alright... SO i decided to open up my old broken pandora


KillRoXx

KillRoXx

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What i discovered was an atrocity, When my Pandora fell 6 months ago, the button inside (underneath the L trigger) snapped off completely (could not find the white thing -don't know what its called-) aswell as the solder holding the rest of that button in place

However i also found a gold disc like thing just hanging out in there. (no idea what it is)

I also know that the unit won't charge so i went looking for a blown fuse (unfortunately i have no volt checker :<  )

No visible damage at all to the PCB (except for the l trigger being completely shredded off when i dropped it)

i also know there is no water damage. (you guys forgot the indicator! or maybe theres two. have no idea what those things are. look like black rubbery things next to the battery port. maybe those are the indicators. in anyways. they aren't pink)

how would i fix the unit so i can charge it again?

EDIT: I know my post is kind of everywhere. but i really just want to play with my open pandora again
 
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As far as I know the coil and shoulder switch having fallen off shouldn't stop it charging though. Perhaps they were shorting something out in the case though - I discovered my LCD connector's backlight lines were shorting together when my unit stopped charging.
 
WE HAVE LIFE. the charging light does not come on but it indeed Charges! And turns on!

EDIT: Nope! it was on for a few seconds when i went to check on it, and unfortunately when i went to set it down with the screen closed. the system turned off

EDIT2: So i managed to set the clockspeed to 125hz and turned the screen off completely. - aaaaand it just turned off.

Conclusion: Charging through USB does not supply the unit with enough power to support a steady charge. the USB im using is standard grade used for ps3 controllers.

the PCB probably has a blown fuse somewhere or the battery might be shorting out. any of these could potentially cause my unit to turn on with enough charge but not enough to support it.(it takes around 45 seconds from on and off)

2. when its on, i log into the pandora. then quickly shut it down, will not turn back on until a significant charge is in the battery. though the system does turn on when you supply it with usb power
 
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dimag0g said:
Wally said:
The gold Disk sounds like that wonderful part that ED keeps going on about that causes a lot of issues.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure it's the contactor from the destroyed shoulder button.
Click to expand...
il open it back up to see if that is what it is.

My pandora still accepts a charge, but does not charge fast enough to keep it. (the psp charger does not charge. blown fuse, need to replace) the usb does charge (fuse is damaged there. need to replace the fuse there) but not enough.
 
If you're referring to a fuse in your plug, then I would not expect it to charge at all. If you're referring to a fuse in the Pandora, I don't believe it contains one. Battery powered devices don't need to contain fuses for safety purposes, so don't tend to.


What are you plugging into the USB port? Dedicated 2A USB chargers are not hard to get, but even a 500mA part should provide enough to charge an idle working Pandora - I suspect you might have a close short eating juice after all.
 
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Levi said:
If you're referring to a fuse in your plug, then I would not expect it to charge at all. If you're referring to a fuse in the Pandora, I don't believe it contains one. Battery powered devices don't need to contain fuses for safety purposes, so don't tend to.


What are you plugging into the USB port? Dedicated 2A USB chargers are not hard to get, but even a 500mA part should provide enough to charge an idle working Pandora - I suspect you might have a close short eating juice after all.
Click to expand...
how would i find the short. i know that to charge through the psp port. there is (on the PCB) a few fuses throughout. (i could open it again and examine it) and with the USB port aswell. simply having raw power would overload the system, so fuses would be involved

EDIT: Mind that this is an attempt to fix the pandora without sending it in (the shoulder button can be remapped to another button.)
 
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I'm not sure what on this picture you're indentifying as a fuse, but then again fuses aren't used to rectify power so perhaps you don't actually mean fuse.


To identify a short, you'd need a voltmeter. Or do what I did; hook it up to a bench supply and increase the current limit slowly until the short melts and the magic smoke is let out. But I wouldn't recommend that, and I guess you don't have a bench power supply either for that matter.


I guess you're limited to just looking at the board, and seeing if you can spot anything suspicious. Any contamination, any lifted traces, things like that.
 
Levi said:
I'm not sure what on this picture you're indentifying as a fuse, but then again fuses aren't used to rectify power so perhaps you don't actually mean fuse.


To identify a short, you'd need a voltmeter. Or do what I did; hook it up to a bench supply and increase the current limit slowly until the short melts and the magic smoke is let out. But I wouldn't recommend that, and I guess you don't have a bench power supply either for that matter.


I guess you're limited to just looking at the board, and seeing if you can spot anything suspicious. Any contamination, any lifted traces, things like that.
Click to expand...
Although my unit is a rebirth model. that picture doesnt really replicate whats on my board. but i can give you an idea where there might be some.

anything that leads out from the power ports such as http://prntscr.com/70dlu6for the psp port, it seems larger. however im not sure since its not the same PCB in my rebirth model

EDIT: im going to take a picture of my PCB to show you.
 
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FWIW, my guess would be that those components you've outlined are probably capacitors. The labels on them mean nothing to me, but the fact they have two terminals, and their size suggests they're big caps used for noise suppression on the inputs. I can't see any damage on them from the resolution of your photo, but it's conceivable the dielectric has failed internally I suppose. It'd need to be a failure of that sort, I reckon, as if they failed to infinite resistance it'd just make the circuit a bit more intolerant to noise.


That said, I can see something on the power regulation circuitry (that bit around where it says 'do not touch when live'). I'm not sure if it's just JPEG noise or not, but take a look close look at that.


If that is damaged, I'm not sure there's an awful lot you can do to fix it yourself unless you're already familiar with fine SMD work. But I guess it'd solve one mystery.
 
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Levi said:
FWIW, my guess would be that those components you've outlined are probably capacitors. The labels on them mean nothing to me, but the fact they have two terminals, and their size suggests they're big caps used for noise suppression on the inputs.
Click to expand...
Well, I can't zoom into the picture at all (a link to JPG would be nice), but these actually do look like fuses. Pandra has fuses on both barrel jack ("F1", 2A) and mini-USB ("F2", 1.1A). You may have labels printed on the PCB for big components like these.

Figuring out DC issues is usually easy, all you need is a multimeter. Just track the +5V signal from the barrel jack to F1 fuse and then to C52 capacitor. If C52 is charged to 5V, you have a malfunction in battery charger IC (TWL4030), and you're probably boned. Otherwise replace (or short, for a quick test) the F1 fuse and see if that helps.
 
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dimag0g said:
Levi said:
FWIW, my guess would be that those components you've outlined are probably capacitors. The labels on them mean nothing to me, but the fact they have two terminals, and their size suggests they're big caps used for noise suppression on the inputs.
Click to expand...
Well, I can't zoom into the picture at all (a link to JPG would be nice), but these actually do look like fuses. Pandra has fuses on both barrel jack ("F1", 2A) and mini-USB ("F2", 1.1A). You may have labels printed on the PCB for big components like these.

Figuring out DC issues is usually easy, all you need is a multimeter. Just track the +5V signal from the barrel jack to F1 fuse and then to C52 capacitor. If C52 is charged to 5V, you have a malfunction in battery charger IC (TWL4030), and you're probably boned. Otherwise replace (or short, for a quick test) the F1 fuse and see if that helps.
Click to expand...
Thanks! il have to buy a multimeter first (i don't have one :< )

EDIT: and also thanks. knowing that these are indeed fuses does help a-lot in my research.

however should i also test for continuity? (i should probably include a water  damage indicator to the inside of the case)

Explanation: Well, heres why im expecting it to be the fuses... Well here it goes.

So one day i decided to find out what else would fit the psp barrel converter. thats when i found out that the Duracell recharge station had a similar size barrel that would fit the converter.

thats when i knew i screwed up. so when i plugged in the charger using the duracell plug. (which is probably 12v instead of the normal 5v) and shorted something (i have no idea what) after that the mini usb and the barrel did not register a charge. (The mini usb does charge. but not enough to keep the charge.) so this is why im thinking its the fuses. hopefully this will give more information on how to fix the problem
 
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Yeah you should check for continuity, that's a legit way to confirm that the fuse fired. You should double-check everything before you decide to touch you PCB with the solder iron.

Plugging in a 12V charger would indeed explain why the fuse tripped. I hope it happened before the excessive current damaged your TWL4030 chip. The input pin may have shorted to GND, and putting voltage back may damage it further: the shorted zone will overheat in milliseconds and may thermally damage the rest of the chip, especially if you just bypass the tripped fuse instead of replacing it. If you kill the chip, charging via USB will stop working as well.

If you confirm the F1 fuse is tripped, my advice is to solder a smaller 0.5 - 1A fuse on its pads (maybe use a replaceable fuse + small wires to reach the pads) boot the Pandora and reprogram TWL4030 to a smaller charge current before plugging in the barrel jack charger:

sudo su

<enter password>

echo 350 > /sys/class/power_supply/twl4030_ac/charge_current

"350" should limit the charge current to less than 1A. If you use 0.5A fuse, replace it with "175". This value will reset to normal once you power down to replace the temporary fuse with a permanent 2A fuse (or a short if you like the smell of napalm in the morning :)

Good luck.

PS: I managed to open your PCB photo. The two components on the top are indeed the fuses I told you about. FYI, TWL4030 is labelled "U2" on the PCB, in case you will need to know where that smoke is coming from :)
 
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