AES - Very quiet left audio through headphones after recap

ApolloBoy

Edo Express Delivery Guy
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Posts
331
I've encountered a weird issue after recapping my AES; the left audio channel through the headphone jack has gone extremely quiet while the right channel works perfectly fine. All of the caps are of great quality (a mix of Panasonics and Nichicons) and soldered properly, and I didn't damage any traces or pads while desoldering the old caps.

I think something's up with the headphone mixer because if I tap the audio before it goes through the mixer (which is how I have my stereo audio mod wired up), it works fine. Any ideas? I'm not particularly torn up about this since I'm not using the headphone jack for audio, but I would like to have my system working 100%.
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Posts
27,748
Clean the slider with a qtip and some contact cleaner. The tracks are probably dirty.
 

ApolloBoy

Edo Express Delivery Guy
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Posts
331
Clean the slider with a qtip and some contact cleaner. The tracks are probably dirty.
The volume slider is super clean and I even went over the solder points for it just in case. Still no joy.
 

Elgen

New Challenger
Joined
Jun 3, 2012
Posts
63
Are you 100% sure you haven't reversed the polarity on one of the caps?
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
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Posts
27,748
How did you desolder the caps, it's possible there's a broken trace or broken via.
 

ApolloBoy

Edo Express Delivery Guy
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Posts
331
Are you 100% sure you haven't reversed the polarity on one of the caps?
I'm 100% sure they're in properly, that was one of the first things I checked after the issue came up.

How did you desolder the caps, it's possible there's a broken trace or broken via.
I used a desoldering station, no way would I use desoldering braid or a solder sucker on my AES.
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Posts
27,748
Check the nichicons because I remember someone saying that the quality control on those are bad so you might have different readings from each cap.
 

awbacon

Kyokughen Trainee
10 Year Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Posts
4,220
I finally got around to fixing this 9 years later, it turns out that the 2066 amp was faulty. Just replaced it and I've finally got my left headphone out fixed!
talk about a bump from the past
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2000
Posts
11,923
So in the end it wasn't a RECRAP problem.
Is #recrap going to become one of those obscure memes that only a few retrogame modders know? We need to make this happen if it hasn't already.
 

Hawwa

B. Jenet's Firstmate
Joined
Sep 21, 2018
Posts
408
Is #recrap going to become one of those obscure memes that only a few retrogame modders know? We need to make this happen if it hasn't already.

It hasn't happened yet, at least to my knowledge...
 

awbacon

Kyokughen Trainee
10 Year Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Posts
4,220
Is #recrap going to become one of those obscure memes that only a few retrogame modders know? We need to make this happen if it hasn't already.
maybe in ten years if we find the current caps develop terrible issues
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
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#recrap is for when you bought into the hype and unnecessarily recapped a system, only to screw something up.
 

Burning Fight!!

NIS America fan & Rent Free tenant
10 Year Member
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Jan 12, 2014
Posts
4,336
#recrap is for when you bought into the hype and unnecessarily recapped a system, only to screw something up.
Feels like something a Voultar-type tech would say to drive business or an elitist term to mock someone for even daring to try. I'd say learn to solder and consume as much information as possible, and lose the fear of touching the insides of old videogames instead of making it taboo, and the fear of doing something unecessary/wrong.
 

Neo Alec

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2000
Posts
11,923
While I like and generally agree with the sentiment, I've screwed up a Famicom, an AES, an Xbox and a GameCube before I had the ability to fix them myself. So I can't really cosign that. I've since gotten better and been able to fix most of those. It might be because I am particularly sloppy and impatient, but I'm still very wary about replacing more than a few caps.
 
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