There's a storm outside
- Kaguya playing video games in her room
- Kaguya: This storm is getting a little intense......
- A USER HAS LEFT YOUR CHANNEL
Situation
- It seems that in the middle of the storm Ms Kaguya heard a loud pop come from the modem beside her and smelt the funny smoke.
- After this event the Modem/Router supplied by our ISP (Sagemcom F@st3864V3) was unable to achieve a vDSL sync, infact it seems that it couldn't detect the line at all...
- The linesman that was investigating the case tested the line and gave the ok that the line was intact and working, indicating the fault was within the router (Go figure)
- Given the age of the device, warranty was not an issue in the slightest. May the fun begin.
Bang goes the Cap
After wrestling with the plastic shell, i finally opened up the device to inspect its exposed guts. An interesting little device with a surprising FIVE internal antennas... Very interesting. Naturally given the background of the situation my eye glared over the board, focusing on the vDSL line in and its filter circuit and low and behold! A ceramic capacitor, it heads blown clean off! And what's this... 2 kV rating! Very interesting indeed... I can only assume a surge may have blown this capacitor and I am tempted to replace the component and see what happens... But given the likelihood other components may have taken the >2kV spike up and downstream of the capacitor i cant say for certain. I would think this is a filter capacitor rather than a surge protection filter but 2kV seems overkill....
This article from Electronic design details some of the Electrostatic Dischar or surge protection, the do detail high voltage capacitors as a common mode protection of the vDSL driver transformer
I might try ordering some 2kV capacitors, but given modem routers around here a disposable item that i can probably hunt down for the low price of like 40 dollars I'm not to bothered... I will update this with my findings!
