For Friday’s show, we used Alesis monitor speakers that we had in the lab, plus Steve, one of the students, supplied two.
During installation, one of the speakers started winking its blue power light and ceased playing sound, and before the show another did as well. Steve found a Studio Central forum post suggesting that the problem was due to a failed electrolytic capacitor that gets baked by a hot resistor right next to it, and a quick peek inside confirmed that it was a likely explanation and fix.
After unscrewing, the back panel lifts out and reveals the power supply board mounted vertically on a metal shield, and the crossover/amplifier board mounted flat on the panel.
The naughty capacitor, C8 (actually its replacement after I finished), is in the center red rectangle next to the offending resistor. Another bad electrolytic capacitor whose number I forgot to catch is featured near the top of the board. Both of these tested bad with my Capacitor Wizard in-circuit equivalent series resistance (ESR) tester; all of the other electrolytics on the board tested good.
It was simple work to remove and replace the two capacitors on each board, and it brought both speakers back to life. Thank you, forum posts and Capacitor Wizard!
BTW, are electrolytics supposed to look like this?
Two caveats about this repair. First, I should have used 105°C capacitors, but I could only find 85°C caps on short notice, so these will fail quickly and need to be replaced again. At least now it’s known exactly what needs to be done. And second, the forum post suggests moving either the resistor or capacitor to get them further apart, which is a great idea but which I haven’t done yet. I’ve been trying to think up a clever way to stick a little heatsink on a vertically-mounted resistor, which might be a better solution yet.
