I have been a proud owner of one of the first empeg-car MK-1 units. I absolutely love my emma... but she has been plagued with display panel failures.

I am now experiencing my third downtime with this unit. I haven't gotten much use out of it in my vehicle, it has been in and out of my dash a few times (the whole installation, not just the pull-out head unit)

I am now preparing to send the MK-1 to the UK again. I am wondering... what keeps failing in these older MK-1 displays? I have read online that there is a capacitor, component C16, that can fail and cause the display to crap out.

If I wanted to bypass the traditional repair methods, couldn't I just replace this metal can capacitor myself? Has anyone attempted this repair in their own home? What specifics could you tell me about the capacitor?

PS - the MK-2 doesn't exhibit such problems, does it? any stories of displays failing there?

Looking for answers desperately, I'm at my wit's end.

- Dixieland

i have drawn a little on a photo of the inside of an MK-1 empeg unit (thanks to dmoore.com for the great image) to demonstrate the exact item i suspect to have failed.

http://www.anivcd.com/images/c16.jpg

if i were to open my empeg up and replace this capacitor manually, could i use one less likely to blow out? any help or advice would be really appreciated.

- Dixieland

It's not the capacitor, it's the LM2585-ADJ switch mode PSU chip. The problem that was seen with C16 was when people pulled their empegs apart and knocked the cap with the HDD tray, which often pulled the case away from the legs and caused the screen to go into blank mode.

We're looking at, when mk1 displays fail, replacing them with mk2 display boards (minus the rotary control) as the mk2 display PSU is a much happier bunny. The mk1 psu tended to die if there were large voltage spikes about.

Hugo