I just wanted to mention a couple hardware fixes for Coolsat 6000s since I couldn't find much information on one of the fixes.
I went by the local "FTA" shop, to see if they had another used Coolsat 6000 for my brother. Only had one and no remote and no TV to show it was working. After powering up and verifying from the front LED display it was booting properly, they agreed to sell it for $25. Turns out maybe that was too much for an AS IS receiver.
Well, getting it home I discovered my remote wouldn't work. I have a Coolsat 6000 already so was using that remote and a Coolsat 7000 remote as well. Either one would work for a few seconds after boot and then stall. It had hackware on it so I thought maybe that was hosed, so reloaded the factory firmware a few times but no improvements. Then I cloned my existing 6000 over. No help.
Needless to say after a lot of monkeying around I swapped the front display off the working unit and suddenly the used one was working fine. So something was bad about the front panel. I took it in the other room to test the IR receiver with my scope and the IR was suddenly working. I took it back to the TV and it didn't work.
So I learned that the power circuit it was on affected the IR receiver. Assuming the power was noisy over by the TV with various gear plugged in, I figured maybe the capacitor @ C21 was failing which they are known to do on the Coolsat 6000 power supply. So I replaced that. Still no luck.
After comparing the front panels from the working and non working I noticed the non-working had a 47uF capacitor and 47ohm resistor to the IR receiver. The working one had 4.7uF capacitor and 330ohm resistor. After searching around online on building your own IR receiver, the 4.7uF part was common and the resistors varied, but 220/330 were common. So I swapped out the two parts and voila! Now my $25 used Coolsat 6000 is working fine on the same outlet it wouldn't run on before. With my existing channels cloned over it is driving the motor and the DiSEqC switch. Seems 100%.
I don't have the exact part locations for the front panel, and I forgot to take photos. I can try to get that off the board, but I just wanted to post a thread about the Coolsat 6000 hardware.
Hardware issues:
Power supply C21 1000uF 6V capacitor -- replace with 10V or higher rating. Very common failure. If you have a 6V capacitor in C21 (middle of the set of three) you should consider replacing it, or at least have a spare handy, especially as these units get older.
IR receiver / front panel -- Seems to need a 4.7uF capacitor to the IR receiver. 220ohm resistor probably needed also.
TIP: If you ever end up with the issue where the remote stops responding after a few seconds, you can use the front panel firmware copy hot key to interrupt the current menu and it resets the IR receiver somehow. Basically hold the DOWN arrow and press the POWER button. A firmware copy screen should pop up. Wait about 5 seconds and hit DOWN twice to cancel it. The remote should work for another 3-5 seconds. You can keep doing this (painful) procedure over and over to get to different menus and change settings. The pop up seems to work on any menu, even the security PIN pop up. Using the UP and POWER combo (channel copy) works as well, but since the buttons are closer together it seemed harder to get right and I often put the unit in standby.
Note the NVRAM reset screen doesn't work without a remote. You can get to the menu by holding down the UP button while bringing the unit out of standby with the power button. Hold UP for about 1-2 seconds after pressing power, let go, start pressing UP arrow on the remote. Once you get a flash on the activity LED you know it is responding. From there you need to use the correct combination of button presses right away before the screen might show on the TV and before the remote stops responding. I think it is something like UP 3 times, LEFT, DOWN, OK or similar. I'll edit this later.
I went by the local "FTA" shop, to see if they had another used Coolsat 6000 for my brother. Only had one and no remote and no TV to show it was working. After powering up and verifying from the front LED display it was booting properly, they agreed to sell it for $25. Turns out maybe that was too much for an AS IS receiver.
Well, getting it home I discovered my remote wouldn't work. I have a Coolsat 6000 already so was using that remote and a Coolsat 7000 remote as well. Either one would work for a few seconds after boot and then stall. It had hackware on it so I thought maybe that was hosed, so reloaded the factory firmware a few times but no improvements. Then I cloned my existing 6000 over. No help.
Needless to say after a lot of monkeying around I swapped the front display off the working unit and suddenly the used one was working fine. So something was bad about the front panel. I took it in the other room to test the IR receiver with my scope and the IR was suddenly working. I took it back to the TV and it didn't work.
So I learned that the power circuit it was on affected the IR receiver. Assuming the power was noisy over by the TV with various gear plugged in, I figured maybe the capacitor @ C21 was failing which they are known to do on the Coolsat 6000 power supply. So I replaced that. Still no luck.
After comparing the front panels from the working and non working I noticed the non-working had a 47uF capacitor and 47ohm resistor to the IR receiver. The working one had 4.7uF capacitor and 330ohm resistor. After searching around online on building your own IR receiver, the 4.7uF part was common and the resistors varied, but 220/330 were common. So I swapped out the two parts and voila! Now my $25 used Coolsat 6000 is working fine on the same outlet it wouldn't run on before. With my existing channels cloned over it is driving the motor and the DiSEqC switch. Seems 100%.
I don't have the exact part locations for the front panel, and I forgot to take photos.
I can try to get that off the board, but I just wanted to post a thread about the Coolsat 6000 hardware.Hardware issues:
Power supply C21 1000uF 6V capacitor -- replace with 10V or higher rating. Very common failure. If you have a 6V capacitor in C21 (middle of the set of three) you should consider replacing it, or at least have a spare handy, especially as these units get older.
IR receiver / front panel -- Seems to need a 4.7uF capacitor to the IR receiver. 220ohm resistor probably needed also.
TIP: If you ever end up with the issue where the remote stops responding after a few seconds, you can use the front panel firmware copy hot key to interrupt the current menu and it resets the IR receiver somehow. Basically hold the DOWN arrow and press the POWER button. A firmware copy screen should pop up. Wait about 5 seconds and hit DOWN twice to cancel it. The remote should work for another 3-5 seconds. You can keep doing this (painful) procedure over and over to get to different menus and change settings. The pop up seems to work on any menu, even the security PIN pop up. Using the UP and POWER combo (channel copy) works as well, but since the buttons are closer together it seemed harder to get right and I often put the unit in standby.
Note the NVRAM reset screen doesn't work without a remote. You can get to the menu by holding down the UP button while bringing the unit out of standby with the power button. Hold UP for about 1-2 seconds after pressing power, let go, start pressing UP arrow on the remote. Once you get a flash on the activity LED you know it is responding. From there you need to use the correct combination of button presses right away before the screen might show on the TV and before the remote stops responding. I think it is something like UP 3 times, LEFT, DOWN, OK or similar. I'll edit this later.
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