showed maximum. This was due to a bad 7915 regulator shorting out the power supply. A replacement plus some new rectifier diodes solved the problem and brought the mixer back to working order.

Wilderness Radio Sierra QRP HF transceiver kit

18th May 2010
The radio had been built from a kit but the builder was having problems getting any RF output. The circuit board in the PA area had been damaged in an attempt to find the fault. The PA was stripped down and rebuilt and the circuit board cleaned up. A junction FET was replaced. Still no output, much to my disappointment. The full alignment procedure was carried out, bringing with it a healthy 2W output - the RF tx signal had been attenuated by poorly aligned band-pass filters.

Numark TT500 high torque vinyl deck

18th May 2010
The deck was brought in with the following problems. There was no start action, the platter had to be started by hand. The motor then took over, but ran at a slow speed. The cause was failure of an internal 3.3V supply rail - a replacement IC and resistor repaired the deck.

Pioneer DJM-600 mixer

17th May 2010
Oh dear, this mixer had apparently been lent to an all weekend scratch DJ party in Bristol. Needless to say, there was not much left of it afterwards! All faders had been destroyed and several knobs were missing. Despite the damage done, it was restored to good working order at a good price, much to the delight of the customer.

Stanton C324 CD deck

17th May 2010
Deck had been plugged into 240V when it was an American 120V version. Result was smoked PSU and input filter. Replacements repaired the deck.

Audiohead 1kW power amplifier

11th May 2010
Amplifier has a dead channel B after being connected to a shorted bass bin and run at high volume. The damage to the amplifier was catastrophic, all output transistors dead plus other components - over 20 in total. A strip down of the amplifier module, set of new output transistors, power resistors and diodes repaired the amplifier.

Allen & Heath Xone 92 professional mixer

9th May 2010
Faders 1, 2 and 3 were scratchy and the volume went to full when they were tapped. The faders were removed, dismantled and carefully reconditioned back to good working order, repairing the mixer and avoiding the ridiculous cost of replacement fader units. The fader units in this particular model are very high quality for a DJ mixer.

Yaesu FT-8800 2m/70cm FM transceiver

8th May 2010
The radio was suffering with no output on 2m. 70cm was ok. After tracing the 144Mhz carrier through the pre-amp stages it was determined that they were ok and the final output transistor was ok. Two diodes were discovered open in the output filter circuit, replacements from Yaesu fixed the radio.

Wharfedale SPV-15B bass bin

7th May 2010
The bin was suffering from distortion and also came with an amp with a totally blown channel. Upon examination of the insides, a piece of metal was found that was shorting out parts of the crossover, causing the distortion and shorting out any connected amplifier. This is what killed the 1kW amp that was driving it, ouch. Removal of the metal and replacing some missing jack nuts and screws brought the bin back to working order.

Jan AM CB radio

7th May 2010
TX audio was distorted due to bad solder joint. Re-soldering cured the problem.

President Andrew J AM CB radio

6th May 2010
The signal meter was stuck, causing the appearance that receive wasn't working. This fooled me for a while as I traced the mixer and IF stages. Removing the signal meter and loosening the needle bearing cured the S meter fault. Loss of TX was caused by a solder speck in the TX area. Very low modulation levels was due to a bad microphone.

Uniden 200 UK FM CB radio

6th May 2010
The only thing that lit up on this CB was the signal meter backlight. A shorted electrolytic capacitor in the 8V supply caused the loss of 8V and death of RX and TX. Changing the cap brought the radio back to working order.

Alberry M408 Monoblock high end amplifier

6th May 2010
Phono connection on rear was very loose and the wired connections had been severed from the amplifier board. The socket was removed, stripped, rewired, refitted and connected to top-side components so that the amplifier board need not be removed - which would otherwise been a lengthy job. The repair brought the unit back to good working order.

Alberry M408 Monoblock high end amplifier

6th May 2010
Phono connection on rear was intermittent. This was due to fatigued socket and poor solder on the pcb connections for the socket. The socket was repaired in a similar manner to the above.

Marantz PM151 amplifier

4th May 2010
Amplifier was bought in dead. The fuse had blown - a replacement bought the amplifier back to life but it ran very hot. This was because the bias had drifted up to about an amp, making the output transistors and heatsink very hot which itself caused a further bias current rise. This overheating leading to over-current condition had blown the fuse. The bias current was set to 60-80mA, repairing the amplifier.

Marantz PS2100 amplifier

4th May 2010
The amplifier has two problems, it was going into protect mode and the front motorised panel wasn't working properly. It was going into protect mode due to poor solder joints on the underside of the mainboard that feeds the amplifier modules. The panel didn't work properly due to a faulty switch that failed to tell the amplifier logic that the panel was closed. Both faults were repaired and the amplifer returned to good working order.

Radio Testimonials

1st May 2010
I have added a new section to the website 'Radio Testimonials' for the comments I receive from people who are pleased with the work carried out to their radios and the first is from Mr. David Bowen, who I repaired an FT-857 for.

Yaesu FT-857

Faults: Nasty internal crackle making transceiver unusable, DSP filtering issues.

Hello Dan,

My thanks go out to you. What a wonderful job you have done repairing my
857-D. Since I have had the radio its always been a tiny amount off
frequency on 2M SSB. I conducted a test with my brother earlier who
lives in Shropshire and he said it was bang smack on frequency.. Thanks
very much Dan.

Regards

David Bowen
2W0ZJA
Brecon

Thanks David for your comments on the repaired transceiver. I am very glad you are pleased with the work carried out on it. 73 and GD DX!

Icom R-71E

28th April 2010
Customer bought in a general coverage receiver with a complicated major fault and several time consuming age related problems related to capacitors. A list of issues was drawn up to create an accurate and detailed estimate of repair which took 3 hours. The work in total would have taken a full day of work on the bench and had already taken half. The customer decided that the radio was not worth repairing and offered to pay me for my time which I was grateful for, so I charged half rate for three hours of skilled faultfinding for a total of £45, which incidentally is the same as a single hour of diagnosis fee at another radio repair shop here in Wales. I also prepared a detailed list of the faulty components that required replacement. He then decided that this was too much and took the radio away without any payment at all. I offer a value for money, competitive, high quality, skilled repair service with excellent support and free initial examination on many items. However due to the complicated and time-consuming nature of amateur radio equipment repair and due to this incident there will now be an examination fee charged should the customer decide not to go ahead with the repair. CB equipment initial examination remains free.

For the record, I decided to check on Icom service charges which 'start at' £27.50 + VAT per half hour plus parts. That's £64.63 per hour compared to our £30 per hour, more than twice the price!

Yaesu FT-857 HF transceiver

23rd April 2010
The reported faults were a wide open receive and a nasty crackle affecting rx performance. The wide open receive was caused by incorrect DSP settings. The crackle was more difficult. After quite a long time trying to find the source of the crackle, it was traced to the AM 455kHz filter. A replacement cured the fault, returning the radio to good working order.

Technics 1210 record deck

20th April 2010
The tonearm was loose, the balance and tonearm mounting mechanism was removed and the tonearm fixing screws tightened.

Pioneer CDJ-500S cd deck

19th April 2010
Deck stopped reading CDs after about 15 minutes. The laser had failed, a replacement was fitted repairing the unit.

Realistic TRC-2005 CB transceiver

13th April 2010
The radio has been connected the wrong way around without an inline fuse. The protection diode shorted as a consequence and the high current flow that resulted burnt out a track on the pcb. The diode was replaced and the track repaired bringing the unit back to good working order. The FM deviation (modulation) was turned up too, as it was far too quiet.

Kenwood TS-440S HF transceiver

9th April 2010
This radio was suffering from gremlins in the PLL board and has really had me scratching my head for some time. Finally, in the last few days I have cracked it!
The radio was really off frequency and the only tuning steps were every 10kHz. This was due to twiddled bandpass filters in the PLL board, which supressed the wanted mixer products from MIX5 and instead the PLL locked to a different mixer product! This was why it was so far off frequency (653kHz) and did not tune finely since the fine tuning signal was lost. Some other minor problems were also fixed. Very happy about fixing this, it has been taunting me for ages.

Kenwood TS-440S HF transceiver

6th April 2010
Radio was suffering from unstable VCO-5 causing drifting frequency and unlock. Cause was poor solder joints in the VCO-5 area and the classic 'glue problem'. The glue was removed with solvent and picked away from the PCB, curing the problem.

Pioneer CDJ-500S cd deck

6th April 2010
Unit would not eject CDs after a period of time in storage, this was due to a sticky mechanism and slack drive-belt. Unit was repaired back to good working order.

Bose SoundDock iPod dock

31st March 2010
The dock had been used without the appropriate slot adaptor for the iPod used with the system. This led to the snapping of the plug completely off the dock. Luckily, the plug was undamaged. It was soldered back on and reinforced with epoxy resin to bring the unit back to good working order.

FT-707 HF Transceiver

30th March 2010
Dear me, what a mess. While the exterior looked ok apart from where it had been dropped at the rear, the insides were, in search of an alternative word, knackered. As I worked on this and tested it, more and more problems came out of the woodwork.
1. Some RF board stands were missing and where they were missing the board was screwed in until it almost touched the case. This also warped the board. Some replacements were filed to the correct size and put in.
2. Receive and transmit in CW and USB, LSB were off frequency. The display indicated the wrong frequency, something other than the required transmit freq. or actual! The VFO and SSB mixer stages had to be realigned. The display frequency was incorrect due to drifted counter master clock. This was realigned to get the right frequency displayed.
3. Mic/carrier knob all sticky and one turned the other. The knobs were removed, the shaft straightened and the knobs reattached with a small clearance.
4. VFO was wobbly when the unit was knocked. This was due to poor crimp joints in a plug thats connects to the RF board. On closer inspection another wire was unattached!
5. Random wires cut inside rig! - Oh dear. Black was VFO ground and was attached to the VFO chassis. Blue was a 10m band select line. A coaxial cable was left cut and tidied away, hopefully nothing important...
6. S-meter way out - realigned for S9 50uV and scaling similar to Kenwood TS-850.
7. Excessive output power - This baby was putting out over 140W! This was readjusted to give 110W output as specified in the service manual.
8. Clarifier control all wobbly and not centred. The clarifier switch was dirty, this was cleaned and the clarifier realigned so that centre was centre.
9. Tuning knob finger wheel all loose and wobbly. This was due to the knob being attached with an incorrect screw. A replacement was fitted so it didn't wobble and felt 'nice'.
10. More broken/snipped wires on AF and RF board - Urgh this time a crystal oscillator select line. The plug that was giving trouble before had another invisibly broken cable too.
11. Marker tone oscillator was in the wrong place. This was realigned so that zero beat was exactly on the external reference oscillator.
12. More bad connections on RF board causing intermittent TX. This time it was several tracks around plugs that had been repaired before by someone, but not properly.
13. Low output on 10m. This was a puzzle for quite some time, since there was nothing written about this in the service manual. There is a control for output power on one band only, this is VR06 on the IF board. This was set to give 100W on 10m, finally!
14. Starting to get quite annoyed now. The RF bandpass filters had been twiddled! Gah, thankfully only a few had been turned and their correct settings were determined. 40m was incorrect, 12m incorrect, 10m incorrect.
15. The counter was 'wobbly' in the top half of the 10m band, reading low. This was due to poor solder joints on the counter board.
16. The 12m 38.9875Mhz crystals and 10m[D] 43.9875Mhz crystals were missing as reported by the customer. Some replacements were sourced and fitted. On fitting it was discovered that the AF board around all the crystal oscillators was heavily damaged from a too hot soldering iron.
17. And on to the original reported problem... Sometimes RX would not return when switching back from TX. After some detective work I noticed that the audio dropped out as well as the CW RX offset, giving me at last somewhere to look on the circuit diagram. There was a relay on the AVR circuit board that was hidden inside the rig so it was almost inaccessible. Luckily I could just get it open with a screwdriver and squirt some cleaning fluid inside it with a straw. And it was fixed :)
 
Finally, this rig was back in working order.
 

Hard Disk Data Recovery Samsung 500Gb

18th March 2010
Drive had been dropped and continued to be used, then stopped working. Contained vital documents, photos etc. When drive was connected to a PC, the power supply tripped indicating a short on the drive electronics somewhere, which was traced to the 3.3V supply line. A transient suppression diode across the supply line was removed, the short disappeared and the diode measured short. When reconnected to the PC the drive span up as normal and all data was recovered. The failure was not related to the drop at all - probably the PSU with the external drive killed the diode.

Yaesu FT-840 HF Transceiver

18th March 2010
The radio arrived with the fault 'no display'. Upon testing it was determined that there was no display, no backlight, no CPU operation and hence dead RX. The fault was caused by a shorted electrolytic capacitor, which caused a power resistor to overheat and go high in value. This starved the internal 5V supply of voltage and also caused the resistor to heat enough such that it almost desoldered itself. A replacement capacitor and power resistor brought the radio back to good working order.

Crashing PC for business customer

15th March 2010
The computer was freezing every now and then and displaying an error on startup. The problem was traced to a buggy version of the Blackberry software, which was upgraded to the latest version. Hopefully this will have cured the problem, but it could also be hardware related so time will tell for this machine.

M-Audio BX8a Active Studio Monitors

11th March 2010
The speakers had been turned up too loud for too long. One speaker had blown a tweeter. The tweeter was removed and inspected after picking off all the glue holding it together. The coil had opened near to where the lead was attached so some careful heating to remove the enamel and some solder closed the circuit, bringing the unit back to good working order. Note to users of active monitors - they're for studio usage at moderate volumes not all night high volume party usage!

Peavy Messenger Pro Sub active subwoofer

10th March 2010
The amplifier had blown, causing the mains fuse to blow. Customer fitted another fuse which blew again. The amplifiers in these subs are switching Class-D (or class-T) amplifiers, making them more tricky to service. A pair of MOSFETs had blown, taking out some surface mount components and unfortunately the output of the driver IC, rendering the unit useless. A replacement amplifier unit from Peavey costs more than a replacement sub! The repair was abandoned.

IT services for Modus Consulting

26th February 2010
I haven't documented any of the IT services provided to companies in the news section, but will do so from now on. Setup of print server, general maintenance and cleanup to restore speed to PCs, RAM upgrades and workstation preparation for new employees were completed today. A broken windows install was repaired so that networking functions worked properly and an emergency safety backup of company data was made due to warnings signs of possible disk failure in a vital file server. The warning events turned out to be spurious during investigation after the data had been backed up as quickly as possible - any signs of disk failure are not to be taken lightly!

Allen and Heath Xone 42 mixer

25th February 2010
This mixer had liquid spilled into it at a party. The mixer was immediately turned off and left to dry out - a good decision by the owner. Upon switch on, only half the lights came on and there was no sound. Upon dismantling the mixer, the power and sound backplane was discovered to have corrosion and leaching damage which was cleaned up and repaired. The power supply was checked and was ok. Power was still missing so a further investigation of the pcb tracks with a multimeter showed an open track and 'via' that did not appear visibly damaged. Repairing the track brought the mixer back to life.

Samsung 913N LCD monitor

24th February 2010
The monitor displayed 'Not optimum mode' and refused to display a picture even if the right mode was selected. This was due to a failed controller chip. A mod was done in an attempt to bring it back to life which partially worked - but after some time on heat build up in the case and the associated increase in temperature of the chip cause the fault to return. Some heat-sinking was attached to the chip which seems to have cured the fault. Update: IC causing problem still a bit wonky, programmed replacement IC unavailable and replacement cost greater than value of monitor. Repair abandoned.

Philips 1200 series laptop

19th February 2010
Internet Explorer was acting up and laptop was slow. Cause was a trojan horse and spyware.

Advent 5301 laptop

19th February 2010
Laptop was overheating and was unstable. Cause was dust build-up in cooling assembly.

Fender Twin Reverb valve guitar amplifier

17th February 2010
Well this was interesting, a really old valve guitar amplifier - late sixties early seventies vintage. Very poor physical condition and electrical condition, broken reverb, very low distorted output. The low and distorted output was cured with a set of replacement output valves and the dead reverb was caused by a fried output transformer that drives the reverb tank. The secondary had shorted and led to the failure of the primary high impedance winding. The transformer had to be shipped from America and thankfully repaired the amplifier to good working order - very loud and really nice sounding reverb.

Boss ME-50 guitar effects pedal unit

16th February 2010
The power jack was intermittent as well as the headphones jack. Somewhat annoyingly to repair them meant having to dismantle the entire unit to get at them. The fault in both was not the socket or the soldering, but failure of the PCB tracks around the solder. The effects unit was restored to good working order.

Denon DN-S5000 CD deck

10th February 2010
The deck had a faulty pitch control which had gone non-linear due to a spilled drink. The control was removed, dismantled, thoroughly cleaned and lubricated. This returned the deck to good working order.

Apple Powerbook G4 Aluminium laptop

27th January 2010
So many problems, don't believe the Apple hype :(
1. Stuck battery, release mechanism broken. 2. Power adaptor jack worn out and cable split and shorting. 3. Power socket intermittent and broken. 4. Battery worn out. 5. Laptop hinge loose. 6. Broken screen clasp. 7. Damage from dropping.
Started by repairing the power jack which was obviously shorting by the sparks coming off it when the cable was flexed. Repaired the plug nicely by dismantling and resoldering with some unbroken flex and fixing with resin. Then discovered that the power socket was broken too. To dismantle the laptop the battery needs to be removed which was stuck. Took about 2 hours of gentle levering and playing with the release control to free it. Finally got cover off laptop, discovered that everything needs to be dismantled to get at the board with the power socket on. Everything! Removed motherboard, hard disk, cdrom, speakers, pcmcia slot mechanism. Removed power board, removed socket and installed heavy duty power socket. Snipped off nicely repaired power jack plug and put on a standard power plug and fixed insides with resin. Repaired battery release mechanism. Reinstalled pcmcia socket, speakers, motherboard with new thermal compound, cdrom and hard disk. Dismantled screen to investigate loose hinge, which was really quite frustrating to do. Repaired screen latch. Discovered that the loose screws were not easily accessible without dismantling the screen itself further, which I decided against due to the possibility of damage to the screen. Why design like this? Absolute madness! Reassembled screen cursing Apple and reassembled laptop. Booted first time ... excellent! However when shutting down or sleeping the laptop refused to turn back on. A power management unit reset allowed the laptop to switch back on, but the problem remained. Installed power management unit update from Apple, problem remained. Started cycling the knackered battery in an attempt to recover some capacity and 'work' the PMU. Finally, sleep and shutdown started to work properly, turns out the knackered battery prevents switch on by presenting an unexpected voltage to the PMU. Battery update allows deeper cycling of battery, so actually getting a reasonable amount of on time from the old battery and thankfully working sleep and shutdown modes.
So the laptop was returned to good working order, at last.

Dual core home, office and media PC build

15th January 2010
A computer for the home, office and media with a build price of £500 was specified by the customer. Two DVDRW drives were essential, a monitor was not required, gaming not important and the computer must be upgradeable in the future. Due to upgrade path and price point the AM3 socket with DDR3 memory was selected. The computer was built into a smart PC case and had a attractive, low-power reliable wireless keyboard and mouse. The computer spec was an AMD Phenom II X2 545 processor (dual core 3Ghz), 4Gb PC3-10666 DDR3 RAM, 1Tb Samsung F1 high speed hard disk, Radeon HD 2400 Graphics with VGA, DVI and HDMI output for HD televisions, High speed wireless N network card, 52 in 1 card reader and a high reliability Gigabyte motherboard with solid capacitors, two PCI-Ex ports for future expansion with graphics cards and two free memory slots for future expansion. The PC effortlessly played hi-def content due to the Radeon HD 2400 chipset and remarkably played Half Life 2: Episode One at high graphics settings at a very smooth framerate. That's really quite impressive given the integrated graphics chipset and miles ahead of the competition in this area. Also, the processor is actually a quad core chip with two cores disabled! These can be unlocked! Pictures are available here, scroll down to the bottom of the page, it is the second build described.

Marshall Lead 50W valve amplifier

14th January 2010
A respected valve amplifier using two EL34 valves. Problems were a faulty pre-amp valve and capacitor causing distortion well before peak output. The components were replaced, broken knobs repaired, scuffed case repaired and everything given a good clean, returning the unit to good condition and working order.

Pioneer DJM600 mixer

12th January 2010
Missed an entry! The mixer was brought in due to losing 2 channels. This was due to a damaged connecting cable which was repaired. The headphone socket was also loose, so this was tightened and some mis-located LEDs on the front panel put back in the right place.

Pioneer CDJ800 deck

7th January 2010
Deck was skipping and not reading CDs properly. Mains transformer was also buzzing fairly loudly and Cue and Play buttons failed. The laser was OK, a good clean fixed the reading problems and a check to the mains transformer showed that it hadn't failed and was not overheating. The Cue, Play and reverse search switches were replaced and the deck returned to good working order. Update: Despite the deck behaving OK on the bench, the deck was returned as it was intermittently not reading disks. A replacement laser was fitted for parts cost only, curing the problem.

Pioneer CDJ200 deck

6th January 2010
The Cue and Play buttons on the deck had completely failed, with no tactile action left at all. Replacement switches repaired the unit.

Pioneer DJM400 mixer

6th January 2010
The headphone socket had stripped its threads and disappeared inside the mixer. Repair to the socket body and a new nut and washer fixed the mixer.

Quad core high performance PC build 'BEAST'

20th December 2009
A computer for gaming and high performance computing was specified by a customer with a target price of £800. A component list was drawn up and each component researched and chosen considering maximum performance for price with features important for future upgrades. The final spec was 22in widescreen monitor, quad-core Phenom II X4 925 processor, 8Gib of PC10666 DDR3 RAM, 1Tb Samsung F1 HD, Gigabyte ATI Radeon 4870 1Gb graphics card with Zalman cooler, DVDRW and smart, understated Cooler Master Elite 334 case. This is truly a performance beast which chewed through any game I threw at it with silky smoothness at ultra-high graphics settings and zipped though Windows 7 x64 like it was a light snack. Pictures are available here, scroll down to the bottom of the page, it is the first build described.

Samsung VM6000 laptop

17th December 2009
Really old school laptop - 256Mb RAM 400Mhz Celeron 6.4Gb HD and 800x600 screen. Well how much was wrong with this? Dead power adaptor. Faulty keyboard. Dead battery. Hopelessly underpowered. Changed power supply, repaired keyboard, replaced NiMH battery cells and installed linux. So now it is at least usable, still hopelessly slow though.

Toshiba Tecra 8200 laptop

14th December 2009
Unbearably slow XP install and Control Panel and a few other things had been disabled. Computer took ages to boot and ages to open internet explorer. The computer was riddled with viruses and spyware. It was cleaned up, brought up to date and back to working order.

Technics SV-V2 amplifier

8th December 2009
Audio was distorted and channels were intermittent. Due to the age of the amplifier the switches and pots had oxidised. Dismantling the unit to get access at the switches and pots and cleaning and reconditioning the relevant components returned the unit to good working order.

Alesis RA300 and Samson Servo-170

8th December 2009
These two amplifiers were reported to have failed channels. A quick test showed that both amplifiers were working on both channels. The amplifiers were subjected to a rigorous test into an 8 ohm dummy load for an extended period at near maximum rated output power. Neither showed any signs of failure and so were given a clean bill of health and returned to the customer. Perhaps a failed cable or shorted speaker cable was causing the problem.

Old Hammond electronic organ

7th December 2009
This was an interesting piece of equipment! A discrete synthesiser with several processor boards, VCOs, sound generation boards and amplifiers. There were two problems reported, the first being that the Leslie tremolo speaker system was not working and that the arpeggiator wasn't working problem. The loss of sound was due to a failed speaker which was replaced. The arpeggiator problem was not a failure, the synth has a large variety of switches, some that look like indicators only but are actually switches as well, one was engaged when it shouldn't have been.

Logitech Speaker System

1st December 2009
Wire to connect remote control to PC was broken. A replacement cable and 3.5mm jack cured the problem.

Wireless internet problem

30th November 2009
Solved a wireless internet problem due to mis-configuration of router and poor quality wireless cards in the client machines.

Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo laptop

27th November 2009
Laptop would not switch on or charge. The power adaptor was faulty a replacement fixed the problem. The laptop was checked for viruses and spyware, some spyware was removed.

File and e-mail server

19th November 2009
Moved a file and e-mail server for Modus Consulting.

Packard Bell MV-51 laptop

11th November 2009
The laptop would not charge. It was discovered that if the power jack was flexed in a particular direction the laptop would charge and switch on, indicating a failure of either the socket or the soldering of the socket. To get at the socket required the entire laptop to be dismantled, everything! A barely visible hairline crack was discovered in the soldering of the socket - this was repaired and the laptop assembled. The CPU and GPU heat sink compound was found to be too thick and very rubbery - this was replaced with a much more heat conductive alternative and resulted in a much better cooling fan response to heat. The laptop was returned in excellent condition and good working order.

Samsung M40+ laptop

10th November 2009
Wireless internet problems and extreme slowness were the problems with this laptop. A detailed clean up and optimisation of the system resulted in a much improved system response and quick startup. The wireless internet issue was repaired and the laptop returned to the customer in excellent working order.

Sony VAIO PCG-Z1 laptop

9th November 2009
The laptop was slow, several errors occurred on startup, wireless ethernet was not working and neither was the Vodafone mobile internet adapter supplied with it.  A full clean up, removal of corrupted files and troubleshooting driver installation file permissions problems fixed the startup problems and internet access issues and the mobile internet adaptor installed cleanly with the repaired system. The laptop is much more responsive and nice to use, and according to the customer problems were fixed that Sony support could not. The work was done overnight since the customer was leaving for an important business trip and needed the laptop repaired immediately.

Icom 706 transceiver

4th November 2009
More rotary encoder tuning dial problems. Reconditioning of the encoder repaired it, but it may need a replacement in the future. Customer is local so doesn't mind returning it should it need a replacement. Update: Encoder started to fail a week later, so a replacement was fitted for parts cost only.

Numark CDN90 dual CD player

3rd November 2009
Unit came in with deck B unreliable when seeking to a track. Further investigation of the unit uncovered a marginal laser on deck A, a near dead one on deck B and damage to the ribbon cable leading to the laser assembly on deck B. Both decks were replaced - numark spares are relatively cheap - and the ribbon cable repaired. The unit was returned to good working order.

Hitachi 80Gb Laptop HD Data Recovery

23rd October 2009
The drive had been declared dead and unrecoverable by a shop on City Road and the customer decided to see if we could recover the data. Sure enough on first examination it was dead, didn't spin up, not recognised in BIOS. Using precautions against dust, which can ruin a drive, the fault was determined to be that the drive had been dropped and the drive heads has crashed onto the disk surface and jammed the platter assembly inside. The heads were unstuck and moved away from the disk surface into the parking zone, allowing the drive to spin up as normal. Over 90% of the data was recovered from the disk with all important files recovered.

Pioneer CDJ1000 CD deck

15th October 2009
Deck came in with the symptoms: no main display, no button operation, no loading motor operation and the centre display all lit up. Reason for failure was the loss of the +5V supply to the main microcontroller and DSP processors. The power supply was repaired with some replacement components and the deck restored to good working order.

Lenovo J110 PC

8th October 2009
Computer was totally dead, no bios, no beeps nothing. The hard disk was also missing. Visual inspection of the custom motherboard showed 8 dead capacitors, all swollen. Replacement of the capacitors and a new HD brought it back to life. A legitimate install of Windows XP Pro OEM and up to date drivers brought it back to good working order and a custom recovery DVD was made to replace the missing one that was not supplied with the computer. This is a common practice by computer manufacturers which trips up end users when things go wrong and then they ask for £50 for the rescue disks. This repair job is a good example of our capability to recover machines that would otherwise be thrown in the bin.

Mackie 32.8 studio mixing desk

1st October 2009
This is one beast of a mixing desk from Long Row Studios. The desk had several problems, faulty output channel, dead Mix-B output channel and a scratchy pot. The customer also wanted the direct outs modified so that they were pre-fader, pre-eq, post-insert outputs. This was accomplished by working out the circuit of the input jacks, cutting tracks, installing wire-jumps and breaking the circuit in some ribbon cable for each of the 32 channels. The faulty output channel was due to dry joints, and the dead Mix-B channel was due to a dead audio chip. The unit was restored to good working order.

HP Compaq DX2400 Micro-tower

29th September 2009
Computer crashed and restarted during boot up. Culprit was an incompatible or corrupted system service. Computer was cleaned up and restored to good working order.

IT maintenance for Modus Consulting

29th September 2009
We are pleased to announce that Modus Consulting based in Cardiff have chosen us to provide IT build, maintenance, repair and networking services.

Electrolux vacuum cleaner

28th September 2009
Well we don't normally repair things like vacuum cleaners, but anything electrical we can do. The fuse had gone and the power switch had moved inside its housing so it never switched on.

Pioneer DJM-600 mixer

24th September 2009
Headphone jack body had come off, stripped its threads and the nut had worked its way into the master output circuitry and hooked itself around some components. The jack also had blu tack inside it stopping it from working properly. The jack was replaced restoring the mixer to good working order.

Pioneer CDJ-800MK2 CD deck

15th September 2009
Unit had been dropped, breaking the disc retention mechanism. Also, the loading arm bearing was worn causing unreliable load/unload of CD. Every now and then the CD would jam inside the player with a nasty clicking sound. The retention mechanism was repaired and the loading arm wear was repaired returning the unit to working order.

Pioneer CDJ-800 CD deck

8th September 2009
PSU failure caused deck not to take CDs and report error E9101. Some troubleshooting and repair fixed the unit.

Stanton C314 CD deck

27th August 2009
The CD mechanism micro-controller chip died, not the motor driver as I had first thought. This meant a horribly expensive new board which returned the unit to working order. The deck was also converted to 240V UK mains.

Stanton C324 CD deck

26th August 2009
Unit was a 120V model which had been plugged into 240V mains for long enough to cook the mains transformer and some filter components. Replacements brought unit back to working order, luckily the regulator circuitry was hardy enough to withstand double the input voltage and stop the rest of the electronics from being destroyed.

Pioneer CDJ100s

24th August 2009
Internals had jammed due to dust - cleaning out and re-lube restored it to working order.

Denon AVR1906 home cinema amplifier

18th August 2009
Unit went into protect mode immediately after switch on. Faulty connections in the protect circuitry was the problem, fixed and returned unit to working order.

Wharfedale T2811WS 28in TV

3rd August 2009
TV did not turn on, nice burning smell coming from back. A 2kV 2.2nF capacitor had failed, a replacement fixed the set.

Microphones, stands and mixer amplifier available for hire

28th July 2009
We now have a set of three 600 ohm low impedance microphones for hire along with three quality microphone stands. Also available is an 8 channel mixer amplifier suitable for band use in small venues. It has a powerful main output as well as monitor outputs plus 8 channels for microphones, guitars and other instruments.

Hitachi L42VP01U 42in LCD TV

13th July 2009
Set did not turn on. Reason was failure of the internal PSU - failure of the power factor correction circuit and failure of the standby PSU with several fried surface mount components, chips and power components. Replacements and some further troubleshooting brought the TV back to working order.

Kenwood TS-850SAT HF transceiver

5th July 2009
Varying power output on different bands was caused by band-pass filter selection failure. Several corroded tracks were the problem, these were jumped and radio was returned to working order.

Icom IC-210 2m FM transceiver

4th July 2009
Customer wanted CTCSS fitted to this old transceiver to access repeaters - installed cstech unit with jumpers to select the tone frequency, replaced backlighting bulbs and fixed an intermittent audio fault.

Security alarm system

2nd July 2009
Customer brought in main circuit board which he had identified was faulty to see if it could be repaired. A shorted rectifier diode blew the mains fuse. The rectifier was replaced and the board was restored to working order.

Prosound 200 amplifier

1st July 2009
Amplifier would not switch on. Faulty power switch - dismantled, repaired and restored to original working condition.

Doh! Email problems!

30th June 2009
It was brought to my attention that the email above was not working and that emails were being bounced. Sure enough, they were! I am not sure how long this has been occurring for so if you have been trying to get in touch via email, please accept my apologies and try again. I unfortunately was the problem by not configuring my email client properly.

Kenwood TR-7625 2m FM transceiver

27th June 2009
TX power dropped off fairly rapidly in this transceiver. Cause was overheating driver and resultant poor solder joints developed over time. Some replacement components and additional heat-sinking brought it back to working order.

Yaesu FT-290R transceiver

22nd June 2009
This radio was in a fairly sorry state - off frequency by a significant amount, distorted SSB tx, CALL button for 1750Hz tone generation not working, no backlight. Was restored to good working condition by realignment of PLL, replacement of final and duff diode, removal of failed mod to CALL button and replacement of backlight.

Kenwood TS-780 transceiver

18th June 2009
Transceiver was 2.5kHz off frequency. Realignment of carrier generation board and IF board cured the problem.

Nikkai 600W 12V dc to 240V ac inverter

16th June 2009
On switch on, unit tried to start up but tripped with fault indication. A pair of mosfets for generating the AC waveform had died, replacements fixed the unit.

Skytec 8 channel powered mixer/eq/amplifier

15th June 2009
Looks like a handy piece of equipment - 8 channel mixer with effects, eq and high power amplifier all built into a rugged case for lugging around with bands. Same as the Phonic version. Unfortunately, the amplifier had fried in a spectacular fashion - 10 new transistors, a few resistors and a couple of diodes later and it was restored to good working order.

Repair of iPod speaker dock

4th June 2009
Terrible construction led to the failure of the soldering of the surface mount socket that plugged into the iPod. Was repaired, but could not reliably stand up to repeated use so the repair was abandoned and a workaround was implemented of using a charging dock attached over the top of the unit to feed audio into the speaker system. Since it could not be repaired to its original condition, there was no charge however the customer gave £10 for the time spent working on it - thank you Anthony.

Repair of Kenwood PS-430 power supply

3rd June 2009
Was giving out unregulated 23V instead of 13.8V, not healthy for any connected radio! This was a frustrating puzzle, as the pass transistors and regulator were all ok - turned out to be a tiny ceramic capacitor that had failed and turned into a resistor of about 6k. This allowed enough current to flow to fully switch on the transistors allowing a nasty 23V through. Replaced the capacitor, plus a few dried out electrolytic capacitors and a leaky transistor returning the unit to good working order.

Repair of Icom 706 transceiver

28th May 2009
Seized tuning dial due to seized rotary encoder shaft and bearing. Restored to good working order.

Repair of Marantz PM-30SE separates amplifier

28th May 2009
Fault in bias circuit caused overcurrent condition and tripped protect, eventually getting so bad it blew the fuse. Fixed fault and returned amplifier to working condition.

Sound systems and equipment hire available

21st May 2009
We are happy to announce that our sound systems are available for hire. The range is from a small announcement system suitable for public events and children's birthday parties to large systems with up to 8 huge bass bins for heavy duty dance events. See the hire page for details.

Repair of CDJ800

20th May 2009
Laser mechanism gummed up and really dirty. Careful clean and lube returned unit to good working order.

Repair of Music M8 wooden hi-fi

15th May 2009
On/off volume switch and potentiometer completely ruined. Rebuild of potentiometer and replacement of switch returned to good working order.

Repair of TASCAM X-9 mixer

1st May 2009
Faulty left channel on PGM2. Faulty sockets on rear. Scratchy action on cross-fader. Repaired sockets, input stage and reconditioned cross-fader to return to good working order.

Repair of CDJ800 tabletop CD deck

29th April 2009
Faulty laser unit. Replacement restored unit to good working order.

Repair of CDJ100s

23rd April 2009
Faulty rotary encoder and fascia switches. Replacement of each repaired the unit to good working order.

Professional Repair Services website up and running

4th May 2009
We are pleased to announce that the website for PRS Ltd is up and running. Simple design for compatibility with all browsers and we hope it gives a clear impression of what type of business we are running.