Mtv Mdr250 Dvd Recorder - Coles Cat. 19-25/3/07

[Biz]

Has anyone been able to 100% replace their MTV MDR250H remote with a Harmony remote?

With zero extra work - just by adding the profile to the remote?

Thanks for any feedback.

[Phil S]

  DimWit said:

garryd,

Thanks for this very helpful piece of info. My MTV250 (not the 'H' model) died the other day--one month out of warranty (Doh!). It would boot up and give audio but the display was frozen and it would not respond to the remote.

I opened the lid and sure enough cap EC9 was blown. Ordered one by mail from Jaycar which arrived a couple of days later and after 10 minutes with a screw driver and a soldering iron I was back in business.

Thanks again

pascool,

Well, I have just has exactly the same symptoms ( red light stays on at power on.. nothing else works). I took a punt and went to jaycar and bought a 1000mf 10vw capacitor, and opend up the box and measured the 5 volt supply ( I unplugged the disck loader's power plug to get at it, and yes, only 3.2 v !). Capcitor EC9 did look a bt swollen,so I unsoldered it and put in my nice new one in. ( $0.60 and physically a little bit bigger) worked a dream. it

thanks everyone for this invaluable advice.! this box is far too good to throw away for the sake of a sixty cent capacitor. ( and then pay 100's of dollars more for another one)

Phil Steele

Edited August 11, 2008 by Phil S

[mddawson]

  Phil S said:

Well, I have just has exactly the same symptoms ( red light stays on at power on.. nothing else works). I took a punt and went to jaycar and bought a 1000mf 10vw capacitor, and opend up the box and measured the 5 volt supply ( I unplugged the disck loader's power plug to get at it, and yes, only 3.2 v !). Capcitor EC9 did look a bt swollen,so I unsoldered it and put in my nice new one in. ( $0.60 and physically a little bit bigger) worked a dream. it

thanks everyone for this invaluable advice.! this box is far too good to throw away for the sake of a sixty cent capacitor. ( and then pay 100's of dollars more for another one)

Phil Steele

For the past couple of weeks mines been taking 3 goes to boot up. The first two goes I can hear a tick-tick-tick sound as it is booting up then after 10 seconds it shuts down. Audio is also distorted while this occurs. Third attempt usually sees it run perfectly. Is this an indication that the cap is going?

[Phil S]

  mddawson said:

For the past couple of weeks mines been taking 3 goes to boot up. The first two goes I can hear a tick-tick-tick sound as it is booting up then after 10 seconds it shuts down. Audio is also distorted while this occurs. Third attempt usually sees it run perfectly. Is this an indication that the cap is going?

Sorry MDDAWSON, these are not symptoms that I ( repeat I) got prior to my failure ( mine was actually going fine until my wife well-meaningly pulled out the mains plugs of all our video stuff out prior to an electrical storm. This was probably the first hard power off the mdr250 has had for about a year) Mind you, obviously that cap was already failing priopr to this , so i suppose this just tipped it over the edge. Also, I note that the other folk who have reported this fault all had slighly different symptoms, which is not suprising, what with the 5V supply rail being seriously wonky. I reckon its worth a go, even if you just take the cover off and measure your 5v supply line. Perhaps another lister might have other sugestions?

best of luck, Phil Steele.

[DimWit]

  mddawson said:

For the past couple of weeks mines been taking 3 goes to boot up. The first two goes I can hear a tick-tick-tick sound as it is booting up then after 10 seconds it shuts down. Audio is also distorted while this occurs. Third attempt usually sees it run perfectly. Is this an indication that the cap is going?

Hi all,

mddawson, I seem to remember that mine took a while longer than usual to boot up a couple of times before it went belly up. When I say longer, probably about three times as long as usual, can't say it actually failed to boot though. Can't remember any sounds either. As Phil S suggests, take a look inside.

The cap number is clearly marked on the board and mine was very obviously blown--domed top and brown discharge on the board.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

[ajd4096]

On my mtv250h, only the main cap EC2 has leaked.

I could replace it, but I'm not overly confident the PSU will stay working. The board is quite scorched under each of the output diodes.

I was thinking about repairing it and running it long enough to confirm a few voltages (mainly on CN5, labeled F+, F-, G, -28).

Has anyone tried replacing the PSU with a PC/ATX PSU?

[garryd]

My MDR 250H has failed again, initially red RW light on perm and no clock display, unplugged mains cable and reconnected and the red light just flashes. Took the lid off and found the electrlytic capacitor EC9 has swollen again and a quick check of all PSU voltages indicates that they are well down.

I think the blown capacitor is an indication of some other (design?) problem . I wiil investigate further and advise. Some people have observed that capacitor EC2 has a brown substance underneath it, this is most likely a type of contact cement to secure it on the board. There is a lot of info about swollen capacitors on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

garry

[chriswoo]

All,

Just had mine do the same thing, redlight on, no clock..

What caps do i need to change?

chris.

[garryd]

  chriswoo said:

All,

Just had mine do the same thing, redlight on, no clock..

What caps do i need to change?

chris.

See my post no #182 on this thread, the electrolytic capacitor marked EC 9 seems to have become swollen in a few MDR25OH's. Look at the X type grooves on the silver end of the capacitor it should be flat if ok or pushed upwards if faulty I have not yet replaced mine the second time this capacitor has failed, I think there could be another problem with the power supply as well, I am waiting to see if anyone else has failed twice.

Garry

[chriswoo]

Spot on mate EC9, failed.

Off to jaycar tmw.

Cheers

Chriswoo

[Biz]

My MTV MRD250H is still sitting at home, not working, too.

Is anyone with a receipt able to scan & e-mail or PM to me, so I can try to exchange it?

(I doubt I will get anything but a chuckle when I show my MDR250H Coles receipt - for a dollar!)

[omacnaz]

Are these units similar to a Palsonic DVDR160G, as im having heaps of issues trying to burn to dvd disc from the hdd. The manual is useless ,ive followed exactly as explained and i have so far only burnt 1 and i had no idea how to fianlize it? any help or tips would be gratefully appreciated.

thanks

[HTD]

  taylordiving said:

Back to my picture quality issue. What I've now discovered is my screen noise is a 4cm wide horizontal band of slight pixillation (or noise) that rolls vertically from top to bottom or bottom to top (varies for no apparent reason). I suspect that it is vibration based because when I press down on the top of the unit (pressing it against the cabinet that it rests on) the horizontal band is lessened significantly, but not completely. When I press down on the top of the unit I can feel a slight vibration coming from inside (a fan perhaps?). Anyway, I'm wondering if (a) anyone else has this same problem and ( what to do about it. Techo mentioned having a plasma screen, I definitely have a crt. However, given that I can lessen the strength or amount of noise on the screen simply by pressing down on the top of the unit it would seem that I can do something to eliminate this (I hope).

Otherwise this unit is one excellent piece of equipment, especially considering the price.

Sounds like 50hz interference. Does your TV display this line when watching channels through TV direct or only through the DVD recorder.

I think you'll find the vibration is the HDD spinning.

[mddawson]

  DimWit said:

Hi all,

mddawson, I seem to remember that mine took a while longer than usual to boot up a couple of times before it went belly up. When I say longer, probably about three times as long as usual, can't say it actually failed to boot though. Can't remember any sounds either. As Phil S suggests, take a look inside.

The cap number is clearly marked on the board and mine was very obviously blown--domed top and brown discharge on the board.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

I finally took a look at the power supply board today and found caps EC7 & EC8 (1000uf 25v) were bulging. Went down to Dick Smith and bought some replacements ($1.70 for the 2 caps) and it starts fine now. I also looked at the condition of the other caps, EC9 in particular, and all looked normal.

Edited September 26, 2008 by mddawson

[munungu]

  mddawson said:

I finally took a look at the power supply board today and found caps EC7 & EC8 (1000uf 25v) were bulging. Went down to Dick Smith and bought some replacements ($1.70 for the 2 caps) and it starts fine now. I also looked at the condition of the other caps, EC9 in particular, and all looked normal.

DTV Forum = Legends... a quick google of mdr 250 fault brought me to this site... changed EC 7,8 &9 and she's back working.

Thanks a million.

Am transferring all on HD to DVD in case she blows again.

Incidentally my unit also has a big brown melt under EC2. Doesn't look like adhesive but the cap looks ok otherwise, another underlying problem ???

Ok Thanks again for this ... didn't fancy trying to connect the Seagate HD to my PC....

Geoff

[mddawson]

  munungu said:

DTV Forum = Legends... a quick google of mdr 250 fault brought me to this site... changed EC 7,8 &9 and she's back working.

Thanks a million.

Am transferring all on HD to DVD in case she blows again.

Incidentally my unit also has a big brown melt under EC2. Doesn't look like adhesive but the cap looks ok otherwise, another underlying problem ???

Ok Thanks again for this ... didn't fancy trying to connect the Seagate HD to my PC....

Geoff

Mine also had the brown stuff under EC9 but as it looked fine I just assumed it was adhesive.

[mddawson]

  omacnaz said:

Are these units similar to a Palsonic DVDR160G, as im having heaps of issues trying to burn to dvd disc from the hdd. The manual is useless ,ive followed exactly as explained and i have so far only burnt 1 and i had no idea how to fianlize it? any help or tips would be gratefully appreciated.

thanks

I was just checking out the manual for this recorder and its woeful : http://www.palsonic.com.au/customer_servic...160G_Manual.pdf

It mentions "closing disc" in a few places but does not tell you how to do it. I can only suggest going through all the menus until you find an option called "close disc" or something similar. Remember that once closed you won't be able to add anymore recordings to the disc.

[DimWit]

Damn!!! If anyone's still interested, the EC9 cap on my unit blew again on Saturday. Just as well I bought a few spares the last time it happened. Really feel for those folk who bought one of these things in good faith only to have it fail--probobly when its out of warranty and have ditched it without knowing they could get it going again for a couple of dollars.

BTW the brand of capacitor that keeps failing is "Suntan" (interesting name).

Cheers

DW

[garryd]

  DimWit said:

Damn!!! If anyone's still interested, the EC9 cap on my unit blew again on Saturday. Just as well I bought a few spares the last time it happened. Really feel for those folk who bought one of these things in good faith only to have it fail--probobly when its out of warranty and have ditched it without knowing they could get it going again for a couple of dollars.

BTW the brand of capacitor that keeps failing is "Suntan" (interesting name).

Cheers

DW

I spoke to a service tech at Yale Prima and asked if there were any other components they replaced when they found capacitor EC9 had become swollen. He advised me to replace EC9 with a 25v version instead of the original 10v one. He also suggested the Shotkey Diodes SR360 or SB360 may be inadequate but I cannot find any types better than 3amp 60v, he suggested checking for forward leakage (too much AC voltage getting past the 2 diodes) but this can only be observed using an oscilloscope. A radio tech freind of mine suggests fitting a "greencap" capacitor 1uf or 1.5uf across EC9 under the board. The Greencaps (actually red) are quite large and will require extra spacers to lift up the PSU board. I have not had time to try this yet, but I would just recommend fitting the higher voltage EC9 for now. Now my MDR250 has started to freeze up and I suspect it has the power supply problem as well.

garry

[Guest spoonster05]

Kudos to all that have posted here, my 250 did the red light on, freeze on startup thing on Tuesday and sure enough EC9 was the culprit

Went to Jaycar on my day off today and got a couple of new capacitors, little bit of soldering and all good

[Guest thermionic]

  garryd said:

He advised me to replace EC9 with a 25v version instead of the original 10v one. He also suggested the Shotkey Diodes SR360 or SB360 may be inadequate but I cannot find any types better than 3amp 60v, he suggested checking for forward leakage (too much AC voltage getting past the 2 diodes) but this can only be observed using an oscilloscope.

Thanks for the heads-up fellas. I was just about scrap the MDR250 for parts,.

As with the others, EC9-1000µF/10V was knackered, I replaced it with a 1000µF/25V cap and paralleled it with a 100nF/100V poly cap.

Also I checked out diodes D10 & D11 with the O'scope, they are very leaky, I replaced them with RL4A (not Shottky, but that is all I had on hand). There is still a bit of AC hash getting through, mainly ringing, but is filtered out by the next stage.

The brown goo on EC2 is glue.

So all seems to be well for now

Cheers

--Dan

[George777]

I have two of these items. One stopped working with the red light thing and all. ec9 cap had burst and I replaced it. Now when I plug it in, the time display appears. I then press the power button, it says hello on the screen, the red light turns on and it stays there. I have another one that works fine and I have tested the hard drive, burner and power board witht that other unit and they all work fine so I don't know what it is. Does anyone else have this problem?

[McLarenMercedes]

I am a newbie to this forum and hope some of you very gifted and knowledgeable people can assist me.

I have one of these MTV MDR250H units and they are on balance an okay unit. One thing that I really want to do is to update the DivX version from 5.0 to a later version so I can play the recently encoded files on it. Any ideas how I can do that?

BTW I've seen this unit being sold under the Telefunken and Sansui name as well.

[McLarenMercedes]

  McLarenMercedes said:

I am a newbie to this forum and hope some of you very gifted and knowledgeable people can assist me.

I have one of these MTV MDR250H units and they are on balance an okay unit. One thing that I really want to do is to update the DivX version from 5.0 to a later version so I can play the recently encoded files on it. Any ideas how I can do that?

BTW I've seen this unit being sold under the Telefunken and Sansui name as well.

They also apparently sold under the Tedelex brand as well. Help anyone?

[jao]

Iam also a newbie to this forum. I have owned a MTV MDR250H my problem is, i don't have a remote control. Can some body help me to search or find a remote control for the MTV MDR250H model.

Thank you in advance...

jao