RDR HXD870 stuck in update mode

[MarmiteCyclist]

My HXD870 gets stuck in update mode. I’ve tried the solutions from five years ago, which worked for me then, but this time I can’t access any menus or anything I’ve recorded or play a DVD. Mechanically the machine seems fine. Anyone else getting the same issue?

[Mooly01]

The outer part of the aerial socket on the player should be very firmly attached to the metal 'tuner can'. Remember there are two sets of aerial inputs on these, one analogue and one digital so you can compare how they look and feel. The centre part of the socket shouldn't be overly loose or wobbly.

I'll have a look tomorrow (all being well) on how accessible the cap is. This is its location on the diagram, the 0.22 Farad cap. The nature of these caps is such that although they are massive in value, they have quite a high internal resistance and so shouldn't dump masses of current when shorted... although discharging via a resistor is better if you have anything suitable (anything from 100 ohm to 10k). If not then wire it is.

Also the construction of these caps means that a quick short won't pull all the charge out of them. Although the voltage will be zero when shorted, when you remove the short the voltage will tend to creep back up. I wondered about wrapping it in a bit of tin foil for a few minutes. That should hold everything at zero and when the foil is removed the voltage shouldn't wander back up to far.

  

[Mooly01]

The cap is at the edge of the main PCB under the HDD. Four screws and the HDD lifts out of the way. You can also see the cap through the holes in the chassis. The edge of the cap that is visible appears to be the + connection and I measured 0.5 volt on my second standby player that hasn't been powered up for around at least 48 hours.   

No guarantees, but good luck.

(Leave the cap shorted for a good while (a few hours !) to fully remove all charge. A quick discharge will see the voltage rise again when the short is removed and so we want to try and remove as much of that as possible)  

[MarmiteCyclist]

No problem getting the player open, unscrewing the hard drive and finding the capacitor. But the physics went straight over my head. Do I take the capacitor out of the motherboard or simply lean piece of wire against it for a few hours? Should the other end of the wire touch something and if so something that conducts or doesn’t conduct electricity?

[Mooly01]

Leave the capacitor in place and just short it out end to end. You should find the ends are uninsulated and bare metal.

Having done that initially you could then wrap a bit of scrunched up tinfoil around the cap to keep it shorted for a while. Remember to remove the short before powering up again... as forgetting is easily done and all that.

This is why an initial quick short doesn't remove all charge from a capacitor like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_absorption 

[MarmiteCyclist]

Gotcha, thanks. I find that an earring wire does the job perfectly and stays in place by itself. I’ll leave it overnight.

Sent from my iPhone

[MarmiteCyclist]

Works a treat! 

[Mooly01]

I think there is sufficient current carrying capacity there

Fingers crossed then !

[MarmiteCyclist]

I switched it back on nearly an hour ago and it’s still in update mode. If it’s not working by 10am I’m going out to buy a new one

Sent from my iPad

[Mooly01]

That is a shame 😞 as I really hoped we had a fair chance of success with this one. Everything realistically possible has been done. A pity as they are such fantastic machines.

Good luck looking for a replacement, hope you find something suitable.   

[MarmiteCyclist]

Bought two new boxes, a PVR and a DVD / Blu-Ray player. In connecting them up I kept getting errors, realised the inner copper of the aerial cable was broken and have re-terminated it. I almost want to try the HXD870 again in case that was the problem, but I’m not sure if I can bear to!