The U.K. versions of this machine suffer badly from the capacitors that lie underneath the Digital pcb .Pull the drive out and you should find a small square board underneath sitting off the main board by a standoff plug.Remove this board and you may see a couple of caps that have blown. Usually the area around the caps has blackened with heat coming through the board from the regulators mounted on the underside.I can't remember the value of the caps but as a general rule if the value is an odd one go UP to the next preferred value but as space is limited beware of fitting a cap with a higher max working voltage . Size is important here as there is little room for fitting something bigger.These caps can give all sorts of problems as they smooth the supply to the digital pcb connected to the drive--this can give no/distorted sound, int recording/recording when the machine wants to/ loss of the tuner signals.They smooth the 1.2 and 1.8 volt lines to the main micro on the digital pcb and can cause the unit to go nuts and also cause the unit not to work for several hours after the ac mains has been disturbed. Best Wishes REPAIRMAN
Vulcanusa: Just a quick reply. If easy to do, replace the battery. I agree that if it is always powered up, probably the battery isn't needed. However, the first time you power down, you'll probably lose your settings and clock, etc. Now, I also highly reccommend using a UPS on these machines. This will protect them from both power glitches and short power losses. Now, as to your specific problems, I can't say I have seen that kind of thing here. I have 5 of the dmr-e85h machines. I have changed the power supply caps on all of them and so far, so good. All running fine - and after 7 years of pretty constant use, a very impressive machine. If it wasn't for that Taiwan capacitor factory screwing up, these machines were very well made. I also have 4 of the dmr-eh50 machines. I had problems with two of them - the main voltage regulator went bad and needed to be replaced. Not sure, but they might have been damaged somehow while running on a UPS. The waveform of most of the cheaper UPS devices isn't very good. So, pick a good UPS if you have the newer models! Good Luck! Roger.
Just a quick comment about flaky and seemingly random behavior. I've had that happen when one of my remotes was going bad. It would basically shoot out all kinds of stray signals until I took the batteries out. I've gone through several remotes on this machine, and have started taking them apart and cleaning the contacts and repainting the rubber button surfaces with silver paint from a remote repair kit. It works, but any stray particles of conductor in there can cause havoc.
Guys, Thanks for your advice. This is the beauty of the Internet. Repairman, The US versions don't have a separate PCB under the hard drive - just the overall power supply board - unless you mean the power supply board itself. I have changed caps once or twice there. There is a small elevated pcb - on stilts you might say - above the main board and immediately to the left of the DVD-RW drive. It is connected to a pcb on the bottom of the DVD-RW drive by a flex cable. I don't believe there are any caps underneath that pcb on stilts, but I'll check. Roger, Wow - from the originator of this great and long-lived thread - good to see you're still around. I realize I am grasping at straws with the button battery hypothesis, but without an obvious cap issue - I'm not sufficiently adept at electronics to go probing around (sorry dksmall). Yeah - I can remove a few caps which are obviously ruptured and solder new ones in their place, but not much else - I'm more of a software guy. Starrig, I have to admit I had not considered a flaky remote. Not sure how that would prevent audio from being output to my TV, but stranger things have happened. I'll check on that and post when I get a chance. Thanks.
Hi ,I meant the dvd drive and not the hard drive.In the uk versions they have both dvd and hard drives in the one box and below the dvd drive is the digital pcb which controls the dvd drive but also a large amount of general signal processing occurs on that small board that stands off the main pcb.Under the digital pcb usually there are two caps which cause the digital pcb to go nuts, this causes allsorts of problems from no tuner/int recording/ no recording/unit not turning on from a power outage. I repaired lots of these recorders on behalf of Panasonic as a Warranty agent and the first thing I usually went for when one of these came in for repair was the capacitor drawer of the spares stores.I did see some variations on the main board layout where the digital pcb is mounted to the side of the dvd drive but as the space was short in the unit and the dvd drive type varied, then the digital board mostly was fitted underneath the dvd drive. The reason for this board, was that very little elecronics were contained on the drive and it was considered better practice to put most of the drive control on a seperate pcb mounted under the drive together with the main digital processor hence when the supply to this board is flaky the machine needs an appointment with a shrink!! Best Wishes Repairman
As the DMR-E85H only has an analog tuner, I have mine hooked into a Dish DTVPal converter via the L3 inputs. Although it doesn't actually receive the show listings from TVGOS properly, it does receive all of the 20+ broadcast channels I can get just fine. I can get all of the TVGOS information on the separate ChannelMaster CM7000 DVR I've got hooked into a different set of inputs on my TV or from other methods (I usually rely on zap2it.com since I live on the boundary of several broadcast markets and the local newspaper listings cover fewer than half of the channels I actually receive), and just manually program the Panny for whatever shows I might want to burn to a DVD eventually. Last weekend, when I powered up the Panny to check on status of its recordings, I had no audio running from the broadcast feed of any TV channel coming through it to the TV, even though the last show it had recorded the day before played its audio just fine. So, either some new glitch had literally just occurred with the Panny (I've had the capacitor problem on two separate occasions before, with repairs done under its extended warranty that's now lapsed) or the new problem was somewhere in its input feed as the audio worked fine on all other equipment -- ruling out broadcasts from any particular station. I unplugged the DTVPal's power cable from the back of its box for a few seconds, then re-inserted it and all the realtime audio functions through the DMR-E85H came back into their normal mode -- the DTVPal hadn't lost any of its connectivity with the Panny and still received all of the TV channels as its CM7000 cousin, so I didn't have to go through any of the setup process on it again. I'm not sure if the converter box power cable was just a bit loose or had developed a bit of oxidation on the contacts, but when I plugged it back in I made certain it was seated properly and that seems to have done the trick. I've had no further problems with it so far, anyway. If you've got the Panny hooked into an ATSC converter box (or possibly an analog cable box?), try unplugging that source device from its power for perhaps 5 seconds then repower it and see if that brings the audio functions back into proper working condition. Since it worked for me, maybe you'll have similar luck!
Repairman, Thanks for the clarification - my mistake. Well, the behavior you're describing is certainly what I've been seeing, so I'll definitely take at look under that elevated pcb. I've never removed that component.
Be Carfull of the ribbon cables going to the dvd drive--they are a little fragile. most of the ribbon cable sockets have a locking device. Look at either end of the socket and you will find that there is a small protusion which when lifted with a very small jewlers scredriver it will lift and after undoing both ends the ribbon cable will come free.Make sure before doing this that you take note of the orientation of the cable--one side is silvery and the other side is coloured--either blue or green.Don`t put the cable back into the socket the wrong way round as it will kill either the dvd drive of the digital board.Place the cable back in the socket and push down both ends of the retainer at the same time to lock the cable back in.If you try to remove or insert the cable without releasing and refixing the lock then the cable will be damaged--i`ve been there and done that! Repairman
Will do. I know I tried to lift that connector off one of my machines at one time in the past and noticed it didn't want to budge so I left it alone. Thanks.
Well, I opened my DMR-E85H back up and disconnected that small rectangular pcb (elevated above the motherboard pcb) to the left of the DVD-drive. I flipped it over and there are several very tiny "cans" on that small pcb, but no electrolytic capacitors of the style many of us have replaced over the years. I didn't see any obvious issue on either side of that small pcb (but I'm no REPAIRMAN ) There were also a couple of very thin reddish capacitors soldered to the motherboard pcb underneath that elevated pcb. They were unspectacular. I removed the DVD-drive again and examined the pcb closely that is attached to the bottom of the DVD-drive. That is the pcb to which the ribbon cable connects from the elevated pcb. Again, unspectacular. <*sigh*> I turned my attention back to the CMOS button battery. It would not budge. The L-shaped arm/tab which extends from the motherboard over the top of that battery sure looks like it is almost spot welded to the top of the battery. In the top center of that L-shaped tab, there are 4 small depressed ellipses that give the appearance of heated metal. That button battery is not in a traditional CMOS battery socket. Although it's very hard to see, it almost looks like there is prong or two underneath the battery. Stamped on the motherboard near the battery appears white text in a rectangular box which states (I'm slightly paraphrasing here): see instruction manual for battery replacement procedure. Having reviewed the DVR manual, I conclude that instruction block is NOT referring to the DVR manual - but more likely the motherboard manual. I searched on-line for a couple of hours looking for anything related to replacement of a button battery in that physical configuration, but all the videos (i.e. YouTube) and manuals I found were battery replacement instructions for a CMOS battery in a socket - which is trivial. Any additional advice is welcome. Thanks
Hi, That battery keeps the tuning information stored and also other settings you change in the menu when the A.C. mains power is removed. When they go down you loose tuning everytime you depower the unit.Usually before they go, they will leak gunk that is very corrosive onto the printed circuit pcb and eat the tracks and component legs.I have junked many units due to the damage to the tracks bieng eaten away and cannot be repaired.This was common on Panny VCRs where the battery had leaked and caused the front controls to stop working and other strange faults. What ever you do ,don,t short out the + and - terminals of this battery as they can draw enough current to explode.I've shorted out several of these to see what happens--they go off with a fair crack--sounds like a gun--so be carefull Best Wishes Repairman
The battery was my last idea before junking this one for parts. It's probably not the explanation for the erratic behavior mentioned in my earlier posts, but if it were easy to replace it would be worth a shot. Is that arm spot welded to the top of the battery? If not, then do you know how to remove it short of clipping off the arm?
Can you measure the voltage without the unit plugged in? If it is above 2.7 Volts, I don't think you need to change it. Yes, it is welded, and I believe you need to unsolder it from the PC board. You also need a battery with the tabs welded in place the same as that one. (I have never changed this battery on my units). Good Luck! Roger.
I haven't opened my faulty machine back up yet and checked the voltage on the button battery, but a co-worker did point me to the webpage below to obtain replacements. I didn't write down the specific number of the battery in our machines (stupid of me -- it's definitely CR-something), but I believe it's probably the CR-2354. I'll open the machine back up, disassemble it this weekend, and verify. Go to this link: http://search.digikey.com/us/en/cat...s-non-rechargeable-primary/394467?k=coin cell In the 'Termination Style' column click: PC Pin (Horizontal Mount) Then click the 'Apply Filters' button back on the left side of the page. Then in the 'Series' column, click CR-2354 and click the 'Apply Filters' button again. In the page which appears, I believe our battery is the one with the yellow clad border. It sure looks like it. I can now understand why I could not budge the battery. I thought the negative side was sitting against a prong, but the battery in fact has a pin that is welded to the negative side of the battery, much like the arm is welded to the top (i.e. positive side) of the battery. The pin welded to the negative side must extend into a plated through hole on the motherboard underneath the battery. My co-worker believes the battery can only be unsoldered by accessing the bottom of the motherboard.
I disassembled the DVR, removed the motherboard, and used a multimeter to measure the voltage (i.e. DC) of the battery pins. Underneath the motherboard there are two positive leads from the battery and one negative lead. I set the multimeter to a 10v range. I connected a lead to one of the positive pins and a lead to the negative pin. The battery actually read slightly greater than 3v. I have always had four of these DVRs, but one would never completely power up correctly (i.e. an eBay purchase that I only paid about $100 for 6 years ago). I figured I might need it for parts one day. Well, yesterday was the day. I decided I'd remove the motherboard from that unit and replace the motherboard in the DVR that developed the audio problems and other weird behavior. By the way - the battery in that spare motherboard read 3v exactly. Bottom line - my 'new' unit appears to be working fine, so I suppose I have an issue with the original motherboard of the DVR I've been using these past 7 years. Why -- remains a mystery.
Bad news for Comcast subscribers in the Boston area. My TVGOS data has vanished, and I just got confirmation from an engineer at Comcast that they've eliminated the analog feed in my town, and will be shutting it off through the Boston area over the next few months. He says there's a digital feed still running, but he wasn't sure what devices support it. Clearly not the Panasonic, though. Has anyone tried switching to a Comcast or other DVR, and dubbing from that to the DMR for things you want to burn to disk?
After 7 wonderful years with my DMR-85, I lost the analog channel guide and all analog channels. I have Comcast in the Western Philadelphia Suburbs. I am renting the digital box with hard drive. I hope to copy some of the new content over to the Panny, edit out commercials and burn onto DVD's. I have made several DVD's from movies I first recorded onto the Comcast box, then copied to the Panny. A bit of a time consumer as it must copy to the Panny in real time, but burning to DVR is still fast. I had lived with a subset of analog channels (about 7) for at least a year when Comcast went mostly digital. All went away about a month ago.
That sounds about like what I'm experiencing. Looks like saving shows to DVD will be more time-consuming from here on out. On the other hand, it seems like the new DVRs have a lot of advantages, and as I look at the size of my home-burned DVD library, maybe it's not the worst thing if I have to think a little harder about whether I *really* want to save the latest new series in so-so resolution quality.
First of all, thanks to everyone who has posted information on how they fixed their units with blown capacitors. Mine died suddenly the other night: first started turning itself on and doing self-checks, over and over, and then simply went dead. I opened it up, and found the two capacitors that most people have replaced visibly blown. Following a tip from here, I ordered replacements from Digi-key and put them in today. It came back to life! However...no audio. Have any of you encountered that before? I did note that another capacitor near the end of the board (C-something, a 6.3V cap) was bulging, and I called Digi-key back and ordered a replacement for that one, too. But I won't have it for a few days, so can't tell if that's the cause of the loss of audio. Have any of you had a sudden audio loss, and was it caused by a capacitor failure?
