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Any electronic modders here at Audiogon?

I'm wondering if there are any electronics modders in here like myself. I would like to hear what you've modified and any good related stories.

I'll start it off with a recent example of a project I just finished a few weeks ago:

First: A little background - I had a PS Audio GCC-100 I had bought off of Audiogon several years ago, but it "died", so I put it in storage where it stayed until about a month ago. Then another amp (a Jungson DA-200IA) I bought here also went bad. 

Shortly after the Jungson died, I saw an ad here on the 'Gon for a PS Audio like my old one that said "just returned from PS Audio with new Gain Cells". This caused me to think that maybe the 2 ICEPower modules inside mine might still be good. Sure enough, they were perfectly fine.

So I set about making what I jokingly call a Jungson ICE amp, where I strip the Jungson innards clean, but save the front panel with the large VU meters, and use the ICE modules and turn the unit into a power amp. Works great, even though the power lever is much lower than the old Jungson. But not a problem, as I don't play it that loud anyway.

Anyone else here have any other good modding stories like that?
joeylawn36111

Showing 3 responses by joeylawn36111

joeylawn36111 OP
574 posts
 
Here's another thing I'd like to share - IF you do any amount of, say, Recapping or anything that has to to with Desoldering a component from a circuit board - IMO a Must Have is a Hakko Electric Desoldering Vacuum tool (current model is the FR-300 - the 808 I use has been discontinued).

But only if you do a lot of desoldering OR you want to protect your investment (don't DARE use a mechanical solder sucker to recap, say, an old Mark Levinson preamp) ;) ,as they're at least ~$265 not including supplies like filters and the proper size nozzles.
joeylawn36111 OP
574 posts
 
Thanks for everyone's input.

Auxinput - I had a kind of similar situation with my Linn Kremlin tuner (and my Linn Klassic for that matter) - They were just too "nice" to mess with (modify) because they're rather expensive, and I don't want to mess them up. BUT the backup battery in the Kremlin 'took a dump' on it's circuit board, so I had to try and fix it, and I did. While having it apart, I also changed the LED display from green to Blue, as I do all my equipment with LED displays - but not the Kremlin until it messed up. 

Similar story with the Klassic - it gave an error message that was fixed with Recapping. So I also went ahead and put the blue 7-segments in.
joeylawn36111 OP
574 posts
 
Auxinput - cool. You're ahead of me - I generally don't mess with SMD components - they're a real pain for hobbyists like me. But the problems I mentioned with my Kremlin were caused by the old memory battery "oozing" onto a 240Ω SMD resistor in the voltage regulator circuit, and changing it's value - I cleaned everything else up, removed it and rigged a regular thru-hole resistor in it's place.
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