Squeezebox Classic (SB3) Repair Considerations

[philippe_44]

Thanks Chris, I wrote you an email.

Chris?

[madpad]

Chris?

Yes to: chris (at) schoeppi.net so his name is Chris as it seems. ;-)

[philippe_44]

Yes to: chris (at) schoeppi.net so his name is Chris as it seems. ;-)

Oh sorry, as this response was to my post I missed that

[schoeppi]

On Sun, 6 Jan 2019 07:34:13 +0000, madpad wrote:
>
> philippe_44 wrote:
>> Chris?
>
> Yes to: chris (at) schoeppi.net so his name is Chris as it seems. ;-)

Yes, it is :-). Got your mail, will answer soon....

Ciao,

Schoepp

[madpad]

Oh sorry, as this response was to my post I missed that

Sorry about that! Btw. I just found two original Squeezbox (v1) in my storage, is anyone interested in buying one of them? A collector maybe, as this is history.. it first came without casing :-) was an upgrade afterwards which I did. They still work like a charm.

[gorman]

What an incredible resource that blog is. Wow!

I've bookmarked it and I hope you'll offer repair services for a long time to come.

[pputzer]

I've got an SB3 that seems to be in good working order, except that IR blaster is not able light up IR diodes plugged into the headphone jack. I'm assuming it's probably the capacitors, but replacing those is beyond my soldering skills.

[JoeMuc2009]

I've got an SB3 that seems to be in good working order, except that IR blaster is not able light up IR diodes plugged into the headphone jack. I'm assuming it's probably the capacitors, but replacing those is beyond my soldering skills.

I was actually hoping somebody else with more IR Blaster experience would answer. I have not used IR Blaster myself yet but would advise you to check these steps:

• did IR Blaster work previously? How did it stop? Did it become more and more unreliable, or did it fail at one point?
• if you are trying to set it up for the first time, did you ensure the polarity and connections on the headphone jack are correct with respect to the IR diode?
• if you point your smartphone's camera (in video mode), or any video camera, towards the IR emitter diode, do you see faint purple flashes while IR commands are being sent? (please compare to a known-working IR remote control to verify your camera is picking up the infrared light)
• does the headphone jack of your SB3 work properly when being used as a regular headphone output? If the left channel is missing, that would be the same pin that drives the IR diode...

Hope this might help you a bit.
Cheers,
Joe

[pputzer]

• did IR Blaster work previously? How did it stop? Did it become more and more unreliable, or did it fail at one point?

It did work before, but after a move, the SB3 was set up again in a new place. When that happened, the blaster did not work. I initially thought the diode/blaster was bad or my IR codes were wrong, so I bought a new one. That does not work either, though.

• if you point your smartphone's camera (in video mode), or any video camera, towards the IR emitter diode, do you see faint purple flashes while IR commands are being sent? (please compare to a known-working IR remote control to verify your camera is picking up the infrared light)

Yes, that's how I know it is not emitting anything.

• does the headphone jack of your SB3 work properly when being used as a regular headphone output? If the left channel is missing, that would be the same pin that drives the IR diode...

I have not had time to check with a headphone yet.

[pputzer]

So after building a piCorePlayer with the RaspTouch chassis (very nice, but costly), I moved the SBT from the living room to replace the "broken" SB3 in the bed room. Well, it turns out that blasting the amps remote didn't work either. Either there's an issue with RC5 codes, my hardware documentation is entirely wrong (doubtful, got it from the hardware support engineer of the manufacturer) or this amp has an IR sensor that needs REALLY bright LEDs.

The amp's remote works fine and is quite bright when viewed with an IR-sensing smart phone. The IR blaster LEDs connect to the squeezebox barely show up on the phone, but work fine when glued to the sensor of the other amp in the living room. Oh well.

Now I've got a spare SB3 that's working fine, but still no IR for that pesky amplifier. Reasonable offers for the SB3 are welcome (postage outside of Europe is probably prohibitive, though).