POD PRO X - Explosion inside... Help!

[derfen]

Dear Community,

 

i have been a happy and thankful owner of several Line6 products for around nearly 20 years now. But unfortunately some weeks ago an accident happened with my POD PRO X .  As my unit is far beyond any warranty time, I would be incredible thankful, if any of you guys could give me an idea what the name of the part is I need to replace (and if that would make any sense at all).

 

Here is what happened:

I had been playing and editing while the POD PRO X was connected to my computer for maybe twenty minutes or half an hour or so.

What happened is that for some reason the computer didnt switch from its internal interace to the interface of the POD - which it usually always did by itself! So it must have been that both have been active at the same time. Unfortunally I was so fixated on creating effects with my headfones on that I didnt realize that circumstance. Until suddenly a really loud bang did appear. Putting my headfones off I realized that my computer did turn bluescreen and the Pods small screen was black as well. It was not possible to turn the Pod on again - it stayed dead (happily the Computer did not suffer from that). The power system in my flat was working normally - so it had to be something between computer and Pod.

 

Opening the unit I saw that a small piece was actually burned and actually really exploded into pieces . There was a decent but unmistakingly burned smell as well.

 

So, if any of you guys could give me ANY idea what that piece could have been and how to further deal with the situation I would be really really really thankful. The POD has been bought newl around 2014. If thats helpful to you - I am living in Germany.

 

I did attach some fotos.

Please write if some you need further ones.

THANKS !

 

Kind regards,

- Alex

[hurghanico]

It seems to me (I'm not an electronics expert) that it is a component of the internal power supply that has blown, perhaps the power regulator.

Unfortunately, as the component has exploded, it is no longer possible to read its complete code number which would be useful for finding an equal spare part to replace.
The visible protection fuse may also have blown to protect the rest of the circuit, thus stopping the uncontrolled flow of electric current.

Maybe it would be easier to find the complete power supply board assembly (on the left of your first pic) to replace the broken one.

 

I don't think the cause of the breakup is what you assumed (2 audio interfaces active at the same time). I'm more inclined to believe it was a sudden current surge that caused an old, worn-out component to burn out.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

All about POD HD500/X

help and useful tips

[DolurumMafikala]

Hi,

 

I agree with @hurghanico that sourcing a replacement board would be most straightforward if you can find one. In your first picture a cable is obscuring the part number. If you can take another picture with the part number clear you could search on that to see if you can find a stockist. Given the age of these units that might be difficult, though.

 

I can see a few options:

 

1) Pay an authorized repair centre to fix it for you:

 

Here are a couple of Service Centres in Germany from the Line 6 website. Depending on where you live there might be other convenient options, for example in the Czech Republic:

 

https://beatsbytes.de/

https://www.pms-electronics.de/

 

2) Source a complete board yourself from someone who has one in stock, using the part number.

 

3) Buy a used unit from ebay etc. You might even be able to find one that has a different fault and use it as a donor for the power board

 

4) Find a general board repair specialist (not Line 6 authorized) and send the board to them. It is a power board, not anything particularly specialized to digital audio processing, so a good board repair shop may be able to fault-find and replace the needed components.

 

5) Attempt a component-level repair yourself. You would have to work out what the underlying fault is and source equivalent components. Not impossible, but time consuming and potentially-dangerous if you don't know where to start.