Today at Atelier Kaz - ex-Honda R&D, F1, Indy/CART engineer

Have been very busy recently so didn't have time updating the blog.


While dealing with another NSX for an emergency service, have been working on another OEM head unit.

The owner told me that he can only hear the sound when cranked up the volume ring and kept rotating it.

So placed the unit on the bench and confirmed that I could only get very faint signal level even when the volume was set at well over 50% of the full range.


Noticed the position of the volume ring in the above photo?
Even at that position, just faint output was made.




















So, started removing the case screws and already knew that someone touched this head unit in the past because some of the blue Loctite screws were loose.

And I'm afraid the person who worked on this circuit board didn't seem to have much electronics background….

Very poor soldering method and left the leaked acid on the circuit board without cleaning.

Some of the original caps were left without being replaced causing even more serious acid leakage that it allowed damaging other components.

This OP AMP is dead…..





















Further investigation confirmed that the terminal of this surface mount Tr was completely dissolved and gone….

The acid penetrated through the circuit board that the tracks around/below the OP Amp were gone…..



















Started the repairing tasks….