Pana E55 died suddenly

[johnsees]

Last night we were using it, no problems; recording and playing. Tonight, I pressed the power-on button, and the front panel display went out. It's totally dead. There was no sound, nothing happened except instead of coming on, it went dead. Checked the power cord, nothing loose.
I've taken it apart (a couple years ago, to clean it) so I can do it again if anyone has any ideas of anything I might do.
Thanks

[Richard_G]

I've got an ES20D that did exactly the same thing. No power internally even though the mains power was going in. The internal power supply had died due to the capacitors drying out. Replaced the two big electrolytic capacitors on the power supply board and it burst into life again. Had ypu not switched it off but left it powered up all the time, it would not have happened.

[ks47]

..I've taken it apart (a couple years ago, to clean it) so I can do it again if anyone has any ideas of anything I might do.
Thanks

Try checking into AVS Forum. There are many threads that dealt with fixing capacitor problem.
http://www.avsforum.com/f/106/dvd-recorders-standard-def

[johnsees]

Okay, I'll be looking into the fuse and capacitors. And thanks for the link to the AVS Forum.

[johnsees]

Well, the fuse is fine.
Is this leakage around this big capacitor or solder flux? It's hard, not runny or gooey.


Or is this the problem?

[jjeff]

Your lower photo, the upper is just the glue they use to hold the cap before it's soldered and also help it stay to the board better than just solder.
The bottom photo is bad, both leaking(on top of cap) and bulging mean they should be replaced ASAP.
Nice pictures BTW!

[Richard_G]

Those ones in the bottom pic are definitely the problem. I'd replace any other large electrolytic caps on the power supply board too. They've all been in there the same length of time and you don't really want to be doing the job again on the others in a few months time.

[johnsees]

Your lower photo, the upper is just the glue they use to hold the cap before it's soldered and also help it stay to the board better than just solder.
The bottom photo is bad, both leaking(on top of cap) and bulging mean they should be replaced ASAP.
Nice pictures BTW!

Okay, thanks for the info (and the compliment).

[johnsees]

Well, I replaced those 2 caps and it looks like that did the trick. I haven't connected it to the TV yet but the front display works, the self-check runs and the DVD goes in and out. Before, nothing was happening at all.
I'm actually surprised because I had a lot of trouble: The connector from the power board to the main board doesn't seem to be removable; even though it looks like a little clip that's holding the connector to the power board, I moved that clip aside and trying to lift the connector only flexed the board. So I had to work with the power board on its side and not very stable. Working in that situation I accidentally removed one of the solder pads trying to get the first cap out but managed to solder the cap lead to the board trace, and apparently I did okay with it.
So, thanks for the help; I appreciate it.