What happens when your $200+ remote control suddenly stops working?
Well, if it's out of warranty, you don't have many options. This is what happened to me. I called Logitech customer support. Through troubleshooting on the phone, I found out the LEDs on my remote were bad. Many of these remotes have suddenly had the LEDs go bad. Many overnight - in my case, it was sitting in a drawer unused for several months and when I got it back out, they were caput. So I could either spend another $80+ on sending it back to Logitech, or look for a different solution. Inspired by some other users on the Logitech support forum, I followed their advice and replaced the LEDs myself. Below are my version of the instructions for doing this yourself.
Although these instructions specifically address the logitech 880 remote, the steps should be applicable to almost any remote control that needs its IR LED replaced.
First, make sure your LEDs are the problem.
- Charge your remote and ensure it's on before moving to the next step. Having a full battery is important to know if the LEDs are the problem and so that you can test it out once you're done with the repair!
- Get another remote that you know is working properly (can be the original tv remote, etc)
- Get a digital camera or a camcorder with an LCD viewing screen
- Point the working remote at your camcorder/camera and push one of the buttons.
- In your camera's lcd screen, you should see the remote's little LED light come on or flash very quickly. If it's hard to tell, try doing this in a dark room. Basically, this step is to make sure your camera or camcorder can see the IR (infrared) light coming from a working remote control's IR LED.
- Next, do step #5, but use your broken remote.
- If your camera sees the LEDs of your broken remote light up brightly, then those aren't the problem. This guide may not help you.
- If your camera does not see the LEDs light up, or they are very dim, you can follow the rest of the steps to try and fix your remote.
Now that we know the LEDs are the problem, we can get the parts we'll need:
If you're not near a Radio Shack, or prefer to shop online, you can try these options from Amazon. I personally have not tried these exact LED's, so if you do, please let me know how they work!
- Get two (2) infrared LED lamps. These are sold by a 3rd party on Amazon, but should cost only around $10 with shipping.
- Get a soldering iron if you don't have one. Here's a soldering kit that should do the job nicely. This is great for beginners because it includes instructions and a practice circuit board if you want to test your skills before trying them on your remote. It even includes an LED lamp (not the same type) so you'll get to practice nearly the exact steps you'll need to perform on your remote.
Alternatively, if you do have a RadioShack nearby, here's the items to look for:
- You'll need two IR LEDs. The ones of choice seem to be these LEDs from Radio Shack:
- Radio Shack IR LED, part #276-143
- They're around $2 each, and you need two. You'll see they're blue instead of clear, but this won't pose any problems:
- Picture of the specs on the back of the bag:
One Soldering iron and supplies. I used the following (all from Radio Shack):
- 15 Watt Soldering Iron (Model 64-2051). $9. You don't have to get this exact one, it's just the one I used. I chose the 15 watt because the tip it comes with seems smaller than some of the dual-wattage ones, it was cheap ($9), and with 15 watts, there's less chance to burn up the board by accident.
- Standard Rosin-Core Solder, .032" Diameter (64-017). $3. You don't need much, so I just bought the smallest tube. Getting the thinnest diameter is nice because there's less chance for a mess or accidentally getting extra solder on a part of the circuit board where you don't want it.
- Some small pliers, a clamp, small screwdriver or (optional) a soldering kit like one of this: 4-Piece Solder/Desoldering Tool set (62-2227), $5
Next, we need to disassemble the remote.
The remote's shell is held together by two small phillips head screws and a series of tabs.
- First remove the screws. Turn the remote so the underside is facing you.
- The first screw is just below the gray plastic LED cover.
- For the second, remove the battery cover (now is a good time to just remove the battery and set aside) and you'll see the second screw just below where the battery sits.
- Next you'll need a small screwdriver to pry the shell apart at each of the tabs. For each tab, gently push the screwdriver into the crevice between the top and bottom halves of the shell, push in slightly and twist the screwdriver a little bit. This should pop the tab out of it's seat. Do this for each of the tabs. The tab locations are pictured below:
- At the bottom part of the "1" and "3" buttons
- At the bottom tip of the "VOL -" and "CH -" buttons
- Between the "Mute" and "Previous" buttons and the blank space under the 4th LDC screen buttons
- Just below the "Activities" and "Help" buttons
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Next, take out the two screws holding the circuit board to the bottom half of the shell
- Now carefully lift off the circuit board and on the underside, you'll need to wiggle out a small cable:
- Here's a closeup shot
Soldering/De-soldering Tips
This is the part that requires a bit of patience and a fairly steady hand. Don't get too worried, this was my first time soldering, and it turned out ok. Just follow these tips:
- Heat up your soldering iron about 5-10 minutes. This ensures the tip is hot.
- If it's a brand new iron, you want to "tin" the tip. Basically just melt some solder onto it and wipe and excess off with a cloth. This also gives you a chance to practice seeing how fast the solder melts when you touch it with your iron.
- When de-soldering, you're basically just melting the existing solder enough to pull off the little metal lead from the circuit board. What you'll find is that this kind of happens all at once. You'll have the tip of the iron against the lead/solder for a couple seconds, then all of a sudden it melts.
- Keep solder off of any nearby contacts. If you let solder run between two different spots on the board, it'll probably short it out.
- You only need a tiny bit of solder for this job. That's why I recommended the smallest diameter solder earlier. This also help with point #4 above.
Removing the existing LEDs As you can see in the picture, the leads are bent, and each one is soldered separately. This is where a clamp or small pliers, and an extra set of hands comes in handy.
- Clamp or have another person hold the LED with a pair of pliers. You're going to have a soldering iron right next to the LED, so don't use bare hands!
- Try to just grab one lead at a time instead of the whole bulb. Since each lead is soldered separately, you'll desolder (melt) each one separately. As soon as the iron leaves the melted solder, it'll harden almost immediately.
- Ok, so pull gently with your clamp/pliers on the first lead.
- Put the tip of the iron on the top of the solder & lead. You'll know when it melts because you'll feel your iron sink a little bit, or the lead will "release".
- Make sure you pull the lead all the way off the solder so that it doesn't re-attach itself. If it does, no biggie, you'll just need to try again.
- Repeat for each lead of the two LEDs.
Prepare your new LEDs
- The Radio Shack LEDs need their leads bent and cut to match the original ones.
- Before you bend them, you have to determine the anode/cathode. I couldn't really tell by the leads themselves, so I matched up the shapes of the parts on the inside of the LED lens. See in the picture below, one lead is bigger on the inside of the lens. This is important so that you don't short out the LED and so that you bend the leads in the right direction.
- Use a tiny set of pliers to bend the leads. It's important to bend them as close to the same length as the originals. Otherwise, your new LEDs might stick out too far.
- Once you have the double bend done (like the red line in the picture in step 6 of de-soldering), you'll need to snip the leads to length. I started a bit long, then did a dry-fit (just hold them in place by hand. You're basically just making sure the lead won't stick out too far from the soldering points. If you cut them too short, you might not have enough to solder to.
- I didn't have pliers small enough, so I just bent mine around a tiny screwdriver.
OK, so the LEDs are ready, now is time to solder them on!
- This is the time when a friend or clamp is helpful to hold the LED in place while you hold the board and soldering iron.
- There's probably some solder still on the contact points of the circuit board. This will work to your advantage.
- Set the LED so that the leads touch the existing solder.
- Touch the tip of the iron to the lead and to the existing solder if possible. Don't push too hard or it may slip. Once you feel it melt, pull the iron away. Hopefully at this point the lead stuck to the board.
- Now there's probably not enough solder to hold it securely, so you'll want to add a bit more. The way to do this is to again touch the tip of the iron to the lead, but you'll also touch the new solder to the lead/tip of the iron. You just want to melt a small amount and it should flow over the lead to add a small bit on top of the lead.
- Repeat for each lead of the two new LEDs
- Again, be careful not to get the solder on any other parts, or touch the iron to any other part.
- Don't hold the iron on the lead for too long - you don't want the whole thing to be damaged by too much heat.
You're done! Time to test it out.
- Reconnect the wire from the bottom part of the shell to the circuit board
- Hold the battery in place and make sure the thing turns on and that you haven't shorted anything out :)!
- Take it to your tv and try pressing one of the buttons to see if it works.
- If no response, use the digital camera/camcorder method to see if there's any signal at all.
- If no signal at all, check all your leads again - hopefully one was just not soldered on right and you can fix it.
- If you still don't see anything, reassemble the whole thing and make sure the battery is charged up all the way. Try it out again.
- If it did work, go ahead and put everything back together
- At this point, I hope your remote is working again! Leave a comment with your success (or failure)!
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