Sky Italia box - failed caps in psu

[Analoguesat]

My old Chinese built Amstrad DRX500i Sky Italia box has finally died. (made in 2005 on the sticker)

It started a few weeks ago when the picture started rolling badly any time there were large amounts of white on the screen. Its refusing to do anything except search for a signal now.

Id guessed what the problem was - and having popped the top off my guess was confirmed - there are two bulging capacitors in the power supply subsystem. (The two big ones to the left of the blue transformer if anyone is interested).

Recently it was only being used to view NHK World so its no real loss - and I'll just wire in the old Echostar 3000 again to replace it..

Ah well - another bit of broken satellite kit to sling in the scrap bin up the local tip......

 

[PaulR]

Not tempted to replace the caps yourself? It hasn't damaged any of semiconductor devices (yet!) so it should be relatively cheap. I would gues £5 - £10 for parts if you replace all the PSU caps.

 

[Analoguesat]

Having done soldering in my job down at the local high school it'll never work again if I go anywhere near it!

I might stick it on one side and see if I can pick up a scrap Amstrad Sky UK box and see if the power supplies are similar..

 

[A nonymous]

The same box is used for Sky UK also. Its only the firmware that is different.

They are easy enough to get on ebay. Infact there is a sky italia DRX500 on there, although its pick up only from Bolton

Nano

 

[denis1501]

I'm going to Italy in 5 weeks time, if you need anything just let me know.

 

[Analoguesat]

Thanks for the offer Denis - it was just an interesting thing to tinker with - I only ever used it for the free channels - recently to watch NHK World for an hour after getting home from work after their SD departure from 28E

 

[A nonymous]

A Sky Italia subscription would be nice Denis

If your Paying