Neither Right Speaker Nor Right Headphone Outputting Sound!

[Borax]

Howdy, Pandora forums! I've got a bit of a problem, here.


A few days ago I'd noticed that my Pandora was no longer outputting sound to my right headphone while walking about campus and using Deadbeef. Nowadays I mainly output all sound to headphones, and thought my pair was simply failing. After buying a second pair, I noticed it, too, had the same problem, no sound coming to the right ear. Curious, I unplugged it and turned up the volume, and was greeted again with sound coming only from the left speaker!


After doing a quick search on the forum, I'd come across others who had the same problem with speaker output, but there was no issue when using headphones/external speakers, which is apparently some sort of LCD cable problem. In this case, I'm not sure what the problem with my unit is... Could it be the headphone jack failing in tandem with an LCD cable issue? A software hiccup that I may have inadvertently caused? Should I try flashing my unit? Or is this something I would need to RMA?


Any help or insight to this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[EvilDragon]

I've had a few ones where the volume wheel wasn't properly soldered by CC.


Maybe it's the same here and the contact came off.

 

[Halcyon]

Bummer man, sorry to hear that! I guess the good news is your not going deaf in one ear! I think dead beaf is the best audio player on the Pandora, it is simple and just seems to work. I think what ED is saying is probably right, it could be a weak solder point or something and might be super easy to fix on your own.


Good luck!!

 

[Borax]

Thanks for the prompt replies, ED and Halcyon!


If it's something as simple as a quick solder, then of course I don't want to bother ED and keep him away from more important work :B I've yet to open up my unit, but I do have access to basic soldering equipment at one of the university's facilities. Unfortunately, my only experience with fiddling with soldering was with a Saturn modchip back in the day, so I'm not exactly sure where I should be looking to fix this poor Pandora! I'll take a look at some of the PCB photos floating around, and if the problem is obvious from the look of my board, things should turn out fine (I do have a few savvy ECE majors at hand to make sure the job's done right :]). If not, would it be prudent for me to take a snapshot of my board, to see if one of you strapping gents can point out the weak link?


Thanks again for all your time, I know I'm not a very vocal user, but it's so nice to know that the community is so willing and enthusiastic to help out! I'll do my best to take time out to browse and chat here more often, the OP community is such a lovely one now that the Pandora has landed and scared the trolls away

 

[Halcyon]

Borax,


I am much more of a hardware guy then software for sure but I don't have a schematic for this device so I'm not 100% sure but I opened mine up this morning for you so you could see what mine looks like. Sorry the picture is a bit crappy but I have 5 leads comming off the top of the volume wheel. I also have what I'm almost certain are resistors above the left 2 (I don't have a multimeter at the house only at work could be capacitors but i don't think so) What I would do is give a visual inspection of the connection points above the wheel and also ohm out the resistors to make sure they are not shorted out. If you need help with the soldering make sure you get it but, my recommendation would be about 380C and just have a tiny bit of solder on the tip of the iron and press it down making sure to wet the solder all ready there on the board and the connection coming off the wheel. Using flux is always good if you have some. Let me know if you open yours up and what you see. If you make some measurements let me know, I can always bring my meter home from the lab and confirm or deny your measurements.


Good luck!!


Ed, is there anyway we can get a schematic of this Pandora's box If I'm totally out to lunch please step in and set us right. I really do like electronics but am still learning a lot so I don't want to give misleading information to anyone on this forum.

 

[EvilDragon]

The top left on the volume wheel on the picture should be the one you need to check.