Finally I Fixed Something

Finally got the courage to fix the DVD player. Been procrastinating since I still think back on that iBook fiasco. No one knows how much work it is to replace an iBook’s LCD screen until you’ve done it yourself. You pretty much have to rip off every single part to get to every little connector.

I have an extremely common Philips DVD model, the DVP642. I’ve had it for at least 4 years and I know it’s still a fairly popular model. A real trooper of a DVD player that plays  PAL, xvid, divx, etc. Then one day it wouldn’t turn on and a low red blink was the only sign of life. So I did a search online and found this to be a fairly common capacitor issue. Quite a few sites have detailed instructions on how to mend this issue. DO NOT PAY for instructions. Plenty of forums are out there that tell you for free.

I picked up the capacitor at Radio Shack a couple days ago for $1.59. Last night I took the time to finally crack her open and got to work. As you can see, it died with a dvd inside. I had wondered where that dvd got to.

I looked over the board and immediately spotted what everyone was talking about. I circled the bad capacitor, but you can clearly see how it is bulging unlike the others. Majority have the same capacitor that goes bad – C316. You can see the board is nicely marked with all of the locations. Everything confirmed, I proceeded to unscrew and unplug everything to get to the backside of the circuit board.

This is the part that took the most time. I had to figure out which 2 little dots were the actual connectors for the capacitor. I took my time and triple checked before I started soldering. (I circled the 2 connectors in the photo below.) Considering that this was my first time soldering, it was actually way easier than I ever imagined. Tried soldering when it wasn’t fully heated yet, so I thought it took a long time to melt the iron. But once it heated up, it melted like butter with a hot knife and got the old capacitor out with no issues.

Putting the new capacitor was even more simple, since I had more of a feel of how soldering worked. I actually didn’t need any iron, instead I just used the existing iron that was there from the last capacitor.

I tripled checked that the negative and positive flow were in the right place. I didn’t want to short out the board after all of my hard work. You will probably notice that the new capacitor is much larger than the old. Radio Shack didn’t carry a 16v, so I had to settle for the 32v. Seems to be what most people end up buying anyways.

Since I was pretty confident with my work, I put everything together prior to trying the player. Didn’t end up with any extra pieces like I did with the iBook, which is a pretty good sign. Plugged her in and she started right up. First thing I’ve watched on the newly working player, was a couple episodes of the best comedy show that has EVER been made, Black Books.

(Just in case you need to pick up the capacitor, write this information down and hand it to the guy or lady at Radio Shack and he or she will find you the part. Elecrolytic Capacitor 1000u with a voltage of16v or greater.)