Thank you, efernand.
Yes, I depend on YouTube for learning soldering skills but something is missing in learning from digital media (or by my own). on other side, for ex. in repair shops, we will have access to many working/non working audio systems (real world examples) and this would help us to learn practical stuffs. Having coming from 'teacher-student' model right from schoolings, my mind is set for such learning environment?
I have learnt some basic things by opening any electronic that's sent to me before sending them to the technician.
I would like to share my Real life story here.
Once one forum member has requested here that does anyone know any good high end technician who can do Accuphase servicing.
Nature of complaint:
One day he was listening in his setup within few minutes left channel sound has faded and became dead.
Reason for failure:
On his scrutiny he found one table spoon was lying on the speaker terminals shorting the Hot and Cold terminals. He realised it's the handy work of his toddler.
His Actions:
So now he realised the gravity of the situation and swallowed the spine chilling reality that ACCUPHASE IS DEAD. So he called the authorised service people and got a rough estimate of around 75,000/- may be +/- 10%.
Under these circumstances only he made the above referred post in our Forum searching for technician.
My action:
I responded to his post saying that I have a reliable high end technician in my contact for which he need to send his Accuphase to me and I will get it serviced right infront of my eyes at my place.
He was not having the OE packing and didn't want to venture in packing and shipping so we fixed a convenient date for him to bring it.
So on that fixed date he brought the Amp wrapping it in a quilt and stuffed it in a suitcase.
Here comes my hidden Technician skills:
As I told earlier I decided to open it myself. So when our forum friend has finished all is morning routines and refreshing in my home, I expressed my desire to check it by my self before calling the technician and thanks to him for his confidence in me he readily accepting.
So I have opened the unit and thoroughly had a physical examination and nothing was evident. When I switched ON the unit was shutting down on Safety.
So I have pulled the Power and Signal wires from both the Power amp boards, the unit was getting ON and stable.
Now I connected the Right channel alone (which was sounding good before going dead) all the wires. Then switched ON the unit and the Amplifier was getting ON and stable. Now I gave PRE IN and speaker OUT to my trial speakers. Played the Audio the Amp was stable up and running.
After sometime of trial I had the confidence and connected B&W, yes ACCUPHASE proved it's power.
Now emboldened with this, I had removed all wires from right channel and connected all wires to left channel, when I tried to switch ON the unit was going to safety mode.
Further to be sure there is nothing gone wrong in the PRE amp section I swapped the Left & Right power boards then connected the left channel and played and it was working excellent without any glitch and the SQ is real ACCUPHASE.
Now it's time for my skills:
I had removed both the boards and started checking the values of every component (I have a good quality HIOKI multimeter) by referring the values in good working board. With in few minutes I found 2Nos. of FET in out put stage were Short circuited and dead in the non working board.
Rest all other components were sound in condition. So we contacted a electronic spares dealer in Mumbai, sent him every detail and photo of the FET to our luck the same one to one item was available. Two Nos of the put together Rs. 3,600/- (The price was almost double the US price. It's understandable)
Now I told our friend instead of wasting 3 days in Chennai, to take the unit to his town and get the new FETs soldered by his local Technician who is good in soldering etc., Which he also felt better and we got the FETs couriered directly to his address and got the new FETs soldered to the board. After following all due safety steps I asked him to hook up the system.
The ACCUPHASE was running excellent, staging and SQ was exactly as it was.
He was extremely happy to have got his ACCUPHASE up and running just for Rs.3,600/- plus his train rare / travelling expenses.
From then on I gained more confidence in handling power amps.
I wrote this story in due respect to the feelings of our forum friend who is the owner of the ACCUPHASE and I am sure he will not feel offended by this post which I mean it to be in the interest of all gadget owners with interest to learn.
