As I have informed on previous post here, the best way to trace the PCB is to remove as much component as possible. This to make sure some of your tracing process are accurate. Although not mandatory, but seeing I plan to change some components anyway, so removing them would be the best approach 😉
So, here is the Asus Xonar Essence One PCB with almost all capacitors removed.
It was so fun process and took around 15 minutes to remove (nearly) all the capacitors. Cleaning the hole was another story though 😉
A bag of removed capacitors. Well, I can have use of this for some other purpose.
One unique thing that I noticed was the PCB marking for negative side of capacitor was reversed on this PCB. Normally, we put negative on the white silk screen (as on the power supply PCB of this Asus Xonar Essence One). But on this main PCB (should we call audio board PCB?), the placement was reversed. The white marked silk screen used to place the positive side of the capacitor. This was consistent through the whole audio board PCB. While the power supply PCB would use the standard negative on white silk screen arrangement. So be careful when you have plan remove all the capacitors. You might lose or reverse the orientation between the power supply and the audio board PCB. You wont like the result 😉
Agus
April 9, 2013 22:11Malem Ko,
Bener2 jago nyoldernya, ga ada trough hole yg lepas…
Mantap…. bentar lagi bertebaran kapasitor hitam, coklat dan merah 😀
Salam 🙂
Auw Jimmy
April 9, 2013 22:23Hi Bro,
Bukan saya yang jago, tapi kualitas PCB nya yang bagus 🙂
Thanks.
Timothy Hoang
April 12, 2013 22:13Keep up the good work, i’ll have my eyes pierced on your Essence One mod.
I’ve done a bunch of mods on mine.
I want to see if your’s is more over the top, if so, i’ll be copying a few things if you don’t mind.
I used 49710HA on mine with adapters.
Broke the RCA during a mod, so using XLR with 49710HA.
Fitted them by using a DIP8 > Pure Silver Wire > DIP8.
10mm and less in extended length, which is recommended for opamp audio extension.
Mark Ashley
April 20, 2013 23:27Jimmy, I’m using a Hakko 808 to remove components thesedays and nine times out of ten the hole is cleared at the same time, I don’t know how I lived without this tool.
Auw Jimmy
April 20, 2013 23:34Hi Mark,
The price for Hakko device here (like 808 and 888) is double than Amazon price. So I cant justify to purchase them as I’m not doing this frequently (as also I manage to do it in old fashion way – with some extra time).
Thanks.