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repairing Synscan Hand Controller


deafasabat

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I very rarely use my handcontroller but needed to the other night. Switching on, nothing appeared on the display, so I checked the connections and made sure everything was OK and switched on again. It was then that I noticed the smoke drifting out of the handset via the keypad. I switched off again.

I removed the back of the handset and upon close examination of the circuit board I found that 2 of the tiny components were burnt out. See the 2 pictures attached.

Can this be repaired as a cost for a new handcontroller is quite high and I might have to forego it's use permanently if a repair cannot be made at very much less the £180.00.

 

Chris250199893_burntoutitemsonCelestronhandset.thumb.jpg.3c37e2843c5fa9b5b848d2e0c9ad1823.jpg525529846_burntoutitemscloseup.thumb.jpg.f6ceeec88dbc02a50c159ea106ba60b9.jpg

 

Edited by deafasabat
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It's difficult to make out any markings, but for a capacitor to blow (C55), means it must have had a significant voltage applied across it, which then leads on to what U9 is, regulator\mosfet ?? which ultimately may be the main culprit... 

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Hello there, which mount do you have ??

I have  the Skywatcher AZEQ5 mount and since I did buy the SynScan WiFi Adapter, I did stop using the Synscan Hand Controller and maybe will never use again. maybe also applicable for you to get the SynScan WiFi Adapter ? if you mount supports it !!

Costs less than a new Hand Controller and works great..

Cheers

 

Martin

 

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Thanks for all of the replies. I only have an EQ3 pro mount, and the controller came with it, new.  Dr Ju Ju ,the 2 blown items are ringed in red, one is the C55 (the lower one)), and the other is(if I have interpreted the printing correctly) C3.

 

Chris

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I've opened up the Synscan controller from my EQ3 Pro  and it is the same PCB.  U9, just above C55 is a 5V, 1A regulator. It's marked 17-50 with a 'Diodes Incorporated' logo. Here's the data sheet.  C55 is most likely the output electrolytic (writing on it is too small to read). If it was a 6.3V capacitor and the regulator failed and went in/out short that would explain it smoking. U10 is a 3.3V regulator and if its input was the 5V rail that could explain C3 smoking too. If the 5V actually did rise to 12V then unfortunately several other ICs would also likely have been damaged. ☹️

If the fault was just due to C55 going short circuit and smoking, U9 would have gone into current limit so it's unlikely C3 would have been damaged.

Alan

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

Good work Lishan. :smile: 

The original C55 is a 10uF, 16V 10% tolerance tantalum capacitor, (markings 106 16K 537). The 106E you have used is a 10uF, 25V tantalum which is why it's bigger. Similar style markings for the 16V one would be 106C

I never liked using tantalum capacitors in the past (the bead variety) as they had a nasty habit of going dead short with little or no provocation. This meant the capacitor looked perfectly undamaged while components around it often went up in smoke.

At least the surface mount ones while still prone to failing it seems, show themselves as being the culprits and and seem less likely to take other components out. 

Alan

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  • 1 year later...
On 05/01/2019 at 23:56, symmetal said:

Good work Lishan. :smile: 

The original C55 is a 10uF, 16V 10% tolerance tantalum capacitor, (markings 106 16K 537). The 106E you have used is a 10uF, 25V tantalum which is why it's bigger. Similar style markings for the 16V one would be 106C

I never liked using tantalum capacitors in the past (the bead variety) as they had a nasty habit of going dead short with little or no provocation. This meant the capacitor looked perfectly undamaged while components around it often went up in smoke.

At least the surface mount ones while still prone to failing it seems, show themselves as being the culprits and and seem less likely to take other components out. 

Alan

Hello Alan.

Do you know if the rest of the 106c caps on the board are the same value of 10uf? 

Presumably they are polarized? but it is not clear to see the polarity in the pictures if they are.

Cheers John

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Hello John,

Yes 106C markings means 10μF and 16V working. If the μ symbol isn't printed and the third digit is 5 or above, then it's a fairly safe bet the value is in picoFarads (pF) with the third digit being the multiplier. So 106 means 10,000,000 pF = 10μF.

The voltage is indicated by the letter after the three digit number as indicated in the table in the third picture below.

As you can see from the first image it takes deduction and some have their own markings. Metal can types have the value in μF without the symbol while the 7th to 9th ones on the first image would appear to be in μF as well. 

For polarity the non-metal can types have a bar to indicate the positive end. Note that for the metal can types the black banded end is the negative. It looks like some have a champhered end as well as a bar to indicate the positive.

seNT9.jpg.8b65f5b854b081b0afa1c188b0d8ea7a.jpg

smd2Belect.png.f81a56b355a8a20232ad0413817fa849.png

SMD-cap-markings.png.c68ca6b047e849a64ccf6d26c89e2a40.png

Alan

Edited by symmetal
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Thank you Alan - that is exactly the kind of detail that I was looking for!

I (will) have 2 non workers that I have purchased from Astroboot to try and repair. This is partly to try and make a spare unit for my existing handset and partly to keep me occupied during the current world events which look likely to last for at least 12 weeks or more.

Looking around the internet the failed or burnt out tantalum cap seems to be mentioned quite often in fault reports. In my trade I normally work on larger sized versions of these components and thankfully tantalum  caps  do appear very often.

The other piece of information that I was looking for was how to identify the package size so a replacement can be easily soldered back into place?

Cheers

 

John

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Glad it helped John. :smile:

32 minutes ago, JTB said:

The other piece of information that I was looking for was how to identify the package size so a replacement can be easily soldered back into place?

If you go to a major distribution company like Farnell and display 10uF 16V SMD Tantalum Capacitors, you get a choice of 244 entries. Scroll down to find one that looks similar, and click on the pdf link under the order code. This will give you all the info on that series of capacitors from the manufacturer including dimensions. When you've found one that fits either buy it from Farnell or RS etc. or look for the same item on ebay etc.

Alan

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  • 10 months later...

Hi all,

I just buyed a used Eq3 with synscan with a defective hand controller skywatcher v4.

Wifi module is working, but of course, I couldn't leave the defect controller as it is and had a look to the board :-)

It seems, that the defect is from a burning U6, as far as I understood, this module will die, if one mixes up plus and minus. Does it make sense to spend energy to this defect? Does anyone know, what u6 once was :-) 

I already checked all wires, this is ok, but U6 looks quite uncool...

 

 

 

IMG_3083.jpg

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Excellent clear picture and that 8-pin package does indeed look fried.  I've no idea what it is, but given the type of package then unless you have a hot air solder station you are going to struggle trying to repair that chip.  You might just have to purchase a new hand controller 

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  • 1 year later...

Hi. I'd appreciate any help!  I too have a repair issue with the SynScan dead hand controller. Here's what I think happened - after some visual observations and great polar alignment, I wanted move to EAA, so I wanted to control with my ASIAIR Pro via USB-B port into the hand controller, and fumbling in the dark, I probably inserted it into the RJ12 port. The outer metal shield of the USB-B plug probably shorted the connections in the RJ12 socket. The controller turned off, never to turn back on again. No smell of any burning, nothing. It shut down, and never started again. 

Bottom line, I think I shorted some of the RJ12 pins and controller shut down, permanently.

I opened up the controller - and everything looks perfectly clear and clean. Any thoughts on which component could have gotten the damage and replacing it may recover the hand controller (especially because the hand controller costs $155+tax these days, and I would prefer a few dollars of component - soldering instead...). 

Here are some pictures, that may help.

IMG_2053.thumb.jpg.103627eab398b41674ae2552e116a890.jpgIMG_2052.thumb.jpg.319355f9fd6956548950a081cada6c2d.jpgIMG_2051.thumb.jpg.a979d5fc4761ca7f7481df46cdfc61f5.jpgIMG_2050.thumb.jpg.acab1732f5075f2624e4a041d4b6d46c.jpg

Oh, and this controller came from the SkyWatcher SynScan EQ5 Pro upgrade kit - even though it says 'Celestron' inside.

 

Edited by givoly
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