Advice please on crossover capacitors

[Danngalli]

Hi, my name is Greg.

I know bugger all about audio or electronics. I have a surround sound system.

Amp is Yamaha RX-V650 and all the speakers are Fleetwood.

This system has lain dormant in hibernation in a sea-container for the last 10-12 years. The two large 'front' speakers I had never used at all. The smaller surrounds, backs, center and the sub-woofer I had caned with hard rock for about a year prior to the system being packed up and put in the sea container.

Yesterday I finally finished installing it in my house in the mountains. I live a long way from civilisation and a long way from the nearest pub. So I have to try and fix everything myself.

I have all seven speakers connected,

2 x front
2 x surround
2 x rear
1 sub woofer.

As I ramped the Amp up (+10db) one of the rear speakers went into total distortion and died ... this was followed by all the others, except the two fronts and the sub.

There was a tiny-tweety sound, recognisable as rock music, but just, coming from the dead speakers. That is, surrounds, rears and center. (5)

Inside each speaker is a 'mid' speaker and a tiny little 'tweeter' speaker and a confusing little circuit board.

I traced the little board out and drew a schematic of the circuit. I tested the speakers with just a multi-meter and they are not open-circuit.

There are two circuits on the little board, one seems to feed the 'tweeter' and it appears to be working on every speaker.

The other feeds the 'mid' speaker. It only appears to consist of a resistor and a capacitor? My guess is I have blown the capacitor. I googled the capacitor, 85uF 100volt, NP85C ... it appears to be called a crossover-capacitor.

I rung my nearest jaycar, (50kms) and he only has a 100uF 100volt NP85C

Would this capacitor work?

If anyone can help I appreciate.

Greg

Ooops ... forgot to say, the amp is switched to 7-channel-stereo. Which means (I think) it outputs to all speakers.

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

This should tell you everything you need to know about Fleetwood speakers.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?14521-Fleetwood-Audio-Speakers

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Danngalli]

Tha

This should tell you everything you need to know about Fleetwood speakers.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?14521-Fleetwood-Audio-Speakers

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Thank you. I read it all. I'm a fairly laid back guy and I'm not brand-driven. I bought mine from a white-van in Brisbane Australia maybe 15 years ago. I couldn't afford more expensive.

The only thing I know about them is my personal experience. They're phucking phantastic ... five star.

Well made and distortion free and can punch out all the way up to +16db on the Amp. The sub-woofer is a beautiful thing if you love rock.

I will try to post a few photos and you can see the quality and judge accordingly.

But nevertheless, regardless of brand, I need to know what Capacitors I can use to replace the suspected faulty ones.

 

[Danngalli]

 

[MrBoat]

Have you tried hooking these speakers up to the channels the ones that are working are on? I find it kind of hard to believe that all the capacitors could go poof at once. My stereo at work just did this the other day and it is the amp itself that has gone bad.

 

[highfigh]

I haven't seen crossover caps fail without popping and there's no way your AV receiver will ever put out 100V. If you have a small battery, find a way to connect two wires to it and briefly touch them on the speaker terminals- you should see the woofers move and it should make a scratchy popping sound if the wire moves on the battery or terminal. You may see the midrange cone move, but I would be more concerned with it making noise, or not. If it doesn't, it's toast- same for the woofers.

FYI- if the display on the face of the receiver showed +10 and the woofers no longer work, it's because the receiver was probably distorting badly enough and they couldn't handle the power. If they were playing for a while and if they test as bad, I would bet that you'll hear scratching sounds when you press on the cones. Not repairable.

 

[Danngalli]

Have you tried hooking these speakers up to the channels the ones that are working are on? I find it kind of hard to believe that all the capacitors could go poof at once. My stereo at work just did this the other day and it is the amp itself that has gone bad.

Yes. I have swapped speakers around everywhere. It is definitely the speakers that have failed.

I suspect that I may have found the fault, but am not sure. I'll get a photo.

 

[Danngalli]

Ok. I have hooked one of the front-speakers to every channel that had a failed speaker. All those channels put out good sound but only half-the volume of the other front still connected.

But half volume would be normal for those channels wouldn't it? I mean the front is a BIG speaker, I wouldn't expect the surround channels to drive at the volume of a front.

Heres a photo of the front.

plus I have some more issues/analysis, wait please

Greg

 

[Danngalli]

Wow guys, you made me think in new directions. I live in the bush and there is not even a human close by. I have to go 20km to the pub if I want to talk to someone.

And here in this place I'm getting really great advice. I don't really know what I'm doing.

Ok this is what happened.

After I tested all the channels with the big speaker (all good) I reconnected a surround speaker to it's channel. It worked?

Also, when the surrounds failed the little complicated looking switch in the photo above was to the left. From memory it was always to the right, but not 100% sure. I turned the amp off and switched it to the right.

Also, and now I cringe, after about 2hrs running at +10db the amp turned itself off. I turned it on again. 5 mins later it turned off again.

I felt it. It was hot. I placed a large fan on top of it and ran it continuously for another 2-3 hrs at 10db... no further switch off and amp still cool at the end of session.

This occurred after the speakers had failed.

I now suspect I have a heating problem. The amp is old but beautiful sound still.

I am gunna run all speakers now at 10db with the fan full blast on the amp. In the meantime does any of this make sense to anyone?

Greg

 

[Danngalli]

Thank you for your help so far.

 

[zieglj01]

Watch the volume and stop over-driving your system.

 

[lovinthehd]

No reason to run your avr at +10 IMO, just beyond where it will work best. If you really want louder then perhaps an external amp on your avr's pre-outs may be in order but more likely just better speakers....

 

[Danngalli]

Hi peoples,

Thank you for your help.

I ran the whole system for hours and hours last nite.

The Amp is fine on all 7 channels. No problem.
The Sub-woofer is fine no problems.
The front speakers (the large ones) are fine, no problems.
Two of the four surrounds are fine now, no problems.

The center speaker (2 mids and a tweeter) wasn't working. There is a very fine copper braid wire from the 'paper' of the speaker to the spade-terminals. Inside this braided copper is a tiny kevlar-core rope. On one of the mids the kevlar-core was stuck in the solder of the connector, but the copper braid had not been soldered and was only touching the connector. It was too short to re-solder to the connector, so I soldered a small bus-bar (1sq mm copper rod) to the braid and extended this to the connector. Ivleft plentybof flex on the braid.

This fixed the distortion/noise problem for the center speaker.

I now have only two speakers (surrounds each with a mid and a tweet) where the mids circuits are not working but the tweets do.

I will pull these to pieces today and try to sort them.

Greg

 

[Danngalli]

Watch the volume and stop over-driving your system.

No reason to run your avr at +10 IMO, just beyond where it will work best. If you really want louder then perhaps an external amp on your avr's pre-outs may be in order but more likely just better speakers....

Thank you,

I live high in the mountains and remote. I have a small guest house. I have a smaller, more dignified Yamaha amp and speakers that the guests use.

The lounge (main hall?) is very large. It has been used as a conference room and can easily seat 15 people to dinner. It's about 8m by 6m by 4-5m high.

I am having a sex-drugs-an-rock-n-roll party here in Sep. A big reunion of old friends from the seventies. The music MUST be loud and I have lasers and a scanner which are driven by the bass.

I do realise that 'fleetwood' is looked down upon by most people, but mostly by people who have never experienced or seen fleetwood speakers ever.

I'm an old phart, 63, and I don't trust my ears. I have a special track that I use to test for distortion and these speakers, the ones left working, have no distortion at 10db.

You can see my shack and the lounge-hall here if you like.

Thank you and I will post the results of my attenpts to get the last 2 speakers working.

Cheers Greg


https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/12388883?guests=1&adults=0&children=0&infants=0&location=Bunya Mountains, Australia&s=xr9-3QPb

 

[Pogre]

Wait, white van speakers..?