Bowers & Wilkins B&W Zeppelin Speaker - Expensive but Faulty - [REPAIR]
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- čas přidán 20. 01. 2023
- I bought a faulty Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Speaker from that well known auction site. It was advertised as "DOES NOT SWITCH ON Parts only".
The speakers were very expensive when new (around $600).
Let's take it apart, see if we can diagnose the problem and hopefully repair it!
Apologies if the audio / video quality isn't as good as usual. My wife bought me an Iphone 11 Pro for recording as an upgrade to the Iphone 6s I had been using,
I won't be using it again as It seems to be worse quality, sound problems (muffled / too quiet), problems transferring files, and then having to download extra codecs, and was slower to edit / render the video due to the different software codec!
I'm not an expert, I just love repairing stuff and have repaired stuff for most of my life!
My Mate Vince's Channel
/ @mymatevince
#electronics #electronicscreators #electronicsrepair
Zeppelin Speaker Repair
Bowers and Wilkins Speaker Repair
Fixing a Zeppelin Speaker
Repairing a Bowers and Wilkins Speaker
B & W not turning on
Dead B & W Speaker
Dead B&W Speaker - Jak na to + styl
Nicely done Mick, thanks for the shout out 👌👍
No worries Vince. You're very welcome.👍👍 I woke up at 4am this morning with bad indigestion so I was watching you on your friends boat removing those port hole things. Boats have heat exchangers instead of radiators, the sea water gets pumped around the outside of the heat exchanger and the engine water gets pumped along the inner core. (Used to be on boats a fair bit and rewired a 45ft one when I was into diving about 20 years ago)
@@BuyitFixit Ohhhh, so the engine itself still has a sealed water system in it, it's just cooled by the sea water or river water. I presume then that antifreeze is added to the sealed water system? Thanks Mick, I'll pass this info into Brian the owner 👍
Yes that should be the case otherwise you'd be dragging sea water through the engine block and it would rot from inside out. I heard a few stories from the boat yard where people did that 😂😂😂
@@BuyitFixit Makes perfect sense 😂 Cheers Mick 👌
Glad to help 👍
It's why I keep watching you actually reply much appreciated ❤
I appreciate that 👍
Brilliant fix and very methodical thank you
Thanks Cucumber Man 👍
That is a top fix! Lots of folks would have missed that LED. Me included 😊.
Thanks Alistair, it had me puzzled for a bit too 😂😂😂
Nicely done, great to be able to repair stuff from parts at home! I have a similar NAD Viso1 waiting for me to look at it, a bluetooth one, it's on the list!
Thanks bootsowen 👍 I've got a pile of scrap boards which I regularly rob for bits and pieces.. you never know when you are going to need a tri-colour LED....😂😂
Thanks for the great video. My system has had the EXACT same symptoms. Changed LED, changed all the mosfets you reflowed, replaced every single cap, but I still have the same issue you did at the end. Sometimes the speakers only play on one side. Only difference I've had from you is that I blew a fuse on my power supply after I replaced the mosfets. I'll try checking for dry joints when I get home. I've had this zepplin on my bench for nearly 8 months...
Thanks 👍hopefully you manage to sort it 🤞
Very nice work.
Thanks 👍
Another great video! Gave you a run for your money. Nice fix!!
Thanks Jeffrey. Yes I got a run for my money on that one 😂😂😂
Good analyses, repair. It makes me laugh when I see these designs (most active speakers), something that will inherently vibrate (a lot), so lets' mount sensitive electronics on it and then wonder why joints / components fracture. That central bar, mounted directly in front of the woofer, is classic.
Thanks Ralph 👍
Congrats on successfully repairing it - quite a classy speaker it is. A bit of a headscratcher this one, eh?! ;-)
Surprising ppl gave it away, not even trying the sound even if LEDs didn't light up anymore. I guess they missed the indicator's feedback to what buttons they were pressing… Anyway, thanks for sharing the methodical approach and glad you could repair it!
Thanks El Micha 👍
Muy profesional excelente. Saludos desde Tenerife
🙂👍
That was a great catch on the led
Thanks. Yes it did throw me off and had me scratching my head for a bit. It was a bit unusual!
Great job , you can see why vince randomly presses buttons now , good to know 👍👍👍
Thanks G👍
Good job,love stuff that can be saved from landfill,plus i find some of the stuff i can keep for myself ! when people say say if you can fix it you can have it "why thank you" i might just do that ! sometimes i don't have to buy certain things ! I do offer to give it back but they tend to buy new,result i get stuff for fixing it...Win win 😊
Thanks Mike 👍Yes I've had similar a few times too.. always makes me wonder why they would want it back if you don't fix it though....😂😂😂😂
@@BuyitFixit You know what i meant ! 🤣
Amazing fault finding..
Thanks 👍
Very nice repair there.
Thanks Tom 👍
Finally got a chance to watch your video, you could do a retrofit on the iPod connection to make it work with USB-c on some of the other connections types. But a great video, love the whole fault finding and then it all came down to a little diode.
Thanks Morten👍. Yeah it definitely threw me for a bit that one did.
Thanks for the video! I might have the same issue with my Zeppelin, I'll need to try this.
You're welcome! If you get stuck give me a shout. I'd check the power supply first to see if you are getting the +5v and +24v like I did in the video 👍
I actually repaired the PSU earlier. Had to replace the caps and one 150uF ceramic cap. The +5V and +24V are OK, but only mono from the left side speakers and subwoofer.
Today I re-soldered transistors on the amplifier board and the right side speakers came alive, but the left side stopped working😅
I’m able to get all speakers working if I turn the Zeppelin upside down, so clearly there are some issues still.
Amazing as always. I throw away a similar one some years ago. 😢
Thanks Edgar 👍. Shame you threw it away 😥
@@BuyitFixit yes it would be good if could just fit another amp or just use the speakers as a passive system to plug into an external amp..
Yes that is also another option 👍
thats a massive speaker. wow
Yeah it's a ton weight too!
You just know it's a good quality product with the way they put all of the damping foam and cloth on the inside.
But great fix with the way you were able to verify that it "should" be working by following the components....
Thanks 👍Much appreciated 🙂
Great fix on the remote heh
Thanks 👍
I worked on one of these yesterday. Did exactly like you did - assumed a duff PSU but it was fine, scoped the mainboard and saw clocks etc then went to the LED. Found exactly the same failure. Mine occasionally faintly lit up red and curve tracing the LED you could see the breaking down connection. I think going off the common anode voltage of 5v the resistor values on each cathode means they are overdriven to make them brighter which results in premature failure. I’ve altered the values to reduce the current of the LED to 30mA should be fine now. Farnell do one 2322115 same colours as original.
Interesting, I wonder how many of these have been disposed of because the LED was faulty 🤔
Cheers for that, got the same issue working but dead led. Was hoping he mentioned in video what the led model is. Comments to the rescue, big thanks to both.
@@hinny2005 doing myself out of a repair job there 🤣
Gotta love the cheap cost for a very expensive speaker. Nice.
Indeed it is!
Hate it. Stupid wanky design.
MrReeceyburger123 has a few good videos about them too 😊
Haha, for once I saw it coming!
Lol
I've worked on one of these before... couldn't get it going. I don't recall a power light on the front but that could have been part of the issue as well. In the end the owner only wanted to spend $60 tops, and that's worth an hour of my time, so, it never did get fixed. If I come across one that's dead again I'll check that power light! Interesting that it would bring the whole unit to it's knees.
I'm not sure that the whole unit was too is knees to say, but because there's no hiss or anything when it's powered on, unless you put sound into it or plugged an old iPhone or iPod into it you wouldn't know it was on, as there was no light to indicate that.
Bowers. and. Wilkins. B&M Zeppelin speaker experience. But. Faulty
love the videos the audio is always low i have to go full volume and still struggle on some keep them coming.
Thanks 👍I set the audio levels to -10db which is supposed to be the standard for CZcams. Are other videos on CZcams around the same volume? I've not had anyone else mention but this video is an older one so I may not have been up on the settings at the time. Are the more recent the same?
some seem quiet i normally just put headphones on if it is
@@BuyitFixit
I had one of these many moons obtained from a friend, could never get it to link or connect to a network, gave it away and got a Cambridge audio speaker, still working today 😂
Nice 👍this one hasn't got any network connection. I think it was the model after this one that you must have had.
@@BuyitFixit probably right mate, richer sounds bought out Cambridge audio, must be 10 yrs older nw, Christ it sounds awesome at bbqs, only thing that gets anywhere is the sound craft units, love your vides 🙌😂
Thanks mate 👍
Lmao.. Just LMAO
I have had one laying around for awhile to repair. After watching this I thought "why not" Put it on the table and goes though things. PSU working, board not getting too hot
But something was up.. The LED was not on! So i pulled off the LED board and checked it with a multimeter and i saw a very very tiny light from the red LED. So what i did was i reflowed the joints and it helped a tiny bit so now i could actually see the LED but the LED was going nuts, like the PSU was turning on/off. I then tried to give it full power with my PSU which actually got 2 of the LED working.
So after playing around and having fun i just soldered a new one on. But conclusion was that I could see some corrosion on the LED leg, i think this got under the actual diode and caused it to have a bad connection.
After new LED was put on the PCB it worked just fine
Nice 👍Glad you managed to fix your one too!
I enjoyed this one. The funny thing is I was saying to myself right near the start maybe check the LED only because that is the thing I would have checked first being a newbie I go for the simple things. I can handle checking an LED. I need to find something simple to fix on ebay any suggestions what to start with? I have tried fixing a Pi 4 only I failed I think the CPU is fried from someone shorting out the 5v and 3v rails as there was a hole in the MXL chip which I replaced but still no joy. I also tried fixing a Logitech C920 webcam but the CMOS sensor had gone in that and I dunno where to source a sensor from. I am sure it is the sensor though as I did some readings with a working one I have and foudn a difference in resistance readings between them removed the sensor and the readings are now the same.
Thanks 👍I like doing old VFD games. They're usually fairly simple 🙂
Hey man I have one of these with a faulty amp pcb. I suspect the bios is gone for the d2 chip, as I don’t have much experience with things as such. Have a good board to swap too. What you think of having a look at it ? Flashes red after power up. I cannot find shorts or missing voltages until shutdown.
Sorry for the late reply. I'm not too sure on that as I never really spent much time on the amplifier section. It did look quite complicated. Are all of the power supply voltages correct from the PSU? If you swap boards did you narrow it down to the amp board? I think it was in two sections (been a while since I looked at this)
$995.00 CAD for the pleasure of new in 2021 !
Ouch !
@@BuyitFixit Tragic waste of material and money when this stuff just ends up in the trash bin. I am impressed that you attempt repairs on such a wide range of devices. It has given me a new outlook on what passes for approachable. However t have this one item that I put on the back burner for way too long now.
An oven control board for a GE made range. It appears to have no standby voltage that allows it to wake by a single button touch. There appear to be no used or scavenged modules on eBay, and the manufacturer is a dead loss. Would you consider giving it a look? On a creative note you could start a series content making repairs to subscriber sourced electronics of a size that keeps shipping to a minimum. Happy to pay regardless of your success. And I do live in Canada
Thanks Chris (Nice CNC btw I built one a few years back although not used it for a couple of years now). I do try to do a wide variety of things as I think it makes it more interesting 🙂 I've found when I've had offers from people to take a look at things especially outside of the UK, the shipping costs alone are quite prohibitive. I could still possibly help, as you could always send me some good quality pics of the board and I could advise what to test / look at. Best wishes. Mick.
I have the same problem on my zeppelin.. would you like to fix it ? I’m in the NE ??
what causes dry joint on circuit board? thanks
Oxidation of the solder, also if a lot of current is going through the connection it makes it worse, and can start arcing or burning like on the solar inverter I repaired.
Could you tell me how to get the battery cover off the remote? There must be a knack to it, I cant budge the darn thing and dont want to use potentially damaging force....
I've just had a quick look for you, and I just pressed hard on the round black piece with two fingers while rotating it anti-clockwise. Hope that helps.
I have also just repaired same model speaker. The fault was the same as Vince, but after changing them, the led does not light up anymore. I will try and do the same measurement as you did. My speaker does work, even if the led is not lighting up. Have to do some investigating....thanks for the video.
PS: How come you did not change the four cap´s, when the speaker was already open? They are prone to blow at any time.
You're welcome 👍. The caps weren't bulging and the speaker seems to operate correctly. I could have replaced them proactively but seeing as the unit was working fine I'll just do that at some point in the future when they eventually fail.
@@BuyitFixit Thanks. Did you ever connect voltage directly into the led?
Yes on the new led I did test it with the test meter on diode mode across the led and that was enough to make it illuminate, so if the original led is working it should do the same.
@@BuyitFixit Or maybe the original led needs a higher voltage? But I guess you dont have it anymore? Would be interesting to see how it looks under the microscope, when introduced with higher voltage......🙂
It measured open circuit on diode check. I measured the voltage to the pins on the LED when it was connected to the radio and it was there. 5v I think it was and the GND is switched via the I/O pins of the microcontroller. LED was 100% failed.
I have one of these in pieces that someone asked me to look at - the fuse on the PSU had gone but that meant there was some bad $hit that had happened further downstream on the amp board - it looked like one of the channels had shorted out but I’d already wasted a lot of time taking it apart and trying to diagnose so it’s been sat in bits for a couple of years now 😢
Doesn't sound good. I recently looked at a Dyson hot and cold fan that the motor controller chip blew and sent 400v into the microcontroller. Luckily a viewer sent me a broken board which wasn't so damaged and I managed to repair that. So yeah stuff sometimes fails in a big way unfortunately 😥
did you check the fuse in the plug ?
No, but the first thing I did was check there was power coming out of the power cable. There was 251.2V coming out of it at 00:59 which means the fuse is intact.
Rick and Morty vibes with this music 😅 (sounds a bit like the evil Morty theme)
Lol 😂😂😂😂
@@BuyitFixit I to thought that it sounded like the Rick and Morty music.
Topping audio design??
Could you link me to the video where you made the hotplate please?
It was on Great Scott's channel. I'm sure searching Great Scott hot plate will bring it up 🙂
Hi, technician asked me to find out which IC chip is on the PSU so he can replace it for me. He said he cannot see because of the glue. Do you maybe know? Thanks!
Sorry unfortunately I don't. Perhaps there are some other videos or pictures of a disassembled unit online?
Awesome catch ! have you had issues with 'zero ohm' links in the past ? as I noticed you check them first if you see them...cheers.!
Thanks 👍I think a lot or things use them almost like a fuse.
Oh thanks, do you know what sort of current they fail at Lol ! ?@@BuyitFixit
Great job! Where can I buy such a led? Could you give me a link? Thanks!
I don't have a link for the exact one I used as I removed it from an old router. I did find this one which looks pretty much identical. uk.rs-online.com/web/p/leds/1654492 Hope that helps :)
@@BuyitFixit Thank you!
@@zozomester You're welcome 👍
Mine went out I refuse to trash it 😢
They are a nice unit. Hopefully you'll be able to repair it or get it repaired.
HI , do you remember WHAT d class ic drive the Speakers...?
Sorry, not off hand. Did I mention it in the video? Or zoom in on the chips?
@@BuyitFixit no problemo , is a 6 Mosfets (n+p) discrete output...AFAIK PS: There's NO D class chip
On your opinion how does it sound?
Sounds good to me but I'm no audiophile 😂😂😂👍
That was a fuke problem.. the led was bad and how would a person find a replacement? Great trouble shooting skills mate.👌👌
Thanks 👍I did find replacement LEDs on the internet. Luckily an old BT router I has lying around had the same LED 😂😂👍
Why are all the cables wrapped in foam?
I guess for acoustic reasons? It could also be to stop them vibrating against the case and causing a noise perhaps?
Was a previous video on making a Hot Plate? I can't find that video, can anyone help me out? Also, can we call you buy your first name @Buy It Fix It? I don't know you're name and I hate talking about people like they're not part of the conversation, if you know what I mean 🙂. I'm Marc by the way, currently living in Wales but originally from New Aycliffe/Darlington/Middleton St George. Please to meet you, love watching video's in Geordie, makes me feel like I'm back home again. Wye Aye man 🙂
Yes I made a hot plate for fixing the Milwaukee pistol grip torch, it's pretty much the same as Great Scott's one. It's Mick btw 👍😂😂😂
Should have tried playing music first, would have saved time.
The device appeared totally dead, usually you would expect a beep or even a thud or hiss from the speakers maybe. Almost the last thing I would have suspected was a faulty LED failing in that mode. Someone commented they ended up having the same issue as this one.
Your videos are very good but you need to explain what you are doing better
Thanks Steve. I'll try and do that. Problem is everyone watching are not at the same level and if I explain every small thing the videos would be a whole lot longer. If you have any specifics? I'll try my best to help!
Which city are you in
Good fix. But...eh...that thing is new about 600 euro. 600 euro for that?
Thanks, yes quite an expensive speaker!