Linn Kairn Err 2 "Don't Panic" !

Turns out Colin's got a few items of Linn gear ...

"CD works great, but the pre-amp keeps displaying an error.

Can you have a look?"

Yeah ... why not...

Connecting up power gives this familiar error message... Something's wrong with the memory checksum.









Undo the four screws underneath and slide off the cover....












Oh gawd ... Thankfully this particular flavor of "Brilliant" is quite reliable...











We need to remove the front panel. Two M3 sliver screws near the front on the bottom, and two countersunk screws, one on each side. Remove the ribbon connector.










Remove the screws holding the shield in place.











Disconnect the next ribbon cable and put the shield to one side.











... and there's the issue. The Varta mempac battery. Green and fluffy! A new one is duly fitted. The unit will still show an error for the first time it's switched on again. Once the memory is written to, all will be well :)

If there's any sign of electrolyte leaking on to the board, this must be thoroughly cleaned up with IPA.





The new battery arrives .... I have to say they've upgraded the capacity a bit!!!

110Ah .... I think not !










Ah ... 150mAh ... more like it!













And after powering up twice, all is well...












Plenty of in's and out's!

Linn Klout - one channel down.

More Linn !

This time it's a Klout (where do they think these names up?!)

As you can see from the photo, the left channel is just showing a red LED, and has no output.

First off remove the top...

We're going to need to remove the left hand amplifier board to inspect and repair...









... which takes a lot of disassembly!

Disconnect the transformer, and the remote switching board. Unscrew the single screw securing remote input socket from the baseplate (you can leave it attached to the rear panel). You can now remove the baseplate, remote switching board and transformer.

Unscrew the input socket for the board we want to remove from the rear panel, and remove the two long cap screws that secure the output sockets. The cap screws are located in between the heatsink fins. There are 6 more cap screws securing the output transistors heatsink block, and the board itself to the heatsink. Remove these. You can now wiggle the offending board from the chassis.


Cursory checks on the board show all 4 output transistors to have failed leaky. A sanity check with the good channel confirms this.

There are two pairs in parallel. Two 2SC3519's and two 2SC1386's. Thankfully these are still available at the time of writing, so are duly ordered up. Driver transistors Q20, Q21, Q22, Q30, Q31, Q27, Q26 and Q25 check OK

The ESR of the electrolytics are checked. There are six 100uF 63V caps, two 220uF 16V on each board. They read OK'ish, but not great, so are replaced. The main smoothing caps all read sub 0.01 Ohm, and are not replaced.


The small sub-board has two 68uF 16v caps on the top. They read almost open circuit! Replaced.

Once this channel is repaired, I'll re-cap the other as it won't be far behind failing!









The transistors are held to a heat spreader by these two nuts. Removal is fairly straight forward. Clean all the old, dried up heatsink compound form the spreader with some IPA.









Heatsink compound is cleaned off the heatsink, and a smear of new compound applied.











And the board squeezed back in place!












I reassemble the amp, just to test the freshly repaired channel before re-capping the good one.

It's good news.









All boxed up, tested and good for another 20 years :)

Linn Karik / Brilliant Power supply repair.

Colin called by en route to the traditional Wednesday night curry....

"Got a Linn CD player here that's not working. Can you have a look?"

Yeah ... why not.

It's a Linn Karik.

I give it some power and load a CD. It fails to read the table of contents.

It then goes dead...

A couple of power cycles, and I manage to get my disc back out...

Right, Removal of four screws underneath, and slide the cover off, praying I don't see the dreaded "Brilliant" power supply ....











Oh gawd...













These supplies were sold as an "upgrade" (because Linn ownership is all about upgrades, right?) It's a switched mode in a toroidial shaped metal box, designed to fit where the once perfectly adequate, perfectly reliable mains transformer lived...

First things first, remove the nut securing the supply to the chassis from below, and lift out the supply. Undo the mains input from the input PCB, and the output to the main chassis.

Now remove the three shiny outer screws from the enclosure. You'll notice the foam washer has been cut away here, to expose three nylon screws. This means that (unsurprisingly) someone's been here before!

Right, now a note of warning! This thing always seems to remain charged up. Be very careful not to touch the PCB's, until you've checked there's not a cap charged up to a few hundred volts waiting to bite!



You can now extract the PCB's from the enclosure. You'll need to work the strain relief grommets down their slots a little to get them free...

Instantly I noticed that familiar smell of capacitors that have been too warm :(






We now need to remove the three nylon screws from the base plate. If your foam washer is still intact you'll need to remove a bit to get to the screw heads.










You can now separate the boards. Those two large electrolytics on the right are the ones that tend to hold their charge! Discharge them before they bite!

Now change out all of the small electrolytic capacitors. All of them.

You'll need:
1 x 33uF 35v
1 x 100uF 35v
1 x 220uF 25v
1x 47uF 16v

Get quality 105 degree rated caps from a reputable supplier.

In about 25% of these units, you will find you can now reassemble and it'll work :)

This one was a little stubborn. After a bit of head-scratching, it was found that the UC3825DW controller IC has failed. A replacement restored operation... nearly...

The servo was struggling to lock, discs were prone to skipping. A sure sign of a tired optic assembly. Cleaning the lens made a marginal, but inadequate improvement. A new one (from a reputable supplier) was duly fitted, and had the player working well :)

"There's never one when you want one, then two come along at once" Linn Wakonda revisited.

Here's something I'd never thought I'd see again....

Remember the post about the rare Linn Wakonda LP12 power supply (here) ?

Well, John tracked me down (internet, eh?) It turns out he's got another one (and turns out to be a mate of a mate of a mate, twice removed...)

"Hi Andy

are you able to repair a linn lp12 Wonka pcb...its been working fine but has developed a problem where the motor stutters and jerks once its switched off

is this something your could help me with?"

Yeah ... Why not?

He's seen my blog post, and has done the cap change as I had, but still no joy.

Now this sounds very familiar to a failure on the Linn Axis (of evil) power supply where the speed selection logic goes screwy ...



It duly arrives from that bit of the UK right at the top.

Sure enough all the caps had been done (bar one), and a tidy job it was too :)

Despite the remaining cap being OK, I replaced it anyway.

Tracing the speed control logic through proved one of the counters had forgotten how to count. It's U15 on the board.



Replacement provided a cure...

Wrecked Akai M-8 conversion to mono-block amplifiers.

Edward phoned..

"Got this ruined Akai tape recorder. Do you think you can remove the amplfiers and turn it into to a couple of mono-blocks?"

Yeah, why not...

Edward turned up one complete tape deck , and another two amplifiers, which are almost identical, but badged "Roberts"

One of the Roberts amplifiers has apparently got a duff output transformer in it....

This is what an M8 is supposed to look like... a bit of a Japanese Ampex look-a-like.

I didn't take a photo of Edward's, but it looked similar to the above, except it appears to have been dragged across a car park...

I removed the deck ...
Levers are bent, spindles smashed :(











I also remove the amps, and set to work on a re-cap...

The Roberts unit has been severely got at. Someone's had a go at re-inventing the wheel. Parts are missing, it's been totally re-wired. The other has a damaged VU meter. It's decided to leave these.






Once the two other amps are re-capped, and permanently switched to "record" , enabling a line level input to be amplified, and output. It's only a single-ended EL84, so it's not expected to produce trouser-flapping levels of volume.

I've added a couple of warm white LED's behind the grills on the front panel to illuminate our valves a bit..








Being of Japanese extraction, the whole thing was designed to run from 100VAC, so export units had a built-in autotransformer. This is removed from the case.









My friend Julian fabricated some nice enclosures from MDF.

... which I painted the underside, inside and rear panel black.












... and set about adding some veneer ...

 ... and a test fit ....

 Smart!

 ... and adding many layers of finishing oil

 To achieve a shiny finish!














A phono socket and speaker binding posts are added to each unit ...

Finally assembled.













Next the auto transformer is mounted into a small ABS enclosure.

Which feeds the required 100V AC to the amplifiers via 2 IEC leads.










All tested and ready to return home ...

How's it sound?

I'm surprised. It's not loud by any stretch of the imagination, but it has some real bass control, which is unusual given the tiny output transformer. Use some efficient speakers and enjoy!