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Repair of broken power supply in Apple Time Capsule.

Edition 2. Try to make some points clearer.

The time capsule power supplies are proving short lived with many now failing after 18months
of operation. The supply is very specially designed to fit the space and is filled with silicon goop to
prevent components moving. As a result the supply is well neigh impossible to repair.
Symptoms of bad supply are pretty simply. The on light maybe flickers then nothing. It may
have been getting harder to start over a few weeks or months. Now it won’t start at all.

Rather than repair I chose to simply replace the internal supply with an external one.
You can find plenty of pics on the web of
how to pull it apart. I don’t want to repeat
that so please just look it up. I got these
pics from one of those sites.

http://www.hardmac.com/articles/79/
page1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
24254876@N03/sets/
72157604011791554/
In brief...Remove the rubber bottom with
a heat gun to prevent tearing it. Undo the
small philips head screws, then lift the
metal can being careful with the fan
cable. Disconnect the fan so the base unit
is completely free. Remove the hdd and
power supply.

The pinout for board connector.


Sata power connector is standard.

The original power supply was


rated at 12v 1.2A 5v 3A
Looking at the normal hdd, the 5v
line should be around .7A so the
rest of the current is required by the
board. About 10W to the board
and 20W to the hdd is about right.
Pinout as follows
5v
There are several methods to fix 5v
G
this. It is easy if you remove the G
existing sata and power plugs from G
5v
the supply and simply supply them
with correct voltage externally.
But you can also use a 12v regu-
lated supply and a 12-5v dc con-
verter internally.
Remove the original power supply
It says Flextronics, 12V--1.2A 5V--3A

The board on this one is marked Rev:A Jan 08,


2008. Perhaps later models will have better
revised power suupplies. And contrary to some
it is actually a well made supply. The issue is
Apple designed the TC without enough cooling.

Open the insulated cover and warm up the


iron... To remove the cable bundles you need to
add solder and heat them all at once. Try to rock
the cables from side to side as they are both
stuck in the goop and tight in the holes.

Unsolder the connectors. This takes a fair bit


of time to get it all hot and pull it out of the
goop.

Look carefully at the pic. Once you assemble


the molex into the hole, just solder ground to
the 5 wire bundle, 12v to the single cable. 5v
to the bundle of 4 wires.
I used an old pc cover plate to protect the inside
while filing... if you are rough remove the
board. Be warned filing off components tends to
make the board no longer functional... You are
responsible for your actions...!!

You want a really neat fit to the Molex connec-


tor. And a small grove that it uses as a locator.
Actually on second thought, just file off the
locator on the molex.. I did file slightly too deep
and left a mark on the outside. The female
inline molex socket has a lip around it so half
the socket will sit inside and half out. That will
hide any imperfections in the hole. You need
this for the socket to hold in and also not inter-
fere with the fan.

Before mounting the molex I


drilled a 1mm hole through the
connector (between the two
ground wires so doesn’t matter
if they short). I did it by push-
ing the molex in and marking
the connector. Then removed it
and drilled the hole. Remember
if you drill a hole straight
through the board it will prob-
ably never work again.

I pushed a pin (brad nail)


through the hole as a locking
device and used a drop of
silastic but it was very tight so
just to be certain it won’t come
out. Remember nails, bits of
solder left in side will short out
components.

If you want a quick and dirty


job, just leave the molex socket
hanging out of the hole. No
filing required.
Only slightly strange outside connector. But
easy to get suitable power supply like ebay
for external hdd or even a computer power
supply or itx supply. The ebay supplies from
China are cheap but poor quality. Someone
suggested a Cisco, ADP-30RB supply. Re-
placements are available fairly cheaply on
ebay. It has a 6pin molex so I would recom-
mend to chop that off, and solder on the 4 pin
molex. Remember to short ROF to ground to
start the supply.

Solder up the cables as shown and connect


the sockets to the hard disk and board. I
wrapped the whole length of cable in insula-
tion tape although shrinkwrap would be
better. Make sure your solder joints are
double wrapped so they cannot short to
themselves or the board.

Reassemble with the temp probe...

Finally powered on and running again.

Time Capsule from Mattrixx and repair by


Ray Haverfield. Melbourne Australia 1st
Sept 2009 (Revised document 4th Sept)
I am Revs Per Min in whirlpool forum.
Please see, Please email me at
rayhav@gmail.com if you have suggestions
or queries.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-
replies.cfm?t=1267631&p=2#r35

I have suggested other methods in the thread


as well. You can do this in a simpler way.
Even leave the present power supply in place
and just solder the leads to the PS board.
(Don’t power it from AC of course).

But cooling is an issue. Remove PS to help


air flow. I would also suggest you cut a hole
below the fan, through the aluminium base
plate and cover the top of the fan with a
piece of tape. If you put the rubber sheet
back, cut out a square corresponding to the
fan hole, and use a piece of foam as a filter to
stop dust infiltration. Stand it at least 20mm
off the surface to get cool air from below.

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