I used to repair these consoles back in the day. Here's the real reason for those cords. The issue was the IEC 8 power input jack on early revisions of the internal power supply had no mechanical support other than the solder joints. Every time you connected the power cord or moved the console the slight flexing of the connector stressed the joints. Eventually they would crack and begin to arc which can potentially cause a fire. Later power supply revisions had 2 rivets that went right through the connector and through the PCB which took the mechanical stress off the solder joints.
Yeah that power inlet hasn't seen enough abuse on the real bad ones those puny tabs were broken clean off. They're just an assembly aid to hold the inlet on before soldering. The manufacturer of the jack clearly intended for it to be mechanically bolted to the case which is why they provided the mounting holes on the front. Not the parts fault just an improper application.
@@Bushougoma I was about to mention the IEC socket thing, but I knew somebody would already. hehe I would normally say that this is one of the big safety advantages of the UK mains plug having a fuse. But, I seem to remember Microsoft issuing these "cables" to the UK as well? So I always assumed the device was actually detecting the arcing on the bad solder joints, and not just a simple overcurrent protection. Still over-engineered, but hey, as Dave said, it was better to send that out to customers rather than recalling millions of consoles. Whoever thought it was a good idea to not use a mains socket without proper mechanical support hopefully got sacked. lol
Would the Earth leakage chip get activated just because the IEC socket was arcing every once in a while? I know household RCDs can sometimes be a tad oversensitive, but shouldn't normally trip unless there's a current imbalance between the Live and Neutral? Or, perhaps the Y-Class caps between the hot side of the PSU and the cold side could cause an RCD to trip if the arcing is bad enough? (because the Xbox would generally be hooked up to a TV / AV receiver / cable box etc., where it can have a return path to Earth.) I've often wondered about the different current paths through Y-Class caps in a typical SMPS, especially why some of them can give you a surprising "zap" when plugging cables in.
*UPDATE* Apparently this is an "Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter" (AFCI) that continually monitors the current for the presence of arcs caused by such an intermittently faulty power connection. Hence the complexity and micro that would be using the ADC to continually monitor the current. It's not just a simple 610mA electronic fuse, although it almost certainly has that function too, hence the label. And apparently these are now a legal requirement in US outlets since 2014? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc-fault_circuit_interrupter
Arc fault interruptors are required on branch circuits for bedrooms in the US. As far as I know there's no requirement for them elsewhere. The stupid things can be a pain in the ass. They seem to trip on all manner of noisy circuits, such as brushed universal motors.
@@PaulSteMarie They shouldn't according to the wiki. They should be able to detect between the arcing in switches or brushed motors and a frayed wire. But this is wiki
I worked as a Tier 3 Xbox Live support tech at the time. ALL calls that came in about consoles letting the magic smoke out were immediately transferred to a queue manned by a select team, 100% recorded, with Microsoft attorneys also on the line. They played it cool for the public, but internally it was a 24/7 full blown code red for a couple of months.
Not surprising. One of my friend's MacBookPro charger overheated then let out the magic smoke and when he called AppleCare for a replacement they did pretty much the same thing. Transferred him to tier 3, asked a ton of questions, and of course overnighted him a replacement with an overnight return label presumably so they could autopsy it.
the "electronic fuse" is an AFCI. It's complicated because it's not just looking for overcurrent or ground fault, it's looking for waveforms that indicate (or suggest) arcing. The XBOX fault itself was that the solder connections on the power input connector would fail, then you'd have lots of arc'ing and sparking -- and heat -- and eventually a fire.
Looks like they took an existing in line AFCI, and then added the extra functionality to it with a new PCB for the main board and the daughter board. Transformer because the original AFCI power supply is a plain resistor supply, and they needed 50mA or more of power to drive leds and the extra circuitry. Probably originally made by one of the US suppliers like Leviton, who are big into the AFCI market, and reusing existing inline cases, relay blocks, current transformers and the mouldings for the existing line, as that already had UL test results, so making the new design a lot faster to get through regulatory approval. Running the coil before the bridge rectifier was simply to get extra filtering on the incoming mains supply, using the existing choke of the coil instead of adding a resistor, the coil disconnects it's own power once it has tripped. The MOV moving to the one side was probably space, and the link wire has a much higher short circuit breaking capacity than any track you could lay in there, plus you are doing a lot of hand soldering and fiddly assembly, so one extra wire is not much of an extra cost. The added current trip simply does a self test, by injecting an imbalance of current into the test coil, so nothing extra added to the AFCI circuit itself aside from a much smaller trip point from overcurrent. There probably is a fixed highish current setpoint, and the micro is there to trigger it at lower points depending on mains voltage programmed into it, plus shortening the delay built in for inrush current. Also there to drive a LED to show program running.
I used to mod as well as repair these suckers since their inception. The reason for the fire was due to the power socket connector solder joints cracking due to heat. Due to this, the Metal-oxide Varistor had to cope with the spikes that were generated due to the intermittent contacts of the solder joints. Over time, this changed the molecular structure of the varistor due to heating and cooling and eventually it caused the varistor to short-circuit. Its the varistor that either burned out with heaps of the magic smoke, or it actually caught fire. Replacing this component with an equivalent type, though it was extremely important to have heat-shrink slung around it to prevent another flame out in the future. Anyone with spike and surge protection power boards etc. within an area that their mains voltage being very noisy, it would be highly recommended they replace the varistor every few years to ensure future reliability. For Micro$oft to replace the mains cable would have saved them heaps of money, instead of recalling all the consoles, as the re-settable fuse in the new cord would trip every time the above faulty solder joints didn't make a good contact. Eventually the solder joints would get so bad, that the owner would have to take the unit to get serviced. Even if the varistor failed with this fused cord, it would have prevented any magic smoke or potential fire. The solder joints rarely deteriorated until well after the warranty period, so it only cost Micro$oft those cords. Nice strategy on their part to save money, and to not be culpable of any fires. This saved some face for Bill Gate$. Other problems with the X-Box, was a leaking memory backup capacitor to which can be replaced with a 10 Farad super capacitor from the likes of Jaycar Electronics. But the cap would have to be mounted horizontally to avoid space limitations with the DVD ROM drive. The area around the leaky cap MUST be cleaned, as it usually corrodes the tracks below it. Another problem with these consoles, though it really only affected the earlier versions, was intermittent turn-on and it would also turn itself on when the mains plug was connected. It was found that some corrosive element that contaminated certain various copper traces from the factory eventually eroded them to the point that the tracks became resistive and no longer functioned as it should. There is a fix, but if you need it, just search for it on Google. I wrote that tutorial long ago under one of my alias, "Darkmatter". I hope the above clarifies things. Regards, Dero
Awesome to see you do a retro console please do more! Another huge problem with the first rev was a faulty clock capacitor that blows inside the console
I always wanted to be an electronic engineer and unfortunately i been to a crappy university that didn't teach me much, but spending time on your channel taught me alot actually, thank you Dave.
Great topic! There may have been very few cases of smoke or fire, but AC jack solder joint failures were quite common on the early revs of the Xbox. I repaired several of them in the mid-2000s, and all of them had some level of degradation to the joints. At least one of them made audible arcing noises when the power cord was wiggled just a little bit. Reflowing the joints with a nice hot iron took care of the problem. The one I kept still works great, and I never heard about any further trouble with the others. (I do keep it unplugged when not in use, though.) The replacement cords I saw in the US were labeled as “Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters”. A fuse wasn’t a sufficient solution; I guess the arcing didn’t result in excessive current usage, it was just that the current wasn’t going where it was intended. The annoying thing about it is that while the replacement cords make it safe and cover Microsoft’s butt, they don’t prevent the power supply from being damaged. There can still be enough arcing to fry it. PSA FOR ALL ORIGINAL XBOX OWNERS: if you haven’t already removed the “supercap” that keeps the time when power is unplugged, DO IT NOW. It *will* cause irreparable damage if left in place.
The current sensing transformers reminded me of the large current sensing transformers that I saw at an abandoned US military missile tracking radar facility in the Bahamas. They were used in the power room and connected to the ammeters.
the thing about designing is what is obvious to some, is not even conceivable to those doing the design work. A designer puts his/her best work forward (with in budget constraints) and could not imagine anyone 'abusing' their product. example who in his right mind pull on a power cord ( those who can not find a handle to pull on perhaps) , two different viewpoints one form those qualified to design and users. both are right but the expectations are different. this is visible in all human built stuff and explains why stuff get better with each iteration. Stuff the designer could not imagine is pointed out to them, budgets expands quality improves and in hind site all the errors in the design of the original are obvious.... simples
At 21:00 when talking about the solenoid drive circuit - the reason for moving the coil over to the rectifier is so that when it trips you can reset it. The chip has a latching function. Removing power prevents the latch from preventing you from resetting the supply without first unplugging from the wall.
Got to thinking about this, and I haven't watched the entire video yet, but the current balance detection is like a GFI breaker. I am thinking this is to prevent a fault caused by someone connection the console to a TV that had a hot chassis where the isolation on the TV was compromised. I remember back in my servicing days I would see people bring in TVs that they had modified them self to put things like headphone plugs on them, of got forbid tap in external video inputs to a TV that just had a tuner and was a hot chassis. If something in the TV isolation were to fail and the AV input became hot, that would create a serious safety risk, especially if someone is holding a controller in their hand and the cord was worn exposing a conductor.
many moons ago when I used to mod xboxes by the dozen and was really active on xbox-scene we noticed a lot of the early xboxes having issues where they would no longer power up. People started to see that the solder was breaking on the solder joint for the main power leads. The fix was to just reflow the solder but of course MSFT started sending out replacement power cables with the reset switches on them. At one point I probably had 50 of them because of all the dead xboxes I had laying around. When someone would want their xbox modded I would reflow and add solder to that join and give them one of the upgraded power cables. Those were good times and this video took me back to when console modding was easy and a blast to do.
My friends power supply arced and I saw it first hand. It was in a dark room and I saw a blueish flash in the venting slots that cast light out onto the carpet the unit was sitting on. There was also a burnt electronic smell and small pop that accompanied the flash. I brought it to his attention and we shut it down immediately. Then we decided to see if we could fix it. We could replicate the arcing by wiggling the power cord. After taking it apart we found those solder joints had broken. His solution was to reflow the joints and be careful when inserting the plug. It was very soon after that the cable was released and we both sent off for one each. My Xbox never had this problem.
I'm always surprised to see commercial products have power cord plug-ins directly on the board. Surely having a chassi-mounted plug with wires going to the board would not cost much, and be infinitely more reliable. But what do I know.
I had no idea that was what the replacement plug was. I wish I had one, though my recollection was you had to have the right revision console to get it.
It was only the first generation with the revision 1.0-1.1 it was a loose power socket (solder points will create a dry joint and it will start to arch), they fixed it in later revisions Edit: we grey imported a thousand into South Africa.
I still use mine from time to time. Completely obsessed with Burnout revenge. I'm sure you already know this but remove the clock capacitor before it throws up all over the board and ruins the console.
@@EEVblog Super cap. It sits near the front of the unit under the DVD drive. Should have three huge-ass bulk capacitors next to it. Edit: Apparently only some models had three bulk caps. Some only had one. There's a ton of info on the net about the darn thing.
i have the xbox with the power supply shown at the end. i had to re-solder the power jack as mine cracked the joints and started arcing. luckily no major damage was done.
Nice touch using the solenoid to cut all power to the electronics to protect it in the event of an arc. Your $400 xbox is totally nuked, but your $75 power cable lives to see another day!
I used to mod the OG Xbox here in Canada, my personal unit had the loose power jack, it finally arced and smoked a bit in 2013. It did trip my surge protector saving the unit for me! I was able to re-solder the joints and put in a couple screws for strain relief! It's been running fine ever since.
Not sure if you saw this register article, it identified the original power supply problem. It has links too. www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/19/xbox_recall_nofix/
I've seen similar used of bridge rectifier for the solenoid to allow a SCR (or even BJT) to switch on the AC coil for both cycle, instead of only one without it.
At 12:30 you ask why two boards. There are isolation rules. You just can't put all that low voltage stuff on the main board in the middle of the 240V circuitry.
This was heckin interesting. I have never seen one of these in America. Would be interested to see a rundown of the xbox power supply, and likely point of failures as the consoles age. Is it a standard ATX power supply electrically?
In every single one of the xbox originals I have opened, the aerogel supercap keeping the clock circuit powered has failed and leaked, with a slimey corroded board as a result. Some boards are beyond repair, and some did clean up and worked after some component replacements. First signs of failure are a reset clock, difficulties powering it on, and occasional spontaneous self power ups when the cruddy mess is really bad.
All the super high end surge absorbers use that thermal fuse thermally bonded to the MOV. Those suckers can let go violently. So it doubles as a series fuse with the MOV in addition to thermally opening in the event the MOV has suffered internal damage. MOVs can go into thermal runaway. A big fat juicy one like that can do a lot of damage when it has a tantrum.
Microsoft: sure mate, here's a combination RCD/AFCI/MCB device for your xbox, on the house. No wookas. Weller: nahhhhhhhh, bit of smoke and fire never hurt anyone, it'll be fine mate. Beautifully timed comparison between the companies attitudes, great stuff. Thanks Dave 👍👌
My guess at the uncommon wiring of the solenoid is to allow for measuring the current going through the solenoid (that's why the white lead goes through the current tranformer) when you press the Test button, showing either green flashes or red ones on the led, and it also protects from most common thyristor failures. There's no chance of a fault not being detected by the Test procedure.
I think i brought about 2 of these, and i have never heard of this before. I used xbox for years using xbmc, as my media player mainly. Excellent it was. Never ever heard of this.
I knew a guy in highschool who had an Xbox that actually got the problem, what he described was the solder between the plug's pins and the board had somehow melted down and was just arcing.
I wouldn’t call this “the 2005 XBOX” when XBOX 360 launched in 2005. It’s the 2001 XBOX. Yes, it was king of the hill for most of 2005, but that was after this issue was fixed. The XBOX you brought home from the store in 2005 should not have the issue that prompted the power cable replacement.
@@EEVblog I’m confused. By Jan 2014 the original XBOX had been out of production almost a decade. Maybe it wasn’t a full-on recall yet but they started making XBOX consoles with the safer RCD power cables on October 23rd, 2003… which is less than two years after it launched in November of 2001. It had two more Christmases ahead of it before being replaced by the XBOX 360 meaning half of it’s primary retail life was yet to come at that point. That’s why so many used XBOX consoles have the newer/replacement type power cord.
I was thinking the same thing. The obvious "generic Chinese" industrial design of the case that didn't fit the XBox styling is a bit of a giveaway. I doubt this was designed for Microsoft.
Dave please make a video about op amp stabilty and phase margin, good practices and how to avoid oscillations ... I've had quite a bit of issue with op amps to drive mosfets / BJTs for different applications. I usually find your educational videos to be the best out of the bunch, thanks!
a Microsoft product not working properly is nothing to get excited about, happens a lot, but a Microsoft product burning someone's house down is something else. Engineers can do nice work when they don't have to worry about production costs.
I made with my friend some easy GSM device. Company sold it, installed something like 500 pcs. After short time, devices stopped working. It was easy to notice by looking on them - red LED was on. We called it "RED LED OF DEATH". It was because friend didn't change mode from developing to production in developer studio and every time it should restart it just froze :D.
Funny thing, I got a cheap (80 euro) "2 in 1 rework station" (hot air + soldering iron), and the first thing I noticed when taking it out of the box: a nice round fuse holder in the back of the device.
I remember getting the cord replaced on mine. A friend got the in-line circuit breaker like in this video, whilst all I got was a new figure 8 cable. The only thing I could think of was that my Xbox was a later model with a different PSU, but I still thought it was weird that they sent me a cable. Upon closer inspection of the original figure 8 cable I got with the Xbox, the figure 8 plug end was marked that it was only rated for 120V with an Australian 240V plug on the other end.
I don't recall ever seeing one of these replacement cords, or even hearing about it. However the xbox has a special place in my heart, because it was the first time I soldered anything, by way of installing mod chips :) Another nifty mod you can do to these is get an IDE to SATA adapter so you can install a modern hard drive, it allows for near instant loading of games from HDD and higher capacity. The OG Xbox was great!
At the start of 2018 Microsoft had a recall on the Dumbass Little™ 5cm power cord that goes from the outlet to the power block because it had no strain relief. Kind of weird that they screwed up again, but at least the replacement plug couldn't have cost nearly as much. Thanks for the trip down memory lane and the in-depth look at what it takes to make up for bad soldering sometimes.
In 2018? Wow, back a few years ago we got a box of ac leads in for surface computers that was because of the same damn thing!, no strain relief on this tiny foot long cable!
I worked for an "Electronics Boutique" type repair facility in Australia repairing PS2 and XBOX consoles back in the day. Apart from RROD reflow issues and generally mechanical CD drive issues the SM power supplies were a massive failure mode. Can't remember specifics but the later revision supplies were far better and I generally put them in the consoles when servicing as the early boards were notoriously bad for shitting the bed unexpectedly.
I don't think this was specifically designed for the XBOX. I have seen this almost exact PCB on a water resistant power cord extension, since I open everything I can get my hands on (and put together afterwards). I think they adopted an already existing design to their needs.
I felt the same thing when I saw this design in an old wire schematics of ( if I remember well) a secret light activated light bulb. I firstly didn't understand why they shorting the bridge rectifier. I think this is before the tryac becomed cheap enough for mass production. And they did that so they can use a transistor or a tyristor to switch an ac load.
I've had my original Xbox for about 15 years and haven't had any issue with the power supply in it. The only problems I've had with it was the leaky clock capacitor i took out and replaced, fixed the coroded coppertraces that preveted it from being bootable on the power button, and replaced the rubber belt that makes the dvd player to open it's door. I had it running for about 6 hours straigt not long ago, playing some old games and watching dvds and it didn't complain at all. I've done some modifications on it over the past years and now have my whole game library stored in it's internal SSD harddrive i installed about a year ago, and it is works like a charm. I'm rellay happy with it.
Could the micro controller be set up as sort of a time delay? Such a thing where it will allow some current draw for a bit but then it can decide to cut it after a certain amount of time, then can reset if the extra load goes away? To me, depending on what the console is doing, working hard for a fully complex game and graphics, or something more easy like Tetris, different current loads? Time delay for the high draw periods but if it draws for to long, it will cut it? Maybe talking out my but. I do lots of high current 13.8 volt stuff, hf radios, I more concerned about a good crowbar/clamp circuit in it.
Isn't that just a plain Ground Fault current interruptor (GFCI) presumably just to reduce the risk of getting shock while box release the magic smoke and some kid grabs it with hands etc..
@@EEVblog An electronic fuse! Jeez... + GFCI bonus gimmick. It almost looks like Microsoft purposely overengineered it just to hide that shameful fact of mis-spec internal fuse. They probably wished it was something more complex, than just tiny fuse.
6:00 people really don't understand how little Microsoft understood about hardware design back in the Xbox days, I mean people pretty much opened up the console and hacked it immediately. Microsoft really had no clue what they were doing. If you want to keep and old running Xbox you pretty much need to remove some capacitors from the board (as they always die and kill something else), and if you want to keep an Xbox 360 original running? Well you can't, it'll die.
I used to repair these consoles back in the day. Here's the real reason for those cords.
The issue was the IEC 8 power input jack on early revisions of the internal power supply had no mechanical support other than the solder joints. Every time you connected the power cord or moved the console the slight flexing of the connector stressed the joints. Eventually they would crack and begin to arc which can potentially cause a fire.
Later power supply revisions had 2 rivets that went right through the connector and through the PCB which took the mechanical stress off the solder joints.
Yep, showed that in the video.
Yeah that power inlet hasn't seen enough abuse on the real bad ones those puny tabs were broken clean off.
They're just an assembly aid to hold the inlet on before soldering. The manufacturer of the jack clearly intended for it to be mechanically bolted to the case which is why they provided the mounting holes on the front. Not the parts fault just an improper application.
@@Bushougoma
I was about to mention the IEC socket thing, but I knew somebody would already. hehe
I would normally say that this is one of the big safety advantages of the UK mains plug having a fuse.
But, I seem to remember Microsoft issuing these "cables" to the UK as well?
So I always assumed the device was actually detecting the arcing on the bad solder joints, and not just a simple overcurrent protection.
Still over-engineered, but hey, as Dave said, it was better to send that out to customers rather than recalling millions of consoles.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to not use a mains socket without proper mechanical support hopefully got sacked. lol
Would the Earth leakage chip get activated just because the IEC socket was arcing every once in a while?
I know household RCDs can sometimes be a tad oversensitive, but shouldn't normally trip unless there's a current imbalance between the Live and Neutral?
Or, perhaps the Y-Class caps between the hot side of the PSU and the cold side could cause an RCD to trip if the arcing is bad enough?
(because the Xbox would generally be hooked up to a TV / AV receiver / cable box etc., where it can have a return path to Earth.)
I've often wondered about the different current paths through Y-Class caps in a typical SMPS, especially why some of them can give you a surprising "zap" when plugging cables in.
ElectronAsh - In theory, no, they shouldn't trip unless the current gets diverted to earth. IN practice, some designs can be a bit touchy.
*UPDATE*
Apparently this is an "Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter" (AFCI) that continually monitors the current for the presence of arcs caused by such an intermittently faulty power connection. Hence the complexity and micro that would be using the ADC to continually monitor the current. It's not just a simple 610mA electronic fuse, although it almost certainly has that function too, hence the label.
And apparently these are now a legal requirement in US outlets since 2014?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc-fault_circuit_interrupter
Hey not fair Dave post this 3mins after I said that!
nice stab at Weller fuses, lol.
That name reminds me of the device the US calls "Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter"
Arc fault interruptors are required on branch circuits for bedrooms in the US. As far as I know there's no requirement for them elsewhere.
The stupid things can be a pain in the ass. They seem to trip on all manner of noisy circuits, such as brushed universal motors.
@@PaulSteMarie They shouldn't according to the wiki.
They should be able to detect between the arcing in switches or brushed motors and a frayed wire.
But this is wiki
I worked as a Tier 3 Xbox Live support tech at the time. ALL calls that came in about consoles letting the magic smoke out were immediately transferred to a queue manned by a select team, 100% recorded, with Microsoft attorneys also on the line. They played it cool for the public, but internally it was a 24/7 full blown code red for a couple of months.
I can imagine!, thanks for sharing.
Not surprising. One of my friend's MacBookPro charger overheated then let out the magic smoke and when he called AppleCare for a replacement they did pretty much the same thing. Transferred him to tier 3, asked a ton of questions, and of course overnighted him a replacement with an overnight return label presumably so they could autopsy it.
I have a Alienware Cord I just hot snotted it works good still
Great info!
@@LtKernelPanic Well - for apple that is normal - they are used to their products being faulty the last 10 years.
the "electronic fuse" is an AFCI. It's complicated because it's not just looking for overcurrent or ground fault, it's looking for waveforms that indicate (or suggest) arcing.
The XBOX fault itself was that the solder connections on the power input connector would fail, then you'd have lots of arc'ing and sparking -- and heat -- and eventually a fire.
I could be doing something like that as well.
Or mowing lawns.
Looks like they took an existing in line AFCI, and then added the extra functionality to it with a new PCB for the main board and the daughter board. Transformer because the original AFCI power supply is a plain resistor supply, and they needed 50mA or more of power to drive leds and the extra circuitry. Probably originally made by one of the US suppliers like Leviton, who are big into the AFCI market, and reusing existing inline cases, relay blocks, current transformers and the mouldings for the existing line, as that already had UL test results, so making the new design a lot faster to get through regulatory approval. Running the coil before the bridge rectifier was simply to get extra filtering on the incoming mains supply, using the existing choke of the coil instead of adding a resistor, the coil disconnects it's own power once it has tripped. The MOV moving to the one side was probably space, and the link wire has a much higher short circuit breaking capacity than any track you could lay in there, plus you are doing a lot of hand soldering and fiddly assembly, so one extra wire is not much of an extra cost.
The added current trip simply does a self test, by injecting an imbalance of current into the test coil, so nothing extra added to the AFCI circuit itself aside from a much smaller trip point from overcurrent. There probably is a fixed highish current setpoint, and the micro is there to trigger it at lower points depending on mains voltage programmed into it, plus shortening the delay built in for inrush current. Also there to drive a LED to show program running.
I used to mod as well as repair these suckers since their inception. The reason for the fire was due to the power socket connector solder joints cracking due to heat. Due to this, the Metal-oxide Varistor had to cope with the spikes that were generated due to the intermittent contacts of the solder joints. Over time, this changed the molecular structure of the varistor due to heating and cooling and eventually it caused the varistor to short-circuit. Its the varistor that either burned out with heaps of the magic smoke, or it actually caught fire. Replacing this component with an equivalent type, though it was extremely important to have heat-shrink slung around it to prevent another flame out in the future. Anyone with spike and surge protection power boards etc. within an area that their mains voltage being very noisy, it would be highly recommended they replace the varistor every few years to ensure future reliability.
For Micro$oft to replace the mains cable would have saved them heaps of money, instead of recalling all the consoles, as the re-settable fuse in the new cord would trip every time the above faulty solder joints didn't make a good contact. Eventually the solder joints would get so bad, that the owner would have to take the unit to get serviced. Even if the varistor failed with this fused cord, it would have prevented any magic smoke or potential fire. The solder joints rarely deteriorated until well after the warranty period, so it only cost Micro$oft those cords. Nice strategy on their part to save money, and to not be culpable of any fires. This saved some face for Bill Gate$.
Other problems with the X-Box, was a leaking memory backup capacitor to which can be replaced with a 10 Farad super capacitor from the likes of Jaycar Electronics. But the cap would have to be mounted horizontally to avoid space limitations with the DVD ROM drive. The area around the leaky cap MUST be cleaned, as it usually corrodes the tracks below it.
Another problem with these consoles, though it really only affected the earlier versions, was intermittent turn-on and it would also turn itself on when the mains plug was connected. It was found that some corrosive element that contaminated certain various copper traces from the factory eventually eroded them to the point that the tracks became resistive and no longer functioned as it should. There is a fix, but if you need it, just search for it on Google. I wrote that tutorial long ago under one of my alias, "Darkmatter".
I hope the above clarifies things.
Regards,
Dero
Makes sense.. MOV's don't have a long life when they Don't get spikes. When they do, it's much, much shorter.
FULL WAVE BRIDGE RECTIFIER!!!!!
The screen is supposed to shake whenever you say that, Dave.
Err, why?
@@EEVblog cuz yes
@@EEVblog ElectroBoom. It's a meme :-)
ua-cam.com/video/sI5Ftm1-jik/v-deo.html
@@EEVblog it's a running gag by Mehdi(electroboom) in his videos.
@@EEVblog Electroboom. Look him up
I think the same engineer works for Weller now. Clearly saved Weller a recall by omitting the fuse.
Your Nintendo 64 teardown video is what brought me to your channel.. glad to see a video game related video 👍👍
Hi
Same here, been subscribed since that video caught my eye. :-)
Same here!
Awesome to see you do a retro console please do more! Another huge problem with the first rev was a faulty clock capacitor that blows inside the console
Actually, that 30-40 number indicated was how many caused property-damage or injury, not just how many failed or burned.
I always wanted to be an electronic engineer and unfortunately i been to a crappy university that didn't teach me much, but spending time on your channel taught me alot actually, thank you Dave.
Great topic! There may have been very few cases of smoke or fire, but AC jack solder joint failures were quite common on the early revs of the Xbox. I repaired several of them in the mid-2000s, and all of them had some level of degradation to the joints. At least one of them made audible arcing noises when the power cord was wiggled just a little bit. Reflowing the joints with a nice hot iron took care of the problem. The one I kept still works great, and I never heard about any further trouble with the others. (I do keep it unplugged when not in use, though.)
The replacement cords I saw in the US were labeled as “Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters”. A fuse wasn’t a sufficient solution; I guess the arcing didn’t result in excessive current usage, it was just that the current wasn’t going where it was intended. The annoying thing about it is that while the replacement cords make it safe and cover Microsoft’s butt, they don’t prevent the power supply from being damaged. There can still be enough arcing to fry it.
PSA FOR ALL ORIGINAL XBOX OWNERS: if you haven’t already removed the “supercap” that keeps the time when power is unplugged, DO IT NOW. It *will* cause irreparable damage if left in place.
The current sensing transformers reminded me of the large current sensing transformers that I saw at an abandoned US military missile tracking radar facility in the Bahamas. They were used in the power room and connected to the ammeters.
There never seems time to do it right the first time. But there's always plenty of time to clean up afterwards.
And lots of money spend that has been saved by not doing it right the first time..
the thing about designing is what is obvious to some, is not even conceivable to those doing the design work. A designer puts his/her best work forward (with in budget constraints) and could not imagine anyone 'abusing' their product. example who in his right mind pull on a power cord ( those who can not find a handle to pull on perhaps) , two different viewpoints one form those qualified to design and users.
both are right but the expectations are different. this is visible in all human built stuff and explains why stuff get better with each iteration.
Stuff the designer could not imagine is pointed out to them, budgets expands quality improves and in hind site all the errors in the design of the original are obvious.... simples
can't wait for him to do this with a 2080ti in 10 years.
They would probably catch on fire too
This is the first time I've seen this level of hilarity and madness on this channel. Finally subbed.
At 21:00 when talking about the solenoid drive circuit - the reason for moving the coil over to the rectifier is so that when it trips you can reset it. The chip has a latching function. Removing power prevents the latch from preventing you from resetting the supply without first unplugging from the wall.
13:20 - I'm guessing that 'S08' board was bought from a separate source ("Medium Micro" perhaps?)
The variation on solenoid drive ensures that if the current detection circuit fails as a short, the solenoid triggers.
That would be one advantage. To bad if the diode bridge fails open though...
Got to thinking about this, and I haven't watched the entire video yet, but the current balance detection is like a GFI breaker. I am thinking this is to prevent a fault caused by someone connection the console to a TV that had a hot chassis where the isolation on the TV was compromised. I remember back in my servicing days I would see people bring in TVs that they had modified them self to put things like headphone plugs on them, of got forbid tap in external video inputs to a TV that just had a tuner and was a hot chassis. If something in the TV isolation were to fail and the AV input became hot, that would create a serious safety risk, especially if someone is holding a controller in their hand and the cord was worn exposing a conductor.
25:46 little solder blob just hanging out. And when you zoomed out, there lots of little blobs!
That's a 1.0 Xbox aswell you will need to remove the clock capacitor it will leak and cause trace rot which causes the front panel not to work
many moons ago when I used to mod xboxes by the dozen and was really active on xbox-scene we noticed a lot of the early xboxes having issues where they would no longer power up. People started to see that the solder was breaking on the solder joint for the main power leads. The fix was to just reflow the solder but of course MSFT started sending out replacement power cables with the reset switches on them. At one point I probably had 50 of them because of all the dead xboxes I had laying around. When someone would want their xbox modded I would reflow and add solder to that join and give them one of the upgraded power cables. Those were good times and this video took me back to when console modding was easy and a blast to do.
My friends power supply arced and I saw it first hand. It was in a dark room and I saw a blueish flash in the venting slots that cast light out onto the carpet the unit was sitting on. There was also a burnt electronic smell and small pop that accompanied the flash. I brought it to his attention and we shut it down immediately. Then we decided to see if we could fix it. We could replicate the arcing by wiggling the power cord. After taking it apart we found those solder joints had broken. His solution was to reflow the joints and be careful when inserting the plug. It was very soon after that the cable was released and we both sent off for one each. My Xbox never had this problem.
I'm always surprised to see commercial products have power cord plug-ins directly on the board. Surely having a chassi-mounted plug with wires going to the board would not cost much, and be infinitely more reliable. But what do I know.
Hey Dave, thanks for the interesting video. I dont mind the video beeing a bit longer than just a quick teardown at all!
Thought it would be a boring video. I was wrong. Very well done Dave.
there is a solder ball at 25:58
literally just watched like 4 more seconds, there are solder balls everywhere! that must be what happened.
If I remember correctly, this issue was related to the Foxconn power supplies, in early versions, not to the also used Delta ones
Got one, new in box never been opened.
I had no idea that was what the replacement plug was. I wish I had one, though my recollection was you had to have the right revision console to get it.
It was only the first generation with the revision 1.0-1.1 it was a loose power socket (solder points will create a dry joint and it will start to arch), they fixed it in later revisions
Edit: we grey imported a thousand into South Africa.
I still use mine from time to time. Completely obsessed with Burnout revenge.
I'm sure you already know this but remove the clock capacitor before it throws up all over the board and ruins the console.
Nope, no idea about that, what type of cap was it?
@@EEVblog Super cap. It sits near the front of the unit under the DVD drive. Should have three huge-ass bulk capacitors next to it.
Edit: Apparently only some models had three bulk caps. Some only had one. There's a ton of info on the net about the darn thing.
Eyy Revenge is good shit
Indeed it is. Would love to see a PC port with higher resolution. Paradise can't touch this bad boy :)
@@EEVblog I recently removed mine and it was leaking. Here are more details: www.reddit.com/r/originalxbox/wiki/clock_capacitor
i have the xbox with the power supply shown at the end. i had to re-solder the power jack as mine cracked the joints and started arcing. luckily no major damage was done.
Nice touch using the solenoid to cut all power to the electronics to protect it in the event of an arc. Your $400 xbox is totally nuked, but your $75 power cable lives to see another day!
Wow, that is one of the most complex workarounds I've ever seen
Holy shit somebody had fun!
I didn't know Jeremy Irons worked for Microsoft...
in the UK we have fuses in our plugs :)
I used to mod the OG Xbox here in Canada, my personal unit had the loose power jack, it finally arced and smoked a bit in 2013. It did trip my surge protector saving the unit for me! I was able to re-solder the joints and put in a couple screws for strain relief! It's been running fine ever since.
Not sure if you saw this register article, it identified the original power supply problem. It has links too. www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/19/xbox_recall_nofix/
I've seen similar used of bridge rectifier for the solenoid to allow a SCR (or even BJT) to switch on the AC coil for both cycle, instead of only one without it.
Now I am waiting for the Xbox 360/Xbox one power brick dissasembly😂
Nice job Dave, love your videos
At 12:30 you ask why two boards. There are isolation rules. You just can't put all that low voltage stuff on the main board in the middle of the 240V circuitry.
I was not expecting it to be THAT interesting!
Seeing this, I just bought one for my electronics bench. Looks like a nice protection circuit for tinkering with electronics.
This was heckin interesting. I have never seen one of these in America. Would be interested to see a rundown of the xbox power supply, and likely point of failures as the consoles age. Is it a standard ATX power supply electrically?
At 27:19 i think i can see solder droplets there, also?
In every single one of the xbox originals I have opened, the aerogel supercap keeping the clock circuit powered has failed and leaked, with a slimey corroded board as a result. Some boards are beyond repair, and some did clean up and worked after some component replacements.
First signs of failure are a reset clock, difficulties powering it on, and occasional spontaneous self power ups when the cruddy mess is really bad.
All the super high end surge absorbers use that thermal fuse thermally bonded to the MOV. Those suckers can let go violently. So it doubles as a series fuse with the MOV in addition to thermally opening in the event the MOV has suffered internal damage. MOVs can go into thermal runaway. A big fat juicy one like that can do a lot of damage when it has a tantrum.
Microsoft: sure mate, here's a combination RCD/AFCI/MCB device for your xbox, on the house. No wookas.
Weller: nahhhhhhhh, bit of smoke and fire never hurt anyone, it'll be fine mate.
Beautifully timed comparison between the companies attitudes, great stuff. Thanks Dave 👍👌
My guess at the uncommon wiring of the solenoid is to allow for measuring the current going through the solenoid (that's why the white lead goes through the current tranformer) when you press the Test button, showing either green flashes or red ones on the led, and it also protects from most common thyristor failures. There's no chance of a fault not being detected by the Test procedure.
ARC fault detection via the Micro perhaps as well as current and ground fault?
I think i brought about 2 of these, and i have never heard of this before.
I used xbox for years using xbmc, as my media player mainly. Excellent it was.
Never ever heard of this.
Ahhh nostalgia... I got my first ever electric shock of one of these babies when I was doing a teardown... I was 12
So if there is a problem and the MOV overheats then the thermal fuse safely removes this safety feature out of the system?
I knew a guy in highschool who had an Xbox that actually got the problem, what he described was the solder between the plug's pins and the board had somehow melted down and was just arcing.
22:27 Could be that if the detection circuit develops a fault, it can also kill it's own power.
I wouldn’t call this “the 2005 XBOX” when XBOX 360 launched in 2005. It’s the 2001 XBOX. Yes, it was king of the hill for most of 2005, but that was after this issue was fixed. The XBOX you brought home from the store in 2005 should not have the issue that prompted the power cable replacement.
The issue came up in 2005, 6 month before the 360 was released. Boxes after Jan 2014 were not affected.
@@EEVblog I’m confused. By Jan 2014 the original XBOX had been out of production almost a decade. Maybe it wasn’t a full-on recall yet but they started making XBOX consoles with the safer RCD power cables on October 23rd, 2003… which is less than two years after it launched in November of 2001. It had two more Christmases ahead of it before being replaced by the XBOX 360 meaning half of it’s primary retail life was yet to come at that point. That’s why so many used XBOX consoles have the newer/replacement type power cord.
The electronic fuse would have been an off-the-shelf part no doubt just rebranded
That "Xbox" label at the bottom and the cheap abs case gave it away pretty easily.
I was thinking the same thing. The obvious "generic Chinese" industrial design of the case that didn't fit the XBox styling is a bit of a giveaway. I doubt this was designed for Microsoft.
I had found one of those fused powercords from the local tip shop. Brought it home; clicked test and started it emitting magic smoke lol
I would love to see Dave repair some common switching wall warts. I've tried to fix a few with no luck.
@2:28 A normal power cord?
Dave please make a video about op amp stabilty and phase margin, good practices and how to avoid oscillations ... I've had quite a bit of issue with op amps to drive mosfets / BJTs for different applications. I usually find your educational videos to be the best out of the bunch, thanks!
As far as I know it’s an arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) to deal with arcing on the ac input.
This thing reminds me at the RCD extensions cords, I had to use whenever I used a corded power tool at work ;)
* Raises hand *. I still do from time to time. Got XBMC installed onto a 400GB IDE hard disk drive.
Best $20 I ever spent.
a Microsoft product not working properly is nothing to get excited about, happens a lot, but a Microsoft product burning someone's house down is something else.
Engineers can do nice work when they don't have to worry about production costs.
No budget on this one I'm sure.
I just found mine out in the shed!
its missing the HD and screws but still got it!
I had an inline surge protector between the lead and the console.
the solenoid trigger looks the same inside of GFCI circuits.
It trips if an arc is detected, in the US (not where I am from) it will be an arc fault circuit interrupter (afci)
Can you repurpose this to protect any appliance?
next episode: Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death"
I made with my friend some easy GSM device. Company sold it, installed something like 500 pcs. After short time, devices stopped working. It was easy to notice by looking on them - red LED was on. We called it "RED LED OF DEATH". It was because friend didn't change mode from developing to production in developer studio and every time it should restart it just froze :D.
Good video. And a new nice background for your movies
Both my original Xbox's still works on the standard power cord
Funny thing, I got a cheap (80 euro) "2 in 1 rework station" (hot air + soldering iron), and the first thing I noticed when taking it out of the box: a nice round fuse holder in the back of the device.
I remember getting the cord replaced on mine. A friend got the in-line circuit breaker like in this video, whilst all I got was a new figure 8 cable. The only thing I could think of was that my Xbox was a later model with a different PSU, but I still thought it was weird that they sent me a cable.
Upon closer inspection of the original figure 8 cable I got with the Xbox, the figure 8 plug end was marked that it was only rated for 120V with an Australian 240V plug on the other end.
DaZzling InfoTainment +
Thank You Ausi Man 👍😁
❤
so the only real question is, does that transformer have a fuse hiding under that yellow tape....
Interesting. I swear I did the recall in the US and they sent me a new power cord with a ferrite bead, no AFCI box on it. Weird
the two boards are due to certification - it's much easier to get certified if the low voltage and high voltage boards are separate.
I don't recall ever seeing one of these replacement cords, or even hearing about it. However the xbox has a special place in my heart, because it was the first time I soldered anything, by way of installing mod chips :) Another nifty mod you can do to these is get an IDE to SATA adapter so you can install a modern hard drive, it allows for near instant loading of games from HDD and higher capacity. The OG Xbox was great!
@First Last Ah, that would make sense
I still have my launch day Xbox, but I never heard of this issue until today.
At the start of 2018 Microsoft had a recall on the Dumbass Little™ 5cm power cord that goes from the outlet to the power block because it had no strain relief. Kind of weird that they screwed up again, but at least the replacement plug couldn't have cost nearly as much. Thanks for the trip down memory lane and the in-depth look at what it takes to make up for bad soldering sometimes.
In 2018? Wow, back a few years ago we got a box of ac leads in for surface computers that was because of the same damn thing!, no strain relief on this tiny foot long cable!
I tested one of these way back in June 2014 (video C0wQikAO-yA), the earth leakage portion tripped at 7.5mA.
Nice to see a corporation act in a responsible manner for a change.
Do they sell a wellor version ?
I worked for an "Electronics Boutique" type repair facility in Australia repairing PS2 and XBOX consoles back in the day. Apart from RROD reflow issues and generally mechanical CD drive issues the SM power supplies were a massive failure mode. Can't remember specifics but the later revision supplies were far better and I generally put them in the consoles when servicing as the early boards were notoriously bad for shitting the bed unexpectedly.
The second current coil is the catch an in balance that much faster.
I don't think this was specifically designed for the XBOX. I have seen this almost exact PCB on a water resistant power cord extension, since I open everything I can get my hands on (and put together afterwards). I think they adopted an already existing design to their needs.
I felt the same thing when I saw this design in an old wire schematics of ( if I remember well) a secret light activated light bulb. I firstly didn't understand why they shorting the bridge rectifier. I think this is before the tryac becomed cheap enough for mass production. And they did that so they can use a transistor or a tyristor to switch an ac load.
25:50 Those solder balls are a sitting time bomb for the digital logic.
I've had my original Xbox for about 15 years and haven't had any issue with the power supply in it. The only problems I've had with it was the leaky clock capacitor i took out and replaced, fixed the coroded coppertraces that preveted it from being bootable on the power button, and replaced the rubber belt that makes the dvd player to open it's door.
I had it running for about 6 hours straigt not long ago, playing some old games and watching dvds and it didn't complain at all.
I've done some modifications on it over the past years and now have my whole game library stored in it's internal SSD harddrive i installed about a year ago, and it is works like a charm.
I'm rellay happy with it.
I can't get over that category number: "Q-01" I imagine this means "Quality Control Bodge No. 1"
Funny, on mine it was the power cord which failed with partial insulation breakdown between line and neutral.
Could the micro controller be set up as sort of a time delay? Such a thing where it will allow some current draw for a bit but then it can decide to cut it after a certain amount of time, then can reset if the extra load goes away? To me, depending on what the console is doing, working hard for a fully complex game and graphics, or something more easy like Tetris, different current loads? Time delay for the high draw periods but if it draws for to long, it will cut it? Maybe talking out my but. I do lots of high current 13.8 volt stuff, hf radios, I more concerned about a good crowbar/clamp circuit in it.
What class was the laser in the dvd player if its a high rating you should make your own burning laser
I use mine as a DVD player, never skips a beat!
All I got was a replacement power cord 😞
I wonder if it's an arc-fault interrupter (as well as ground and overcurrent), maybe it's why they need a micro.
I suspect so. Explains the complexity.
Isn't that just a plain Ground Fault current interruptor (GFCI) presumably just to reduce the risk of getting shock while box release the magic smoke and some kid grabs it with hands etc..
No, it's both a ELCB (as we call them, same a GFCI) and a 610mA electronic fuse, watch the whole video.
@@EEVblog An electronic fuse! Jeez... + GFCI bonus gimmick. It almost looks like Microsoft purposely overengineered it just to hide that shameful fact of mis-spec internal fuse. They probably wished it was something more complex, than just tiny fuse.
6:00 people really don't understand how little Microsoft understood about hardware design back in the Xbox days, I mean people pretty much opened up the console and hacked it immediately. Microsoft really had no clue what they were doing. If you want to keep and old running Xbox you pretty much need to remove some capacitors from the board (as they always die and kill something else), and if you want to keep an Xbox 360 original running? Well you can't, it'll die.