Cap replacement success

[jjcazau]

My sisters tv remote broke and a new one costs $60 AUD so i decided to pull it apart. Observed some watery stuff inside and first though she got water in it but later i guess it might have been a blown capacitor. Pulled the old cap out 16v 100uf. $0.36c at Jaycar but its 11pm and i couldn't wait for the morning. Had a look around and saw an old pc. pulled the mobo and thought it was worth a try.

1000uf, no, 10uf no, bingo 100uf 16v on the sound driver. and 3 of them to boot. de-soldered and whacked it in the remote. Took out the phone camera and BINGO the LED is flashing codes on button presses.

This was my first true electronics diy fix. Thanks Dave for the great content i've learned from. Finally got an opportunity to apply the stuff i've seen in your videos. Saved me $60 by repairing it for free from junk, not too shabby.

[tom66]

Surprised to see a bad capacitor cause issues on a remote. I would suspect a contact with the battery, a soldering issue, or even an intermittent LED... but the capacitor is really only there to smooth out the IR current peaks, which can cause the MCU to reset if the battery is low.

[SeanB]

Bad cap means either no transmit, intermittent transmit or very poor battery life. The internal resistance of the battery changes up with age, and this affects the ability of the remote to drive the LED with the normal 1A plus current pulses. Dead cap means no transmit in many cases. Increasing the value to as large as you can fit in the case helps as well.

[lapm]

I have restored so many remotes by replacing that cheap yellow resonator... Always have couple of those spare... People have tendency to drop those remotes sometimes and resonators seems not like that much...

[lpc32]

Congrats.

And... $60 for a remote?! If the need arises, this may do for 2.14 US$:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOT-Portable-Universal-TV-Remote-Control-Controller-For-TV-Television-Sets-/251750135213?pt=US_Remote_Controls&hash=item3a9d7a35ad

[kolonelkadat]

My sisters tv remote broke and a new one costs $60 AUD so i decided to pull it apart. Observed some watery stuff inside and first though she got water in it

i would have thought it was oil leaking out of the silicon button membrane. gratz on the fix in any case.