Viewstation FX Power Connector Issues

[F16Viper68]

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with repairing the power connectors on the Polycom ViewStation FX series? We have 20+ units and over the past year have noticed the power connectors are wearing out. Probably due in no small part to the number of times we move them room to room. Some of them are out of warranty and I'd hate to pay the $700.00+ to Polycom just have a $2.00 part swapped out. I was curious to see if anyone else has experienced this issue and how they resolved it. Thanks.

[ceg6vtc]

Right you are, Viper. The problem lies in the repeated disconnect/reconnect of the power cable. We have no less than 15 FX's in my AO (as well as a myriad of other names) and close to 25% have gone down at one time or another because of this issue. If your products are under warranty or you have a service agrrement, I would fully suggest NOT repairing this yourself. Anyone with a little experience could do it (and I have a little being school trained in MicroMin repair) but doing so will void your warranty/agreement.
Our method of resolving is to RMA the gear whether it's under warranty or not. If you're not concerned with voiding the warranty/agreement it shouldn't be too difficult; it's usually just broken solder joints from what I've seen.

[F16Viper68]

The soldering issue doesn't bother me since I too attended MicroMiniature soldering classes at Robins AFB, GA. I have a few of these out of warranty cameras that are rebooting. I popped open one the other day looking to see if the solder joints had indeed broken lose but they were solid. I'm beginning to think the actual sockets are wearing out. I’m wondering if the actual power connectors are commercially available?

[smoody]

F16Viper68,

In addition to the power connector issue I've also experienced flaky on/off power switches on FX's & EX's.

We leave our codecs on 24/7 and I've seen when you power the unit off via the power switch, quite a few of them won't reboot properly. I've notified Polycom several times about this issue but I wouldn't be surprised if they never contacted the manufacturer in Thailand about the sub standard hardware and manufacturing techniques (I've never received any real feedback from Polycom about this).

We have several of the original VS series that are still in use but I've had to swap out probably at least half of FX's & EX's due to various hardware related problems (that's why I ALWAYS buy the 3 yr extended warranty and encourage everyone else to do so - has anyone else had these consistant problems with other manufactures?). Personally whenever I have to power a unit off I always pull the AC cord from the power supply and never power off via the switch (even on our new VSX series, even though they're under warranty I don't want the uneeded hassle of having to return the unit, etc...).

[Johnyik]

Finally, a chance to contribute! I have "repaired" around 30 VS/FX including our own with this (usually) intermittent problem. Symptoms include everything from self-rebooting to status LED orange (in a call) when in standby. I also assumed poor connections on main PCB but have yet to find this as the cause. Found problem to be simply poor connections on male & fm din connectors at power supply and codec. Easily repaired using DeOxit by Caig Labs CA. Available from MCM electronics. Hope you're still "listening", will save you a lot of coin.

Johnyik