Anyone with Dead UMC-1 for parts?

[dlneubec]

I realise this is a very long shot.  But finally pulled the cover on my UMC-1 that has been in storage for last couple years due to inability to completely boot up.  Noticed the one board has clear burn mark on it, which is very visible from the bottom of the board.  I'm thinking it might be worth just popping a replacement used board in.  The challenge, of course, is to find someone who has a dead, discarded/stored UMC-1 who might be willing to scavenge this part if it looks good.  Below shows the board.  I'm only interested if I can find an seemingly good full board to pop in as a replacement.

So, anyone have a dead UMC-1 that would be willing to pull the cover and scavenge a board, if it looks good?

Thanks for reading!

[petew]

That's the main power supply board. Can you pop it out and get some high resolution pictures of both sides? Likely a capacitor failure. A competent tech may be able to fix it.

[dlneubec]

I will see if I can get some good photos and post them.

It appears to my inexperienced eye that several caps may be leaking, though none appear to be bulging. The parts that look to be soldered together at the top, immediately right of the power supply connection(s)(?) appear darkened and the surface dingy on the top side, but on the bottom side below these parts the board is clearly scorched. The rest of the bottom of the board looks clean.

[dlneubec]

Here's the first group of photos:

Attachments:

[dlneubec]

A couple more:

Attachments:

[petew]

Keith L stated in the past that the brown goo is the glue that holds the caps to the board. I can't tell what those two smoked components are. Can you see the label and symbol on the PCB silkscreen? I'd guess a couple of resistors in a series/parallel configuration for some reason.

[dlneubec]

Will look to investigate further. They look like resistors in series to my eye.

[dlneubec]

On closer inspection, it looks like they are caps, same as the smaller ones lying nearby flat to the board. The board appears to be labelled D20, SB360. More photos are Attached.

Attachments:

[petew]

Those look like diodes. In series due to power requirements. Still not enough though since they overheated. They could be replaced with larger diodes off board mounted to a heat sink. Typical crap Chicom design there. A competent tech (hobbyist or pro) should be able to fix the power supply. Unknown, however, if the power failure may have taken out something downstream.

[dlneubec]

Well, I ended up taking it to a local tech. He charged $70 to troubleshoot, which went toward the repair if I decided to get it done. I ended up getting it repaired for $140 total. He said that the glue used for the caps is a well known problem. The it dries out in 5-7 years and causes problems. I want to say he said it became conductive, but he has a strong accent, so it was hard to tell. He said it is a very well know issue, has been for a long time, so he doesn't understand why anyone still uses it, unless they are trying to ensure that a piece of equipments lasts only so long. A planned obsolescence type of thing. At any rate, all the caps were replaced on the power supply board, along with some other things. There were numerous cold solder joints, so he essentially reflowed them all. Nothing else was wrong except the power supply board.

Seems to be working fine now, so maybe there is hope for you other UMC-1 owners.

[snacker]

I still have a umc-1 wrapped up in plastic.

Is the wizard of Oz still around?

He was the genius when it came to these.

[KeithL]

There is definitely some slight hope for repairing a dead UMC-1.

The catch is that certain parts, including the switch chips on the HDMI board, are no longer available.

(And, no, we no longer have stock of either that part or entire replacement boards.)

This means that, if you're lucky, you will find a problem that can be repaired relatively easily, like a power supply issue.

But, if you're NOT lucky, repairing your unit would require parts that are simply no longer available.

(At which point you will have paid somewhere between $40 and $100 in diagnostic labor fees to learn that your unit cannot be fixed.)

The reason we stopped servicing them out-of-warranty is simply that we don't think that's a good risk any more.

(And, of course, the unit is quite out of date, so it makes more sense to trade up to a new one.)

However, if you are able to diagnose electronic gear yourself, or have a trustworthy local tech who doesn't charge too much, you may find it a worthwhile gamble.

I am not aware of any "conductive adhesive" problems relating to the power supply in the UMC-1.

Likewise, there was a well know issue where a massive number of faulty capacitors used on computer motherboards failed several years ago, but I don't think that applies to the caps used in the UMC-1 either.

However, for what help it offers, on the UMC-1, power supply capacitors, and regulators on both the power supply and HDMI boards, are among the parts most likely to fail.

[KeithL]

Also FYI.....

The silver cans with the black heat shrink covering are capacitors.
They sometimes fail and leak, at which point you may see brown goo around the bottom, or running down the sides.
However, they can also fail, but show no outward signs at all...
And, in many cases, a dab of adhesive is used to secure them down to the board, which starts out clear or white, but which often turns brown with age.
I can't tell from the pictures whether that's goo or old adhesive.
(When a power supply fails replacing all of the the capacitors is often a good first thing to try.)

The little black cylinders, with a stripe at one end, are diodes (either rectifier diodes or zener diodes).
While diodes may fail they rarely show visible signs of overheating (and those don't look overheated).
What you actually have there are two diodes in series - with the leads at one end of each soldered together.
The visible signs of heat are almost certainly due to the soldering of the leads and a tiny bit of residual flux.
(Hand soldering is often done these days with "no clean" flux... which may look messy but won't hurt anything.)

In some cases, diodes will remain cooler, and last longer, if spaced away from the board for additional cooling.
However, that isn't always the case, and it depends on the situation.

[dlneubec]

Jan 15, 2020 17:28:50 GMT -5 KeithL said:

There is definitely some slight hope for repairing a dead UMC-1.

The catch is that certain parts, including the switch chips on the HDMI board, are no longer available.

(And, no, we no longer have stock of either that part or entire replacement boards.)

This means that, if you're lucky, you will find a problem that can be repaired relatively easily, like a power supply issue.

But, if you're NOT lucky, repairing your unit would require parts that are simply no longer available.

(At which point you will have paid somewhere between $40 and $100 in diagnostic labor fees to learn that your unit cannot be fixed.)

The reason we stopped servicing them out-of-warranty is simply that we don't think that's a good risk any more.

(And, of course, the unit is quite out of date, so it makes more sense to trade up to a new one.)

However, if you are able to diagnose electronic gear yourself, or have a trustworthy local tech who doesn't charge too much, you may find it a worthwhile gamble.

I am not aware of any "conductive adhesive" problems relating to the power supply in the UMC-1.

Likewise, there was a well know issue where a massive number of faulty capacitors used on computer motherboards failed several years ago, but I don't think that applies to the caps used in the UMC-1 either.

However, for what help it offers, on the UMC-1, power supply capacitors, and regulators on both the power supply and HDMI boards, are among the parts most likely to fail.

Here's the thing.  I used my UMC-1 up until I got a UMC-200, when I took it completely out of service.  It was working perfectly at that time.  It was never even plugged in for a few years, as I had no need for an additional HT unit and already had a music only setup in another room.  At some point, several years later, I decided to put it to work in my music only system.  That would offer the chance to add a TV for grandkids, etc. to play games on, etc.  It never booted up the first time I plugged it in and powered it up.  Until that moment, when the power was switched on, it had been 100% unused.  So something happened to make it fail in a few years while setting in a nice cool, climate controlled room.

I have to say I disagree with your take on it not being worth the risk to repair.  That should be my choice as a customer, not yours as a seller.  You could have advised folks that it may not be worth the risk of repairing due to a host of potential problems, rather than kicking your customers to the curb to deal with it themselves.  As I mentioned, some of us had already upgraded to a new one, so that path makes no sense at all.  BTW, if the HDMI had failed and it was still useable for audio only, don't you think that is something some folks might do?

I can tell you one thing, at the time I got the UMC 200, I had no problems with the 
UMC-1, nor the 2 Emotiva amps I own.  If I had known you were going to abandon your UMC-1 customers with a unit that was only a few years old, I would not own the UMC-200 at this time.  I bet a lot of your customers would not be customers if you told them of your throw away/upgrade approach to customer support and that that they should not expect your product to last more than 5 years or so.

I still have a lot of vintage gear that I've owned since the late 1970's to mid-80's and almost all of it continues to function, for example Harmon Kardon and Adcom preamps that have been in the loop since the UMC-1 failed.  Both work perfectly and have never needed to be serviced.  That's 40+ years old, yet you expect us to swallow that 5 years or so is all we should expect before a piece of equipment is not worth the risk of repair or support?

[daveczski65]

Mine lost the audio sect on the 5.1 side of things,,now all i can use is the zone 2 inputs.So sad they shafted us like this,,i have mnay emotiva components and speakers,,I hope there are no isses upcoming with these.I thought about going with a newer model but didnt want to spend the extra money,even with my 40 off card.

So i have to agree with the last post.Customer should be one to make choice not Company! So sad,,Glad I got an Intergra !

[KeithL]

We didn't "kick anyone to the curb".

We continued to provide warranty service on the UMC-1 until the last unit was out of warranty.

I believe we even continued to provide out-of-warranty service for a short time after that.

Unfortunately, not only do processors become obsolete much more quickly than amplifiers, but they contain quite a few parts that go out of production rather quickly.

Therefore, once the last units were out of warranty, and we ran out of replacement parts, we made the decision to discontinue out-of-warranty service.

(If we'd been able to obtain parts we'd have continued to repair them.)

We certainly don't discourage anyone from continuing to use a UMC-1 for only audio, if the HDMI switches have failed, but the audio circuitry continues to operate.

(But you don't require anything from us to do so.)

However, when it came to out-of-warranty service on the UMC-1, we were faced with a decision.

We currently have a "flat rate service model" - which means that we charge a flat fee for out-of-warranty service on a particular product.

This fee covers the average amount of time required to diagnose and repair issues on a particular product - and the cost of any parts involved.

In the case of a UMC-1, this means that, in order to receive out-of-warranty service, you would have to ship us the unit and pay a $125 fee.

And, if we were unable to fix it, we keep the fee, and you get back a unit that still doesn't work.

(We still have to spend almost the same amount of time figuring out what's wrong... even if it turns out we can't fix it... which is why we still have to charge you.)

We didn't think that would be very fair, or very nice, so we decided not to continue to offer the option.

To be quite candid, any competent local repair shop can provide the same service on your UMC-1 as we can....

(If it's a simple power supply issue then they can fix it as well as we can... and, if it's an HDMI issue, neither of us can get the parts... we'll even be happy to send them a schematic... )

They may charge you less...

And you won't have to worry about shipping....

Jan 16, 2020 15:40:43 GMT -5 dlneubec said:

Jan 15, 2020 17:28:50 GMT -5 KeithL said:

There is definitely some slight hope for repairing a dead UMC-1.

The catch is that certain parts, including the switch chips on the HDMI board, are no longer available.

(And, no, we no longer have stock of either that part or entire replacement boards.)

This means that, if you're lucky, you will find a problem that can be repaired relatively easily, like a power supply issue.

But, if you're NOT lucky, repairing your unit would require parts that are simply no longer available.

(At which point you will have paid somewhere between $40 and $100 in diagnostic labor fees to learn that your unit cannot be fixed.)

The reason we stopped servicing them out-of-warranty is simply that we don't think that's a good risk any more.

(And, of course, the unit is quite out of date, so it makes more sense to trade up to a new one.)

However, if you are able to diagnose electronic gear yourself, or have a trustworthy local tech who doesn't charge too much, you may find it a worthwhile gamble.

I am not aware of any "conductive adhesive" problems relating to the power supply in the UMC-1.

Likewise, there was a well know issue where a massive number of faulty capacitors used on computer motherboards failed several years ago, but I don't think that applies to the caps used in the UMC-1 either.

However, for what help it offers, on the UMC-1, power supply capacitors, and regulators on both the power supply and HDMI boards, are among the parts most likely to fail.

Here's the thing.  I used my UMC-1 up until I got a UMC-200, when I took it completely out of service.  It was working perfectly at that time.  It was never even plugged in for a few years, as I had no need for an additional HT unit and already had a music only setup in another room.  At some point, several years later, I decided to put it to work in my music only system.  That would offer the chance to add a TV for grandkids, etc. to play games on, etc.  It never booted up the first time I plugged it in and powered it up.  Until that moment, when the power was switched on, it had been 100% unused.  So something happened to make it fail in a few years while setting in a nice cool, climate controlled room.

I have to say I disagree with your take on it not being worth the risk to repair.  That should be my choice as a customer, not yours as a seller.  You could have advised folks that it may not be worth the risk of repairing due to a host of potential problems, rather than kicking your customers to the curb to deal with it themselves.  As I mentioned, some of us had already upgraded to a new one, so that path makes no sense at all.  BTW, if the HDMI had failed and it was still useable for audio only, don't you think that is something some folks might do?

I can tell you one thing, at the time I got the UMC 200, I had no problems with the 
UMC-1, nor the 2 Emotiva amps I own.  If I had known you were going to abandon your UMC-1 customers with a unit that was only a few years old, I would not own the UMC-200 at this time.  I bet a lot of your customers would not be customers if you told them of your throw away/upgrade approach to customer support and that that they should not expect your product to last more than 5 years or so.

I still have a lot of vintage gear that I've owned since the late 1970's to mid-80's and almost all of it continues to function, for example Harmon Kardon and Adcom preamps that have been in the loop since the UMC-1 failed.  Both work perfectly and have never needed to be serviced.  That's 40+ years old, yet you expect us to swallow that 5 years or so is all we should expect before a piece of equipment is not worth the risk of repair or support?

[dlneubec]

Not buying it your attempt to explain away abandoning your customers. I contacted your customer support immediately and all is got was a "we don't support those units anymore". A competent tech could probably have listened to the problem described, what the unit did at boot up, and looked at a few photos customers could supply, and provided at least some idea of where the problem might lie. You could have explained that if it was the power supply, it "might" be fixed for audio only, but if the HDMI went bad, it was no longer useable. You could have offered the schematics up then, but didn't. You could have provided chat support or email support. There are plenty of ways you could have provided some level of support to your customers, rather than curtly say, sorry, we don't support that unit anymore, end of story. You remember, those loyal early customers that passed the word around about your great products and helped make you a success. Instead, you stonewalled those early customers.

Despite what you say about warranty, no one buys something like this with the thought that it will only be good through the warranty period. How many of any of your products do you think you would sell if you told the customer not to plan on using it past the warranty period? It will be too old and obsolete and when it is out of warranty, we won't talk to you.

IMO, you were trying to make big problem you had with a lot of the UMC-1's go away by acting like it didn't exist or pushing the upgrade as a solution and now your trying to explain away those decisions by suggesting you did it for the customer.

IMO, you did all this despite the customer, not for them.

[dlneubec]

While we're at it, let me ask this. Is that your plan for all your current products? When they go out of warranty can customers expect to get zero support from you? Can they expect to hear that it would be cost more than they would want to spend for you to continue to support what they purchased in good faith?

[petew]

I completely understand where Emotiva is coming from on processors. None of the big Asian manufacturers would even attempt to fix an obsolete piece. However, I'd hope they have the ability to repair and support amplifiers long out of warranty. Even if, like Keith mentioned, just sending schematics to a competent repair shop.

That worries me about the new generation of amps with switched mode power supplies. How many parts are in those power supplies that will become unavailable?

[hifidan]

I have a similar problem with my UMC-1.  It will not go pass the booting sequence.   There was one Buck Converter that  was damaged on the HDMI board.  I did replace it but there seem to be a short somewhere on the board after L1. 
 Keith,  may I take you at your word,  can you send me the schematic  of my UMC-1. 
It would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance, Daniel