Escient Fireball E-120 Blinking Power Light Problem
AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews BEGIN TEMPLATE: navbar_linkA/V Control & Automation END TEMPLATE: navbar_link BEGIN TEMPLATE: navbar_linkHome Automation END TEMPLATE: navbar_linkBEGIN TEMPLATE: navbar_linkEscient Fireball flashing red light solved.
Don't worry about that. I don't know why they do that but it looks like the same glue that is holding the giant capacitor in place under the heat sink on the other end.
Most of the damaged capacitors I have found are under the heat sink closest to the main board connector.. It is very hard to visually inspect them without taking it apart and a visual inspection alone might not be enough.
There is a way to use a old PC ATX power supply to power up a Fireball but you have to modify it slightly to work. If you notice, a 20 pin ATX power supply mother board connector is identical to the Escient main board connector right down to the wire colors. To use the ATX supply as a tester, you must first snip off ALL the unused wires to make it match the Escient connector. Then you have to short the green wire you snipped off to any black wire on the ATX power supply. This will force the power supply to power up full time when it's plugged in and the supply switch is turned on.
Bench test the ATX to be sure you do in fact have all the correct voltages required for the Escient to work (3.3, 5.0 and 12.0 vdc) They will read a bit high on the bench with no load in it but that's OK. If all is well, plug it into the Escient but before you attempt to power it up, run a temp ground wire from the case of the power supply to the chassis of the Escient and let-er rip.
If the Fireball completes its boot up, you need to repair or replace the original supply. Have at it.
Thanks a bunch for your tips stefuel.
Saved my MX-531 and DVDM-100 by changing out the bad P/S caps.
BTW both use the same power supply, except on MX the power leads are reversed, and the main board connector is hardwired to the P/S board.
To remove the heat sink, you have to de-solder the sink and the components that are attached to it as a unit. You can't get at the screws that hold the components to it. That said, most of the bad capacitors I have found ARE under that heat sink. You should really re-cap the whole board
Do's and Dont's
Do replace all the caps with the same value uF and test them before you install them with a meter. A ESR meter is the best to use.
Do not replace the 105 degree caps with the usual 85 degree caps found at the shack or the like. They will not last.
Where size permits, bump up the caps voltage. I don't have the brand in front of me but you can bump the voltage of every cap on that board with ones that fit if you are willing to search around. Higher voltage caps are usually taller or fatter. The ones under the sink are tightly packed and almost as tall as the sink so be careful ordering replacements.
I have a MX-111 with the Blinking Red Light of Death also. I sent it back to Escient 3 times. The "said", they replaced the PS, mobo and firmware and charged me each time! Anyway, I think I've tracked the issue down to a leaky cap. It's the big blue cap under the heat sink. 2200microfarad, 400V. Anyone know where i can buy one? I even tried Allied, no luck.
Been working on other projects for over a month. I would suggest skimming through the whole thread for suggestions. Some Fireballs have issues other than the power supply. 75% of those that I've worked on needed power supply service.
I was an Escient dealer. We had many units fail with the blinking red light. Escient supplied following instructions, and if the fix worked they would send a replacement CABLE which fixed the problem. Led me to believe a bad fit and that wiping the contacts temporarily fixed it. I currently have a couple bad ones, but have not been able to determine what was different about the replacement cables they used to send.
- Remove POWER from unit
- Remove three screws holding cover of unit
- Remove cover of unit.
- With rear of unit towards you, look on the left side for the P/S circuit board.
- Locate a thin 10-pin connector running front to back on the P/S board
- Unplug connector and plug back in
- Replace cover and screws
- Reconnect cables and power
- See if unit boots within a few minutes.
Doug Smith, Architectural Electronics, Houston
First of all, I open the case, disconnect the 10 wires link (10 cm) between power supply and motherboard. I put a big external ATX power supply from my home PC.
I swap the IDE cable with a brand new I have at home, but the one I putted is only for test (one plug is not on the good position, have a look on regular IDE ribbon and you will see what I mean)
I'm lucky and I have in stock a golden disc from Escient to set up new hard disc drive so I putted on my E2 a new HDD (750 Gb IDE)
Escient explained that when you want to do a manual firmware update, you have to disconnect your LAN.
After 5 minutes, update disc didn't boot... (bad news)
So I decided to reboot the machine with LAN connected !!!
after 2 or 3 minutes of LAN activity, screen told me : update in progress, please wait (downloading) GOOOOOOOOOD ! downloading of the firmware took 10 minutes or more.
flashsuccesfull, reboot the machine with golden disc inside and 5 minutes later, a working E2, like new.
After that, I reconnect original IDE ribbon and reboot > ok
I reconnect original power supply and start again > ok
So, my experience is that sometimes, electric problems on your AC power may hang your motherboard, and as Escient did not put a BIOS RESET switch, you have to force the system with a new firmware update (that will reset your bios conf)
Of course, if we need a perfect power supply, you have to check your capacitance on P/S as Stefuelsaid !