Refurbishing a dead F&D E200 Soundbar
Several years ago this sound bar speaker stopped working and was put away to be looked at a later date which coincidentally happens to be today.
The goals are simple: make it work again, replace the built-in 3.5mm input cable with a panel mount socket and change the illuminated power ring from a very boring red to a fashionable pink.
The original circuit board was unceremoniously removed and replaced by these components: a generic $1 amplifier board, panel mount sockets for power and line input, and a trio of concave lens pink leds.
This little amplifier board is based on a PAM8403 chip, runs off 5V and drives a pair of 4 ohm 3 watt speakers.
Everyone’s here and are getting to know each other.
There was no easy way to introduce the pink leds other than to wire them in parallel with a generous amount of hot melt adhesive. These leds behave more like white or blue leds in that they require a voltage over 3V.
Soldering was uneventful with everything working just as expected.
The leds tap off power through a 47 ohm resistor providing around 20 mA to each of them.
And they glow with a fantastic shade of pink.
Illumination is as even as can be expected.
The end result is incredibly pleasing.
And most importantly, the 3.5mm socket now allows for a custom line input cable.