[time-nuts] Symmetricom Syncserver S300

[paul swed]

Bob like you I did some hunting and believe I ran across the same details
on the supply.
There is a good thread on the S200 complete withinternal pix and a link to
download the OS image. Just in case the image is corrupt. No idea if S200
software can be used in a S300 but its a 512 MB SD flash card worth the
try. If its not something like the supply.
Other then that I did get the S300 ops manual and thats about all there is
on the unit.
Regards
Paul.

On Tue, Dec 3, 2019 at 5:07 PM Bob Darlington <rdarlington at gmail.com> wrote:

> Guys, I have a broken Syncserver S300.  OCXO, gps, 60kHz receiver
> internal.  No Rb or anything special.  It's been broken since 2015.  It was
> fine till I power cycled the thing, but that's the way it goes with .gov
> surplus stuff sometimes.  It ran for years before that.
>
> Symptom: 4 red front panel lights, nothing on the serial port (front serial
> port, don't know if there is another inside), and during boot the VFD on
> front spins the hourglass.  It gets to booting or loading OS and eventually
> just freezes.
>
> Digging through the archives I see a similar issue described and that
> system seems to have been resolved by noticing high frequency ripple on at
> least one of the DC power supply lines and replacement of a capacitor.
> Well, I saw that, and I found a bulging cap, and replaced it.  And sure,
> maybe the ripple is better but it's not perfect and it didn't fix the
> problem.  There's a lot of trough hole electrolytics in the PSU.  The one I
> changed required desoldering of a daughter board that was bolted to some
> other bits.  A real pain.  15 minute "fix", but a pain.   I don't see any
> of the others bulging but that doesn't mean they're all good.  I don't know
> if the ripple I see is even coming from the PSU or the main board, or if
> it's even a problem.
>
> There was some speculation about CF card corruption. I didn't chase that
> down.
>
> I'm done!
>
> If anybody in the USA is interested in continuing on this repair project, I
> will give you the unit for the cost of shipping.  I don't know what that
> will be, but I assume under $50.  The unit has rack ears and cosmetically
> is a 9.5 out of 10.   Talking to TVB, his suggestion was to test with an
> external clean power supply to rule that out.
>
> In the very least it's a pretty nice 1U rack enclosure.
>
> Please, ping me direct and I'll let the list know it's spoken for.  I'll
> let the next owner ask for help! I'll image the CF cards to keep around
> just in case.  Again, USA only.  Somehow shipping clocks will be under ITAR
> rules and I don't wanna go there.
>
> -Bob N3XKB
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