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04-22-2019, 01:31 PM
JoRodd JoRodd is offline
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I have the Pioneer DVR 560H-K. I love the machine and it is still working well *knock on wood*.

I have never opened it up to clean it. Obviously, dust gets in there, on the fans, etc.

My question is: Should I do this or is this a matter of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

As I mentioned, the machine works great and I don't want to screw it up.
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04-22-2019, 03:03 PM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
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That's a very difficult thing to answer.

Personally I would focus on the exterior first, except where the fan is concerned. The fan collects a lot of dust and crud. When that happens the air flow around the capacitors and diodes in the power supply 'cook' and eventually stop working.

Relatively speaking the 560 is still (new) compared to almost any other recorder even at 10 years old.

Be (absolutely) sure not to plug it direct into a wall outlet!

Use a Computer backup UPS, and a Computer line filter to protect that recorder... 560's are irreplaceable.. more so every day.

You are 'cursed' by being spoiled on one of the best 12 bit MPEG2 encoders ever made.. so you will have terrible withdrawl problems if it becomes damaged.

.. and for (gosh) sakes.. be careful! .. these things are delicate.. pulling, tugging, or beating on them will destroy them

But you should open it to make sure dust and 'grit' aren't already in the case swirling around. I've opened some with "johnson & johnson" powder cake makeup everywhere.. I kid you not.. turn it on its side.. aim a desk fan at it while you work to blow the dust and crud away.. static electricity will make it try to stick and return to the circuit boards.. you have to dislodge it 'gently' with with either a fine artist paint brush (hobby lobby) or can of compressed air (office supply).

Don't really dissassemble anything or disconnect anything.. unless your ready to go to the 'next' level and temporarily remove the hard drive to copy all the recordings off to a pc.. or ready to upgrade it to a microSD card or Compact Flash slot to replace the hard drive.. or upgrade it to make offloading totally wireless.. these things still have a ginormous amount of life left in them.

At this point the DVD burner (can) be replaced by splicing parts together.. but why bother? The media is getting scarce.. so I wouldn't go there.. and you should (save) the DVD drive so that it can be used to (re-mate) or (authorize) a replacement hard drive or SD card reader if you replace the hard drive with an SD card. You'll need a special remote and special service CDrom disc to do those things.. but if your DVD burner is toast because you used it for burning.. your kind of stuck with a bucket of parts.. so stop burning DVDs! -- treat it as a rare and dedicated tool for prolonging the life of your special analog to digital "instrument".

one other Tip!

I notice you live some place where the power is generally hydroelectric and (not bad).. but if the voltage in your area runs (hot) or high.. common these days since the cost of transformers to step down voltage is going up.. so voltages are creeping up.. You might want to get an APC Line Conditioner and set it for "Mexico City".

The reason is the Line Conditioner works like a multi-tap transformer and pulls voltage off sooner than later and that steps the voltage down a few volts and dumps the rest of the energy as heat into the the Line conditoner. Mexico City runs at 117 volts.. we're often running hotter at 125 or 127 volts (complaining to the electric company they are burning out your appliances years earlier falls on deaf ears..).. by setting the Line Conditioner at 117 volts and running hot power through it.. it steps the voltage "back up to about 120 volts".. which is what the 2010 Pioneer 560 was designed to handle. It runs cooler and doesn't have to dump excess voltage as heat. A good Computer UPS also will have a voltage monitor with an LCD panel or a USB connection so you can check the actual voltage being delivered to your connected devices.

.. yeah its a lot of hand wringing, but read the long threads here and on other AV forums in the US and Europe.. its a long term problem. If you only want it to run 2-3 years.. your good.. longer takes a little precaution.

And be careful of static electricity.. don't work on it in the middle of a thunderstorm, be sure its had time to discharge the power supply capacitors (before) opening the case, by leaving it unplugged several hours.. and don't generalize any of this advice to (all Pioneers) the Pioneers came in waves, or "families" and each had differences in behavior and how you serviced them. If your not confident in your skills.. leave well enough alone.. just .. don't plug it into a wall outlet without protection!

Last edited by jwillis84; 04-22-2019 at 03:40 PM.
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  #3  
04-24-2019, 01:41 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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Open it, use canned air, at most use a brush to clean a fan. Otherwise "ain't broke, don't fix it".

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