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8-Port BNC Video Distribution Amplifier

Front Panel
Front Panel

Time for another eBay special: this time it’s an 8-port video distribution amplifier, with BNC connections designed for commercial/industrial equipment. Not much on the front panel above, apart from the power switch & LED.

Rear Panel
Rear Panel

The rear panel has all the connectors, input is on the left, while the outputs are in the centre. Power is supplied through the barrel jack on the right, 9v DC in this case.

Data Label
Data Label

Not much in English on the data labels, there’s also an authenticity label on the left to make sure you don’t get a fake.

Amplifier Board
Amplifier Board

Taking the lid off reveals a very small PCB, taking up less than a third of the aluminium case! The input stage is on the right, composed of a pair of SOT-23 transistors to buffer the incoming signal. There’s an KST812M6 PNP & an S9014 NPN Epitaxial. The signal is then fed to the output stages, all individual S9014 NPN transistors to the output ports.
The power LED is just poking in the general direction of the hole in the front panel, so this isn’t likely to work very well – it’s going to illuminate the inside of the case more!

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ZyXel WAP3205 Repair

Here is a ZyXel WAP3205 WiFi Access Point that has suffered a reverse polarity event, due to an incorrect power supply being used with the unit.

ZyXEL WAP3205
ZyXEL WAP3205

While most electronic gadgets are protected against reverse polarity with a blocking diode, this unit certainly wasn’t. Applying +12v DC the wrong way round resulted in this:

Blown Switchmode IC
Blown Switchmode IC (Fuzzy Focus)

That is the remains of the 3.3v regulator IC, blown to smithereens & it even attempted an arson attack. Luckily this was the only damaged component, & I was able to repair the unit by replacing the switching IC with a standalone regulator. (Replacing the IC would have been preferable, if there was anything left of it to obtain a part number from).

I scraped away the pins of the IC to clear the short on the input supply, removed the switching inductor, & tacked on an adjustable regulator module set to 3.3v. Luckily the voltage of the supply is handily marked on the PCB next to the circuit.

Replacement PSU
Replacement PSU

Replacement SMPS in place on top of the PCB. The output of the supply is connected to one of the pads of L4 (on my unit just an 0 ohm link), the +12v input is connected to the + rail side of C8 & C7 & the final ground connection is hooked in to the back of the barrel jack.

After this replacement, the unit booted straight up as if nothing had happened. All the logic is undamaged!

Makerplate
Makerplate
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Portable Power Pack Charger

A quick update to my portable power pack, a mains charging port. Uses a universal DC barrel jack.

Connection to the battery. 1N4001 reverse protection diode under the blue heatshrink tubing. I used a surplus PC CD-ROM audio cable (grey lead). Seen here snaking behind the battery to the DC In Jack.