Kenwood car stereo. Manufacturing defect?

[fingaz]

Hi,

I've just noticed problems with my car stereo. It's not outputting sound properly on the left channel. I've stripped it down to find 6 'dodgy' solder joints on one of the adio IC's. I've resoldered these joints.
The thing that bothers me is that while I was stripping it, I noticed that there are 2 audio IC's which both have heatsinks, but neither of them has any silicon grease / heatsink compound on. Is it normal for a large manufacturer like kenwood to not bother with heatsink compound? or is it likely to be one that got 'missed' during manufacture?
Is it likely to have caused the solder joints to heat up and cause the problem I had?

I've put some heatsink paste on, and put it all back together. It seems to be working fine now.

I guess I expeceted a little better from a reasonable quality manufacturer.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hi,

I've just noticed problems with my car stereo. It's not outputting sound properly on the left channel. I've stripped it down to find 6 'dodgy' solder joints on one of the adio IC's. I've resoldered these joints.
The thing that bothers me is that while I was stripping it, I noticed that there are 2 audio IC's which both have heatsinks, but neither of them has any silicon grease / heatsink compound on. Is it normal for a large manufacturer like kenwood to not bother with heatsink compound? or is it likely to be one that got 'missed' during manufacture?
Is it likely to have caused the solder joints to heat up and cause the problem I had?

No the cause is poor design and poor manufacturing, nothing to do with heatsink compound.

Were their insulating washers underneath the chips?, if so were they made of silicon rubber?, if so there's no need for heatsink compound.

I've put some heatsink paste on, and put it all back together. It seems to be working fine now.

I guess I expeceted a little better from a reasonable quality manufacturer.

I would suspect you're probably wrong about the requirement for heatsink compound - it's not something you see much of these days.

 

[audioguru]

Many name-brand companies don't make anything anymore.
Kenwood just orders a few thousand car radios from China. Kenwood might have a small investment in the Chinese company who makes them.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Many name-brand companies don't make anything anymore.
Kenwood just orders a few thousand car radios from China. Kenwood might have a small investment in the Chinese company who makes them.

Kenwood HiFi pulled out of the UK entirely a fair few years back now - they decided to sell-off a range of HiFi systems on QVC (satellite shopping channel), at LESS than dealer trade prices. When the dealers complained they were told that they wanted to get rid of them - so why not offer tham at the reduced price to the dealers?. We were also told that as a Kenwood dealer we were expected to provide warranty service on the units sold via QVC - we told them where to stuff it!, and cancelled our Kenwood account.

Apparently most other dealers did as well, and within 12 months or so Kenwood pulled out of the UK.

For those who remember Garrard record decks, they did a similar thing, selling decks dead cheap to one specific retailer - likewise they ceased to exist as well.

And for those in America who know what TiVo is?, TiVo did the same thing in the UK - an exclusive deal via a specific retailer - kiss of death to TiVo, long gone now in the UK.

 

[fingaz]

No the cause is poor design and poor manufacturing, nothing to do with heatsink compound.

Were their insulating washers underneath the chips?, if so were they made of silicon rubber?, if so there's no need for heatsink compound.

I would suspect you're probably wrong about the requirement for heatsink compound - it's not something you see much of these days.

No, definitely no mounting rubbers / washers, chip straight onto heatsink.

Oh well, it doesn't really matter now anyway since I got the thing working again.

Thanks for the replies though.

 

[Hero999]

Good, what was the problem?

 

[fingaz]

Hi,

I've just noticed problems with my car stereo. It's not outputting sound properly on the left channel. I've stripped it down to find 6 'dodgy' solder joints on one of the adio IC's. I've resoldered these joints.
QUOTE]