kenwood receiver problem - Page 3

I'm so glad I found this thread! I have a VR-407 that is about 5 years old. I don't think the remote ever worked right. As many of you have said, it works for the first five minutes then stops working. It sometimes starts working again after awhile then stops working again. After reading the thread, I decided to tackle the job. If I screwed up, what the hell, I could buy a new state of the art receiver.

I had never soldered before so I read the various recommended sites and went out and bought an inexpensive soldering iron from Lowes. After procrastinating for a few days I finally cracked it open. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take the front panel off or just the circuit board. Since I couldn't get to the screws very easily on the board I opted to take off the front panel. I disconnected the top and right side ribbon wires, the head phone wire, and a couple of others. The front panel flopped down after I unscrewed it. One longer wire on the right side was still connected.

I had the photo printed from Chinadog's post and with that tried to find the three connections for the remote. It didn't match up though. I found another photo of a VR-409 that was an exact match to my board. I thought I had read in one of the previous posts or on a recommended website to try and just melt the existing solder instead of adding new solder so that's what I did. I then put it back together having just a little difficulty with the top ribbon. It's very flimsy and hard to plug back in without buckling.

It's been working for 2 days now so far so good. Thanks to everyone here who figured out the fix. You saved me from having to buy a new receiver. With the remote fixed it feels like I already have a new receiver!

Ha, love it!

Bud

My wife and I attempted the fix last weekend. Since we are also working on a 407, our experience was very similar to jmjaym. Sounds like we may have taken ours apart a little differently, though. I was able to get the metal housing off without any difficulty: three or four screws around the back and 2 or 3 on each side. Then tilt and pull to separate it from the front panel. We attempted no further disassembly, as we had a clear view of the board that backs up to the front panel (which seems to be the board depicted in the picture here) and didn't want to introduce further complications by detaching ribbons and such. A little canned air to clear the dust and it was time to go to work.

As jay pointed out, the 400-series board looks different than the picture. The chip seems to be in the same place, but the three identified solder points are not in the same location. We looked all over for three solder points in a line like this, but only saw a couple of possible candidates. We refreshed those to the best of our ability with electrical solder, let everything cool down for a bit, then plugged it back in for a test. Sure enough, the amp responded to remote for the first time in years. We were thrilled. After waiting a few more minutes and testing again, we reassembled the amp, replaced it on the shelf and hooked everything back up.

Worked fine for an hour or so before it started acting dodgy again. Sometimes it responds, sometimes it doesn't. Last night it didn't respond at all. I suspect we did not refresh the right points and got the results we did by simply fiddling around with it and heating up the board and proper solder points (wherever they are) peripherally. We plan to go in again, especially if we have a picture of a 400-series board as a guide. Jay, can you direct us to the photo you mentioned?

Tybee,
I can't post a website yet so I'll send you the link.

Jay

And came across the thread.

While I have a VR-410, which is apparently ONLY controllable via RF ...

What to do? I was considering cracking the case and determining if it could be retrofitted with an IR transistor and wiring/soldering it to the main board as described. Do we have a pin out for which joints are for which lead of the transistor?

Does it already exist in the unit and defeated? If so, how to enable it? I would love to utilize the remote to control the receiver. It has been a good unit and I like it a lot... like a wise man once told me, "If it aint broke, dont fix it". At this point, I just consider the remote loss to be an inconvenience, but if it is fixable, why not?

Thanks in advance for the assist.
Keith

Wow Wow Wow! I can't tell you how many times I've googled an electronic problem or software problem hoping to find a solution. Rarely do you get a 'hit' like this thread. I own a 309 that I was getting ready to give up on. Instead I'm going to operate on it and bring it back to life. I too thought it was just mine. Goes to show you what the power of sharing can do. Will let you know how it turns out. Anyone else think that Kenwood should offer a recall? Sounds like a pretty widespread problem on a range of their products.

I have the same problem and would love to add an IR sensor to my "RF only" VR-410. That way I could use a universal remote, like the Harmony and just use the codes for the VR-409, which I suspect would work. Perhaps I could simply replace the RF sensor with an IR one.

Have you made any progress?

Can you offer any advice? Like where would I get an IR sensor and what type would I ask for?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tony

I am so glad I came across this thread. I have a VR-517 with an "intermittent remote" problem. I even got an extra remote just to see if it helped; it didn't, but it was fairly cheap. What did help was the photo of the circuit board indicating the suspect IR sensor solder joints. The cover comes off fairly easily, just remember to unplug the unit first. A low-power magnifier showed that these 3 connections to the board seem to be separated; they all have a small gap visible. A small soldering iron fixed it in a jiffy.

Clearly, Kenwood has an assembly problem. If you are thinking of getting a new unit just because the remote drives you nuts, you should really try this first.

Thanks to all for sharing! Now I will just keep the extra remote for the next time the other one "disappears".

Performed the same fix to my VR-407 today after finding numerous references to this problem of the remote not working, not only on this, but on many other websites. Problem was the same as others were seeing: remote works for a few minutes, then the receiver stops responding to it. Oddly, it worked perfectly for the first few years I had the receiver.

Touched up the three solder joints on the IR sensor and it's back to working as it should. Yay!

I found this thread back in May of 2006, and with Chinadog's help, I was able to reapir my Kenwood VR-309 receiver, as well as my Kenwood CD player that had a similar cold-solder problem. Ten months later, and everything is still working great! I'm really thankful for this thread and for genuinely nice guys like Chinadog who are willing to take the time to help others. The world could use a few more people like that.

Thanks! Just glad it worked out for you! I can image how many people have discarded/gave up on their receivers for something so small? Man, Kenwood lost some business I bet.

Bud

I got one of these VR507 recievers about 4 years ago-still love it-had the remote control works when and if it feels like it syndrome-being trained as an electronics technician I was in the service- I decided to give this repair a try-result? About 1 hour later-diassembly and reassembly included-another satisfied customer. Makes me wonder why just that one componet had solder joints cracking and no other? Mucho Gracias for this tip.

Just to give this very useful thread a bump:

You can read about my first attempt above. About six weeks ago we finally unhooked everything and had another go using the 400 series image jmjaym was kind enough to PM me (you can find it here: http://www.moerk.org/kenwood/). We had refreshed the right points the first time, but apparently not enough. Deliberately overdid it on the solder a bit this time around, but it did the trick. It's worked without a hitch ever since.

Of course, now it will be much harder for me to make the argument for a new receiver.

I'll give you a little hint-when you solder-use enough to cover the terminial and the copper pad on the printed circuit board-solder "wicks" when it reaches the proper temperature-it flows into the joint-and make sure you either use flux or rosin core electronics solder. Hope this helps.

i have a kenwood receiver KRX-1000,it was working fine at first,but later when i turn on again,it automatically switch off,and the display panel display the mute sign,and clip light blinks.Then suddenly it is able to on for a few hours,but later this thing happen again Can anyone. assist me what is happening. thanks

I have the same problem but when I took the thing apart it doesnt look the same? Has anyone worked on one of these? Please help I was about to trash this thing! I might still its pissing me off! Good job to all you guys that have saved all these people thousands!

Woohoo! I'm trying this right now with my vr-405 after finding the content on the 507...will edit later tonight let you know how it goes...the cracks are obvious once you find them near the IR sensor...

Update: works great...2 hours and counting!

This thread has helped me immensely! I bought my wife a new Logitech remote then discovered that I couldn't get the IR to work on my Kenwood VR-509 receiver. It turned out to be the cold solder joint problem described on this thread. I created a web page showing some pictures of the repair. I also took a couple of macro shots of the solder joints.

I have to add a couple of bogus posts to get the URLs to work (forum rules).

Bogus post 1

bogus post 2 - pictures next

Before:


After:



Here's a link to my web page with the additional photos:
Kenwood VR-509 IR Repair

it was driving me insane because the problem occurred simultaneously with a
dish network install i tried a new universal remote and still the same problem
I just went over and tapped the ir window and it works fine. thank you god and avs forums

Hi, guys. I just wrote a **** long reply to this post, but it got lost when submitting, which was quite annoying. So heres the short version. I had the exact same problem with my old KRF-V5030D reciever. Bought a new original Kenwood remote control, but still had the same problem. After reading this post, I bought a soldering tool and mended the 3 soldering points for the ir diode on the PCB (there were soldering cracks around all 3 pins, all other soldering points were flawless. Strange...). After this it worked like a charm. Thanks for a great post and replies.

sorry to top something so old but, Wow can't believe I found a fix for this. Bought a 309 about 6 months ago and figured that it was the remote. It wasn't a big deal for me though since I only used the system sparingly. Now I have an xbox360 and media center so I am planning on using the 309 alot more. I'm hopefully going to find a friend with a soldiering iron tomorrow and open the 309 up. I haven't soldiered anything since I had a ps1 mod chip. Hope it works out, thanks for the solutions.

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

So glad I came across this site. Had the same problem with remote (receiver must be about 8 years old now), checked remote was ok (point it at a digital camera and you'll see light from the bulb at the front of the remote on the lcd screen) and had new batteries etc, thought it was probably worth binning it and buying another receiver; did a search in the remote (no pun intended!) chance that other people had the problem, and lo and behold, quite a number did. The rest of the receiver worked fine, so we put up with no remote for ages - more inconvenient than anything.

After reading the posts and excellent photo guides at Tom Moertels site and jcoxDesigns, I decided to have a go with the soldering iron when moving all my AV kit around. Broken solder was pretty obvious, a quick dab with the iron and some new solder and a few minutes to cool, then it was crunch time - had I torched the receiver for good, or had the remote sprung back to life?

Powered it up, dusted off the remote, and after a few non responsive moments after pressing the remote buttons, the volume went up and down, mode changes were working, standby etc working. I was like a child with a new toy, and did more than one jig in celebration, followed by a can or 2 of guiness :-)

The recceiver is now safely locked away in a unit with glass doors, away from the probing fingers of my 16 month old daughter. I'm incredibly happy, so too is my wife, and I'd like to think the Kenwood is a bit happier too! I may end up upgrading to a true-hd receiver in the next year or two, but at least this site has given the receiver an extended life.

Thanks once again to all, this is what makes the Internet so, so good.

Adrian

My 307 remote started to get temperamental about a month ago. Thought
it was the batteries but fresh replacements didn't solve things.
So after googling the problem and following it here - not to mention
I'm already a member - it just proves the amazing way the
Internet has impacted my life. Thanks to all the tireless audiophiles
for sharing their experiences and input. Needless to say, after opening
the unit up and remelting the 3 pins all went well. Cleaning out the
accumulation of dust took longer. Considering I picked up this receiver
off kijiji for $45, this was time well spent. Time to assume the position. Merry
Christmas and all the best for 2010.

Reading this thread helped me repair my 307. Thanks to all that
shared their experience. Time well spent. Merry Christmas and all
the best for 2010.

I've had this intermittent problem with my KRF-V7020D receiver for a few months, fnally got around to pulling it out and resoldering the IR receiver.

so far so good!

Glad to see this thread continues to help folks out! Happy Holidays!

Bud