EEVblog 1605 - JBL Charge Speaker REPAIR

[@EEVblog]

PART 2 is here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2jWh3qkp8tjhpI

[@leocelente]

It seems very logical to me, it was having gas issues; you opened it up; the gas was released; no more gas to fart out

[@Elnufo]

If you run the audio through a fart decoding algorythm, it says "im trapped in a factory, send help!".

[@zoenagy9458]

Black Mirror?

[@joekenorer]

@@zoenagy9458 Original Ghost in the Shell Manga.

[@springpan]

I believe you have a failing Li-Po battery pack! My friend gave me the same unit to repair, and it also had distorted audio in the lowest bass notes. Loud, bassy music demands the most instantaneous current from the battery. On the power up "jingle", that distorted envelope you see on the captured waveform is a very low frequency "bump" for JBL to show off the impressive bass from this speaker. Lower levels, or high frequency content may not reveal the problem. Suggest: 1. Play loud bass music through the speaker and see if it distorts. Don't use speech. 2. If there is distortion, bypass the battery with a high power bench supply to see if the problem vanishes. 3. If so, replace the battery BTW, there is a service manual available for this unit on the web (unless it was taken down now). Like your channel, hope this helps!

[@EEVblog]

Doesn't explain why it's gone on the bench, yet was so consistent before I took it apart.

[@SeanBZA]

@@EEVblog Probably a battery connector with oxide formed on the contact area. Undoing it wiped the corrosion off, and made good contact again.

[@lab_rabbit]

@@EEVblog Could the lack of the speaker enclosure be causing them to draw less power? edit: nevermind- just saw your update on EEVblog2 =)

[@EEVblog]

@@SeanBZA Yeah, that's my leading working assumption, as so many people are reporting this now. But it hasn't failed once since it came apart, so it's the battery ESR.

[@SeanBZA]

@@EEVblog Or as combination of the increasing ESR of the on board capacitors and battery ESR, with the poor contact making a RC filter that drops voltage on start up. Would probably benefit from checking ESR of the input capacitors on the board, at least, or simply chucking a bigger one there as well. After all 5 years is prime candidate for ChongX capacitors reaching EOL, and then slowly failing when cold, with the heating of desoldering temporarily fixing them.

[@kjlovescoffee]

Many moons ago, when I was working doing on-site IT support, we used to get computers misbehaving in strange ways that make no sense. Early Pentium-II era. We'd pick it up from the customer, drive back to the workshop, turn it on, and it would work perfectly. Take it back to the customer - expecting it to misbehave again - but no, works perfectly. The suspicion was microscopic solder cracks, and exposing it to a bit of rough and tumble over poor roads sorted things out. We eventually figured out we can just shut down the PC, pick up the case an inch, drop it, turn it back on, and all is good.

[@BackForwardPunch]

probably needed a reflow from cold solder joints? sounds like they were not well produced pcs

[@EEVblog]

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

[@nameredacted1242]

@@EEVblog Well said!!!

[@wdavem]

Tin whiskers?

[@Lucien86]

In the old CRT days one of the secret masters tips was to give it a thump. Amazing how often that worked.. Was guessed as dry solder joints or oxide on connectors or maybe even knocking off static charge.

[@jasonmushersee]

I work in plastic injection mold you can see the parting line so each side of the mold has a profile each mold half is bolted to the press swash plates when those come together 800*f resin is injected resin looks like polypropylene 5150

[@RGSneaker]

So if the signal to the speaker was fine, and what the mic picked up was distorted, my suspicion is something mechanical between the speaker/driver membrane and out through the cabinet. Something loose that shouldn't be loose, or something jammed that should be free - perhaps

[@EEVblog]

Yeah, but that doesn't explain why it was only on that particular envelope consistently.

[@Audio_Simon]

It sounds like electrical clipping. All I can say is one of the VERY common faults is the SMD capacitors on the output of class D amps. They see significant voltage spikes and go bad. They don't always measure short or obviously bad on a simple low freq. test. Just rip them off to check. Who cares about emi? The rail is probably dropping due to oscillation sucking juice.

[@joseignaciobaluk3741]

I have a flip 4 that makes weird like you said "fart" noises when I turn the volume up. The battery is busted and i used it with a power bank that I ziptied to the speaker and a USB cable. I wanted to buy a new battery but they are complicated to swap because they have some weird sticky tape on the underside of the battery and taking out the old one is quite destructive. Unless you don't mind pushing it too hard and perforating it (I would rather not). I always assumed that since the battery is busted, at some point when the IC wants to draw current from the battery for the amplifier, the internal resistance of the battery makes it drop voltage and that's what causes the distortion. The noises become worse when the speakers are reproducing bass (thus taking more current to move the coil further for longer) and when the volume is higher, also it seems to work better or worse some days, which I assume has something to do with the ambient temperature and the battery. The other day I was bored and wanted to see how it looked like with the scope, and when the distortion appears the battery drops to 2 or so volts. But I didn't try to fix it or anything, mine is too busted and the plastic has broken down.. etc. those speakers are built very good but they're not meant to last 8 years, specially the battery. They are not built with replacing the battery in mind, either.

[@Rainbow__cookie]

that explains my charge 4 i also had a charge 3 that needed a new battery both found in dumster room also a flip 3 gave that one to my brother it seems like it has a ok battery

[@Interxoxo]

this issue can happen under two factors. the first one is the dead battery but i think that is not the case because this would made two of the speakers crackle at once so I think the second one is what happened here. so the second factor is broken wire which connects the driver voice coil to its terminals, i suppose when on 7:37 they rammed each other this wire maybe under this force pushed itself back into place, but that is just my theory why it repaired itself

[@vandaldanny]

The strange noises will be a wire inside vibrating. I’ve rebuild a few of these all with the same common problem. Just simply rebuilding this nearly always cures the wired noises these speakers suffer with. Swelled worn out batteries in these speakers also cause strange distortion noises at high volume.

[@sonic2000gr]

Well, I ended up reading about Harold Holt. Fascinating story!

[@jackphilp7057]

I can confirm with a similar speaker and a nearly dead battery like other commenters have noted, the "farting" noise is most likely from voltage dropouts. My battery is properly cooked and if I try to use it without a big enough power brick it will make the same noise.

[@EEVblog]

Why did it stop when powered on the bench after the teardown?

[@buckstarchaser2376]

See, what happened was... The fart sound was caused by damage incurred by the speakers crashing after you took it apart. Then it got sent back in time because of magnets or something. Now you're caught in a karmic time loop where you have to use the broken things until you get sick of the malfunction and break it in the past while not breaking it in the present. Pretty much, you solved the warranty problem.

[@thephantom1492]

Dave, probe the battery. Both of mine did the farting, Both are the battery. The "bigger" one I found a replacement, the "smaller" I did not, but it is always plugged so I don't care. Edit: I believe the issue is that one electrode in the lipo crack and can't pass enough current. You touched the battery, so applied mechanical force on it, which may have connected back part of the electrode. My small one (charge2+) work fine for a few minutes then start to fart, then crack, then shutdown. Leave it alone a few minutes, and you can listen back for a while, then it start again. It make me think that the electrode broke and you basically have 2 battery with a "resistor" in between, slowly charging back the "main side".

[@EEVblog]

Maybe it was a bad/correded battery connection and simply unplugging and repluging fixed it?

[@reidprichard]

Wow, the spam is insane.

[@CertifiedCommentBotHater]

Frick the pornographic bots Why hasn't KZbin done anything about them

[@EEVblog]

About 5 of them just vanished within minutes, wasn't me.

[@markm0000]

@@CertifiedCommentBotHater KZbin hasn’t gotten sued for it yet. They’re too busy making money.

[@chitlitlah]

@@CertifiedCommentBotHater Name checks out.

[@IcecalGamer]

It's also the "Mechanic syndrome" @Dave. 22:55 When a customer just left the mechanic (all should be good and in order), comes back 30 min later with "it's making a (fart?) noise", the tech takes it for Another test drive and NO noise to be found.

[@actontreadway1168]

I have what sounds like blown speakers on mine. The battery seems fine and plays horribly for as many hours as it did when I bought it.

[@p.0-npcg.248]

20:55 "...chasin' fart noises, this is my career." This phrase can be placed on a new Aussie safari uniform! This just shows how easy it is to underestimate the disassembly-reassembly fix when the connector doesn't quite make it metal to metal

[@MrMindlink]

Suggest checking the passive subs, make sure the metal plate isn't separating from the rubber surround.

[@SouravTechLabs]

Could it be that the drivers were jammed, making them sound like a fart at that specific frequency? Perhaps when you accidentally knocked the two speakers together, it resolved the issue? Moreover, since you were playing voice through the speakers, which typically involves low bass, you should consider conducting a sine wave sweep test using an online tone generator or your signal generators to ascertain if the woofers are the source of the problem.

[@scottpelletier1370]

Pretty dense looking board layout. Cool overall product design

[@echelonrank3927]

i heard one of these at work. shame the speakers are so close together, the stereo is bad

[@scottpelletier1370]

@@echelonrank3927 if it's like the ue boom stick I have, you can get 2 and an app splits left/right.... But yeah for easy sound these are pretty convenient

[@danmyers7827]

A regular small ad in the British satirical magazine Private Eye was for a 'remote-controlled fart machine.' With a little modification, that JBL could be a goldmine!🙂

[@TheCurtisnixon]

had nearly the same thing happen to me a month ago. had a 12v 5a power brick, wasn't working. started probing around trying to find the fault, probe a diode in voltmeter, led comes on, brick starts working. not a clue. had been poking at it for a couple weeks, could not find a bad component, pluged into to trace out the power rail, probe diode, bam, lights on, 12v 5a out...so confused...

[@markm0000]

It’s alright Dave we still love you, even if you blame the speaker lol

[@v8vrooooom]

'chasing fart noises'😂

[@hellhound-si5oz]

Well we call that power supply sag

[@toteu00000]

How lucky of me to see your video after i almost quit wanting to repair mine. Same issue + battery swollen and cracked both the battery cover & the case

[@ForestNinjaZero]

It might help to keep a set of line-level test samples from 20hz to 20khz, for testing clips, distortion, control malfunctions, etc. Damaged voice coils might also cause the clipping/crackling effect. Test the right side at high pressure/amplitude.

[@hgbugalou]

I love when you do repair videos.

[@emmanuelhebrew1171]

Have the same speaker, the issue with mine is that when you plug in just the right channel driver the sound plays one seconds and skips the other. While you plug the left channel driver then it just moves in and out without sound. And then just screams loudly when you plug both channels. Any solution?

[@maxw7221]

The driver was fixed when the other one crashed on top of it and compressed it. I've got two of these. The first one was cured by replacing the battery that could barely hold a charge. The current one has a driver making a similar sound. I swapped it over to the "good" side and the problem came with it. So, I've tried the unwitting fix here of crashing the good driver's magnet on top of the bad one, and it has had a noticeable change in the sound--unfortunately all bad.

[@cURLybOi]

i have the charge 4 and it is such a versatile beast. not only waterproof but also it's called charge because you can charge other stuff of it. you can take this on a camping weekend and it will play your music and charge your phone

[@gennidee]

Had the same problem with a Flip 3 that had a dead battery. Battery was even puffed up significantly but it sorta worked with a power adapter, making horrible farting noises even at low volumes. I replaced the battery and the fault is gone.

[@bentboybbz]

Maybe the amplifier is designed to use 13v when you put it into bass boost mode or max volume and it has two power modes that it goes through upon startup...as for it starting to work correctly... it's very common... you have taken it apart and moved all connectors around... wiggled every component.... so any bad connection is jo longer etc....thats just how it goes my brother 😅

[@eric67361]

Perhaps a pressure differential existed inside the hermetically sealed vessel that caused either the speaker or the endcap excursion to bottom-out, causing the sharp audible "clicks". The regularity of the "clicks" suggests it matches the frequency of that bass "note", or a harmonic of it? Opening capsule and reassembling equalized the pressure so that offset (pressure bias?) was removed? Just a guess...

[@ahmetkipkip]

I had exactly same issue that later i found out some cabling was touching the driver 🙃

[@freescape08]

Had a very similar issue with an intermittent garble (much louder on average though, often a pop) from a Sharkk ²O waterproof speaker, I pulled it apart, found no signs of ingress, ran out of time, boxed it and forgot it. A year later, I was poking around another speaker that I wanted to use as a sub for some cheap computer speakers, and was about to borrow the 3.5mm jack from the Sharkk, when I tested it and found no issues! It sounds perfect again, so I put it together and use it as a dry speaker now. I suspect it was invisible ingress and the habitual cleaning I did was enough.

[@MikeB_UK]

My money would be on something mechanical related that disassembly and/or slamming those speakers together has cured for now. If it comes back you'll have to be a bit more gentle taking it apart to analyse. My guess would be the speaker, but could even be an iffy solder joint somewhere..

[@jamesblackwell5141]

Perhaps its a physical problem? May be something loose reacting to a certain range of sound frequency. Also, when you disconnected the cabling and re-installed it to test, you may have corrected the issue. (Who knows how many times the thing has been dropped.)

[@harrysmbdgs]

I wonder if that voltage would increase with volume / power demand?

[@yta7777777]

I was thinking the same thing.

[@matthewlyonsakadeathtodogs5730]

Interesting detective work. that fart really ran amok when it's cause was discovered. 😆

[@TananBaboo]

“Charge your shoe phone”. Like it 😀

[@jasonbrindamour903]

A friend of mine works for a company that takes these from displays to replace them with newer stuff. I got one of these exact speakers. I used a soldering iron to stop the wheezing noises from where they used long wood screws to secure it to the stand and it sounds great. I use it as a loud speaker on my Uniden scanner. A good bit of Kit as you would say...LOL :)

[@knifedude97]

My bet is on a cracked solder joint on the amplifier chip.

[@user-th1fs3if6i]

Maybe Harold went swimming with pair of JBL speakers.

[@BrettCooper4702]

Could it be the caps fully discharged and the issue happens when they are not?

[@chrisridesbicycles]

Spontaneous self-healing. We were all there. You can bet it will come back of you screw it back together. 😂

[@SjoerdvanGestel]

I suspect that disconnecting the battery might have something to do with it. Wonder if this also would have gone away if the battery was fully emptied before recharging

[@imark7777777]

2:26 not that guy again talking about the solar roadways.. Aaaagain! lol.

[@Jonathannew-cp7fj]

Nice to see I'm not the only one who chases rabbit holes... Sorry I mean fart holes 😂

[@u9Nails]

Wow! Nice "fix". My first thought was some sort of file corruption in that sound. If it is even stored as a file. So, it ended up being a poor connection of some sort I suppose?!

[@deathlydarkness]

I bet it was dropped at some point and caused a voice coil on one of the drivers to go all askew. Your novel method of driver assimilation may have corrected the alignment of the coil.

[@markmuir7338]

I suspect it was a mechanical issue - a loose clip or debris in the driver or chamber. If it was something stuck to the driver, maybe that inadvertent percussive maintenance you did of smacking it with the back of the other driver did the trick and ejected the debris. A fix is a fix, even if unintentional or not understood.

[@yoeribolderdijk1257]

Watching this with my black JBL charge 3 (battery replaced)

[@optroncordian7863]

Some linear regulators require a minimum load to work, otherwise they overvolt the output. I put a resistor for that. Might be the same with some switching regulators ... I thought there might be an issue with a connector. They corrode with time.

[@ats89117]

That's a feature. The youngsters love it!

[@oskimac]

i was thinking from the beginning swap the speakers first... to see if the fault was there, probably one speaker coil was stuck or something.

[@leosbagoftricks3732]

Just shows-to-go-ya how frustrating and difficult it is to attempt repairs on these modern products- super complex and not designed to be fixed!

[@hvxcolors396]

JBL recently started to design its portable speakers with removable batteries, probably to comply with new EU directives. I'm wondering if they now also adapted their pcb assembly process for repairability (not having those blobs on the pcb for example). Btw, you dont mention it in your video but I guess you take a peek at the service manual. JBL always has instructions for the dismantling process. Great video as always!

[@echelonrank3927]

its good to see jbl improving their designs by means of govt mandate, cant wait for them to start placing speakers futrther apart for a better stereo sound also by govt mandate 🤩 how else?

[@PablloArruda]

I've already taken apart things that were broken and reassembled them and bazinga! Everything ok again.

[@joekenorer]

I start to get anxious when Dave goes a while without posting.

[@skeleton_craftGaming]

I think they literally do, I think the only people that make waterproof portable speakers like that is JBL themselves and RCA which is a subsidiary of JBL. Also, that speaker makes the exact same [input feedback] noises as my JBL headphones... They're slightly newer but random fart noises are going to be something I look out for...

[@kd1010163]

The 12v mode might be for a higher power mode when plugged in.

[@pault6533]

Mechanical resonance. Same reason your car dash rattles after a few years. Take your dash apart and put it back together, it might stop for a while. Unless you add some mitigation dampening, the problem is likely to come back.

[@evensgrey]

Here in Canada, "White Coat Syndrome" is a different, and very specific thing. Here, it refers to how one's blood pressure always reads high when the doctor takes it because of the stress of being at the doctor's office. We have a different references for the symptom not appearing when you have a malfunctioning device examined: We talk about taking your car to the mechanic and it won't make the noise. And if the abnormal noise disappeared, that qualifies as a repair.

[@tullgutten]

I had one with a bad usb input. After opening it up and seeing the junk it was on its way to the devil through my stove chimney. Not a single piece was found left in the ashes of speakers or wiring 😅😂

[@simonstergaard]

you probably just found some kind of fingerprinting, just like when those yellow spots was found on xerox copies to fingerprint which printer they were from...

[@julianpiper240]

22:50 the old singing frog syndrome!

[@MrRelevance02]

New one is 40 watts RMS shared with a 10 Watt tweeter

[@markdjdeenix6846]

so maybe the right hand speeker has a issue .desolder and swap them rebuild it and see if the fart moves 😭to the left

[@frogz]

i had 1 of these, pretty nice, i had to replace the battery when i got it

[@andrew_koala2974]

CORRECTED EDITED TEXT ; Dave is chasing fart noises in this JBL Charge 3 waterproof speaker. ; A tear-down - and power-up on the bench to find the mysterious fart noises. ; Will it be repaired - or will the fault do a Harold Holt ? Part 2: • JBLCharge3Repair-Part2

[@MatthewSuffidy]

I would check the net for mentions of the problem first. After that looking for physical damages inside could be attempted. Also it would be good to try to come up with some ideas on what is causing the problem, like bad caps, ribbon cable oxidation. I saw a problem in a earlier model where a smd transistor had one leg broken at the plastic leaving just a metal line.

[@KeritechElectronics]

Almost too easy to get inside! Suspicious.

[@AttilaTheHun333333]

If you take the driver out of the chamber it deals with different pressures since the passive drivers aren’t there anymore. I bet it’s the driver itself, not electrical.

[@steverhenius6734]

You let rhe ‘smoke’ out !

[@CanizaM]

The bluetooth device has connected, uh, successfully.

[@sammurphy450]

i know about these cases theyre molded as two halves and ultrsonicly welded together u can see the seem on the bottom

[@MrRelevance02]

Rubber Baby Buggy bumper 😂

[@desnick2316]

I would have hooked up the signal generator to the audio input and try low frequency sounds at different volumes to try to reproduce the issue if it is not happening on startup only.

[@EEVblog]

Yeah, could have swept that. Forgot it had an audio input.

[@desnick2316]

@@EEVblog There are also free phone apps you can use to generate the signal over bluetooth

[@wgeddis]

Farts in an envelope, whatever next? 😂

[@khx73]

7:57 "maybe they SUB those out" ... Ba-dum-tssssss

[@oskimac]

you know what they say about farts. better out than in. you opened it and let all the part vent.. and that fixed it. /s

[@borisdg]

I like Ultimate Ears (Logitech owns them) more than JBL.

[@tarasian666]

Probably the problem was in the speaker and you fixed it accidentally when the magnets collided 😂

[@stormchaser300]

Probably just a dry connection making fart noise.

[@nonsuch]

Had a friend fart into a microphone just to look at the waveform and determine sphincter open/sphincter closed moments. 😂

[@EEVblog]

For science.

[@James-wb1iq]

I've been watching this show for years, and I still can't say rubber baby buggy bumper

[@EEVblog]

Three times quickly.

[@jeanious2009]

Probably the speaker has debris in between the voice coil.

[@TheTsunamijuan]

this is why you have to be a big company to make money selling something designed like this. The mold for the core of this product has to be insanely expensive to make. I am guessing at a minimum its a 6 piece mold, probably more parts than that even. With that just being the mold for the core of the product.

[@Asdayasman]

My guess is a crack in the solder of one of those big caps, and you poking at it complaining about the potting has jostled it into a bit of a better connection. Disclaimer: I am an idiot.

[@riks7256]

I had a very similar model behaving in a similar way. It was random ferrous stuff magnetized to the speakers. but my bet is your case is a broken cone.(i'm wrong most probably)

[@imark7777777]

Speculation off camera you took the cow out of there or was it a pig?

[@jasonfournier]

Might be some weird interference that went away when you moved the wires around.

[@julianreverse]

Mine exploded on my desk two months ago ...

[@James_Bowie]

The fart noises are an optional extra.

[@Holycurative9610]

Seems your problem could be a poor battery pack, too many cycles of charge and discharge over a number of years.

[@andrew_koala2974]

📖 TPA3116D2 15.W 30.W 50.W Filter-Free Class-D Stereo Amplifier Family With AM --- Features --- • Supports Multiple Output Configurations - 2 50 W Into a BTL Load at 21 V (TPA3116D2) - 2 30 W Into a 8-0 BTL Load at 24 V (TPA311802) - 2 x 15 W Into a 8-0 BTL Load at 15 V (TPA3130D2) • Wide Voltage Range. 4.5 V to 26 V • Efficient Class-D Operation - >90% Power Efficiency Combined With Low Idle Loss Greatly Heat Sink Size - Advanced Modulation Schemes • Multiple Switching Frequencies - AM Avoidance - Master and Slave Synchronization - Up to 1 2.MHz Switching Frequency • Feedback Power •Stage Architecture With High PSRR Reduces PSU Requirements • Programmable Power Limit • Differential and Single-Ended Inputs • Stereo and Mono Mode With Single-Fitter Mono Configuration • Single Power Supply Reduces Count • Integrated Self-Protection Circuits Including Over-voltage - Under-voltage - Over-temperature - DC Detect - Short Circuit With Error Reporting • Thermally Enhanced Packages - DAD (32.Pin HTSSOP Pad up) - DAP (32.Pin HTSSOP Pad Down) • -40℃ to 85℃ Ambient Temperature Range

[@gnurgl5157]

I had one, started doing it within 3 weeks of having it. Speakers are trash in it.

[@RobTheSquire]

The Speaker says " I want to play a game "

[@joshhoman]

Perhaps it ate too many beans the night before.