Success story from another, now happy, camper.
Apparently I was in time before the regulator blew.
Short story: replaced C807 > vu+duo ok.
Long story:
- my vu+duo is 2.5 years old and always either Standby or On. One night, vu+duo stopped responding: couldn't put to Standby, couldn't telnet. The funny thing was that the web interface still worked, but the channel list and timers list was empty.
- turned it off and on: RED LED. Apart from the red led briefly blinking orange when using the remote, and a spinning harddisk inside, nothing. The fan wouldn't come on either.
- searched the web and found this thread. tried the cf3 boot loader re-init but that didn't help (didn't even read the usb stick).
- decided to go for replacing the C807. also decided if that didn't work, wouldn't even try to replace the minute regulators. that would've been end of story for me, a new unit, and a setback of about EUR300.
- measured the voltages on the regulators (on the coils to the right of the regulators), top to bottom: 2.57, 1.27 and 0.7 volt (third one should have been 1.2 or so), so it looked like the bottom one has a problem (that's the same circuit that C807 seems to belong to, so maybe...).
- anyway, this is what I did (this procedure doesn't require you to complete dismantle the main pcb):
* make sure the unit is disconnected from the mains
* locate capacitor/elco C807 (see pictures in previous posts)
* gently cut off the C807 just above the base with a sharp cutter. gently pull the rubber base from the pcb so the two leads remain intact and standing.
* solder a new capacitor (I got a 33o uF, 25V item, cost EUR 0.50) on top of the two leads (see picture). observe the polarity of the elco! since a new elco has long leads and there is plenty of room in the housing, that shouldn't be a problem. Be careful with the tiny smd resistor close to the base of the capacitor (on the picture just to the right of the right lead).
* tried the unit with hd disconnected (if the file system is important to you) and it worked!
* reconnected the harddisk, reinstalled the unit in the tv set and now ok.
- trying for a couple of days, since some posts report that the problem may come back (fingers crossed)
For everybody: THANKS!