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11:06 am
I watched it a lot last night and left it running overnight for over 8 hours without a single disconnect. This was even over wifi n with my wrt400n which really sucks. I'd say the repair was 100% effective and without a doubt the capacitors were causing the problem.
If you're out of warranty (or even in, I don't even know if mine was) and semi-competent at all, go get a $10 25w soldering iron, 2 $1 caps and a small spindle of 60/40 rosin-core solder ($4ish). The worst that can happen is that you break it when working on it but in my case it was becoming more and more useless every day anyways. There are some good tutorial videos out there that will bring you up to speed on basic soldering and honestly I thought this was a relatively easy fix. I broke off two of the leads from one of the old capacitors leaving them stuck in the board by being alittle impatient and not properly removing it like I did the first one. That was alittle tricky because I then had to use a safety pin and heat the area then punch it through in order to make new holes.
For around $20 as opposed to $100 to replace an out-of-warranty box I'd say this fix was definitely worth it.
5:26 pm
Moderator
April 19, 2010
mjsmith said:
I watched it a lot last night and left it running overnight for over 8 hours without a single disconnect. This was even over wifi n with my wrt400n which really sucks. I'd say the repair was 100% effective and without a doubt the capacitors were causing the problem.
Good deal. Glad its now working again. What's this like 10-15 people now that have mentioned they have fixed it by replacing the capacitors?
BTW, save your soldering iron. I have heard people say the same capacitors are in some of the Slingbox power supplies and they go bad also.
9:23 am
Just saw this Forum by chance as I have a slingbox solo beaming SKY to my son in the States. Yes, the common freezing problem on both local and internet….I kept thinking it was my internet connection but after reinstalling the software and the router several times with no improvement decided to look for another cause. The Slingbox help site didn't and so I searched for more 'independant' advice. Having taken the cover off the Solo I saw the characteristic bulging 470uf capacitors and popped down to my local Maplins and bought 2 capacitors but with a rated voltage of 35v to be on the safe side…total cost…..88p….less than $1!! Soldering them in was fairly straightforward, but the solder did have a very high melting point so persistence was necessary! Put everything back and now it works perfectly running up to 4000+ kps on local and 1200kps on remote…..I am lucky to have a very fast connection. Reception in the USA is now totally stable and very high quality. Slingmedia really ought to come clean on this problem as their reputation is being damaged. It is essentially a great product.
6:57 pm
Moderator
April 19, 2010
Chris,
Glad you got it working. Seems like everyone is waiting for an official acknowledgment from Sling Media that there is a capacitor problem.
But at least they are replacing boxes out of warranty now. That is a step in the right direction.
10:52 pm
Because of the release of Slingplayer for Android, I was about to run out and buy a Slingbox today. Then I started reading about the capacitor plague. So now what should I do?
1. Buy a Slingbox Solo?
2. Buy a Slingbox Pro HD?
3. Buy an extended warranty?
4. Buy a Hava?
I have a Tivo HD, Verizon Fios and a Droid.
12:03 am
June 10, 2010
It really depends on what you're going to expect to be doing. Because if you're just going to watch TV on your mobile phone, then Slingbox Pro-HD is overkill. I would recommend a Hava over the Slingbox Solo; however, I don't believe there's an Andriod client for the Hava.
The Solo isn't bad, there's an issue with the capcitors but there's no documentation of root cause analysis. Its sort of like walking through a park and seeing a dead corpse bleeding in the pathway. Okay, its dead but you're gonna need some foresics to figure out how and why it died. And Sling is keeping a tight lip, so its hard to recommend a product to anyone that has good chance for failure. Its like recommending an Xbox 360 to someone, knowing that platform has been plague with overheating problem since it was released.
8:21 am
Moderator
April 19, 2010
Roland Stone said:
Because of the release of Slingplayer for Android, I was about to run out and buy a Slingbox today. Then I started reading about the capacitor plague. So now what should I do?
1. Buy a Slingbox Solo?
2. Buy a Slingbox Pro HD?
3. Buy an extended warranty?
4. Buy a Hava?
I have a Tivo HD, Verizon Fios and a Droid.
I would go with Pro HD in fact since the Solo doesn't do better than 640x480 I would be surprised to see it discontiued soon.
Far as the Hava goes I would wait until the new Monsoon Vulkano comes out. It is supposed to be available some time this summer and they are talking about doing more than just place shifting to your phone.
"Monsoon Multimedia, Inc. announced Volcano, its next generation home
video convergence device. The company stated that Volcano incorporates
major features of TiVo (time shifting), Slingbox/HAVA (place shifting),
Roku (Internet video such as Netflix movies) and new functionalities
that support streaming and recording video to smartphones, all in one
box. Volcano supports all major smartphone and computer operating
systems such as Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile,
Windows and Mac. Monsoon explained that Volcano allows consumers to
schedule and record any of their familiar TV channels remotely from a
smartphone to the Volcano's hard-drive and watch the video at the same
time or transfer the stored content to a smartphone for later viewing.
This can be accomplished through a 3G or Wi-Fi connection from anywhere
in the world including airplanes, cars, trains, offices or hotel rooms.
Integrated players and EPGs (Electronic Programming Guides) can be
downloaded by Volcano users on to any of the popular smartphones or
their Windows/Mac computers"
5:05 pm
My original problem started with the SlingCatcher giving me errors after about 15 or 20 minutes of running, which led me to assume the SlingCatcher had the problem. After all sorts of resets, I was still getting errors. I continued using the Slingbox with a laptop, since that was still working, but after a few days, even that started giving me the errors after just a few minutes of viewing. It was unusable. I did all sorts of reconfiguration of my router, tested my isp provider, etc etc. I refused to buy another router because I knew it worked with everything else in the house and I hadn't changed anything on it when the problem started. I finally found this forum and decided to go for it. I opened it up last night and the capacitors were bulging. I bought the 35V capacitors at Radio Shack and bought a 40W soldering iron (the small one I had was not doing the job). I had never soldered anything in my life, so it took a little bit of work, some reading up on the internet, and $11.57 for parts, but it was WELL worth it! I ran the SlingCatcher for over 2 hours tonight and it looks great. I figured my unit was out of warranty so I had nothing to lose. Thanks for taking the time to set up this thread, it was invaluable!!
8:59 pm
July 2, 2010
Changed out the Caps per instructions on this page. WORKED AS DESCRIBED!!!
Total cost $15. ( Had local TV repair remove and solder new caps in for me)
Slingbox better admit the problem and do something before their reputation is further tarnished. Great product, too bad they have such shady Cust Service.
11:54 am
July 2, 2010
Anyone else find that their SOLO is better after the Capacitor replacement, than it was fresh out of the box? Mine sure seems to be. Streaming is "stronger", optimization is faster…it is an all around better unit now. Just wondered if I was the only one to notice this.
2:05 pm
Moderator
April 19, 2010
Interesting comment. When I got my first Solo the speed on it was never as good as my Pro. They can set max streaming rates in the firmware for each type of Slingbox so I just figured it was something like that.
Maybe it wasn't. Makes me want to hook it up again, run some tests and then change out the capacitors to see if there is any difference.
Thanks
9:55 pm
Well, I changed my caps too. The 470uF ones were bulging at the top. I'm not the best person at soldering, but managed to get the job done without messing up the circuit board. Before it would work intermittently varying from 1-20 mins. I think maybe it depends on how hot it is? No idea.
Now, it hasn't disconnected yet. Been on for 10 hours now.
Just chiming in,
10:11 pm
Moderator
April 19, 2010
Marc,
Thanks for chiming in. It appears that the capacitor problem is a lot bigger issue than Sling Media wants to acknowledge. I am not sure if heat is the issue or if it's just a case of poorly manufactured capacitors.
Either way it"s great that you got your SlingBox working again.
10:30 pm
June 10, 2010
It seems that they have been using the same capacitors since the original Slingbox Classic
| Capacitor | 4 | G-Luxon | Electrolytic -
470uF, 16V, 105C |
G-LUXON 470uF 16V,
LW105C, 506B(M) |
So this is interesting that you mention heat in regards to this problem…
4. Working Temperature, (T)
Changes in temperature around the capacitor affect the value of the capacitance because of changes in the dielectric. If the air or surrounding temperature becomes to hot or to cold the capacitance value of the capacitor may change so much as to affect the correct operation of the circuit. The normal working range for most capacitors is -30°C to +125°C with nominal voltage ratings given for a working temperature of no more than +70°C. Generally electrolytic's can not be used below about -10°C, as the electrolyte jelly freezes.
and from this website…
http://pqltd.blogspot.com/2010/01/next-up-slingbox-pro-hd.html
That is a combination RISC/ARM chip and DSP designed specifically for video processing. At idle it reaches about 100F, but when transmitting video to your PC it runs at about 150F, or close to 85C, the upper limit of the standard issue chip. The temperature underneath that chip seems to be about 10-15 colder. So you can see why cooling this chip would be good for the Slingbox and anything beneath it. You may also notice big copper areas underneath the MOSFET devices. These are used to cool off the MOSFETS by transfering as much of the heat to the circuit board itself.
Could there be a correlation?
I wonder if it will bare an issue in the long run with the Radio Shack 470µF 35V 20% Radial-lead Electrolytic Capacitors that are listed in the article as a replacement.
| General Features | |
| Model | 272-1030 |
| Product Type | Electrolytic capacitors |
| Enclosure Color | Black |
| Body Material | Multi |
| Fits What | |
| Model | 272-1030 |
| Miscellaneous Features | |
| Min Operating Temperature | -40 Fahrenheit |
| Max Operating Temperature | 85 Fahrenheit |
| Supported Languages | English |
Would these UHE1V471MHD6 capacitors be better replacements?
2:52 pm
July 14, 2010
Thanks for this wonderful useful forum discussion and getting my slingbox solo, slinging again. Story:
I was still under the 1 year hardware warranty when I began to display all the known capacitor problems. I began my dutiful time consuming, rediculous dancing thru hoops, drama with sling media. Of course they insisted it was a software problem etc…Finally got them to give me the rma to return my defective unit. Received my new unit today July 14, 2010. Set it up and guess what!!!!!!! Same problem. I cracked open the new box to discover two blown 470uf capacitors. I could not believe it. They sent me a broken replacement. Oh well, went to radioshack and picked up two 470uf 35v model #272-1030. I brought them over to the tv repair man who replaced them in about 7 minutes for no charge. Set up Slingbox and it has been humming perfectly for well over 1 hour. Prior to capacitor replacement it would not run for more the 5 minutes without the time out. Thanks all for the great information, I really appreciate it. Shame on Sling Media for such poor customer service.
Rick
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