Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 22:01 Post subject: Re: WRT1900AC LED FIX Project!!
I'm ready to begin my LED repair on WRT1900AC.
I have the SMD leds suggested below.
Is there a way to determine orientation of the new leds (for correct polarity) short of installing them, and rotating if they don't work?
bios2k wrote:
Hello Everyone,
Here is my intro and sorry for my english :S
I bought 2 WRT1900AC Router used.
1 - WRT1900AC V2 find for 100$ on local kijiji I use it for my main router
2 - WRT1900AC V1 Find on ebay for 50$CAN missing powersupply (that I've fix with a 12v 4a power that I have)
Why 2 ?, the second one is in my living room connected as wireless client @ 1300mbps for stream MKV on my media PC
I flash both with Kong build that run very stable!
Well like everyone I've search on internet and found out that LED become low and can't even see it.
so I decide to open both of my router and see If I can fix something. Well Both router show sing of burned LED. I'm not a PRO of LED but this is a poor engineering!!!
On WRT1900AC V1 All LED are super tiny SMD that are probably not made for 24/24 7/7 duty, so that explain why they die so fast.
On WRT1900AC V2 All function LEDs remain the same model except for the 4 port LAN port, they choose a bigger SMD led that will live the life of the router (that explain why V2 have bright light for LAN and dim for Status LEDs.
So I decide to fix both,
I've ordered SMD LED on ebay. the model you need is 0603 LED (I choose SUPER BRIGHT WHITE). I'm not bad with solder iron but damn this is sooooo small!!
So here is some pictures of my current WRT1900AC V1 SMD LED Change (not all done)
It take about 10min each LED since I don't have a super setup and just a basic solder iron.
hope this will help others to fix LED, there is no gain to do that except you can see led better then original state
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 1:09 Post subject: Re: WRT1900AC LED FIX Project!!
Well, disassembly went fine.
Determining polarity of all LED's on WRT1900ac went fine (btw left half of them have positive polarity on right, right half, have positive polarity on left - on mine...ymmv)
Desoldering LED and removal went fine.
But...just don't have a fine enough pencil soldering iron (and the skill?) to solder new LED's into place. I was unable to get the solder to flow from new LED to circuit board.
Ah well...only out $2 for the cost of the LED's. Bummer.
I replaced the 8 LAN leds, but these are now always on. no matter whether or not it has connected cables. Use the led you recommended. did I do something wrong?
Sorry to hijack the thread but this is the most popular forum thread on Google for "wrt1200ac repair" so i wanted to share my experiences repairing it. I believe the wrt1900ac can have this fix too, since it seems to have the same capacitor for power filtering in the same place.
This is not the LED problem, rather a problem of power delivery to the WRT1200AC. The problem was WiFi and LAN both would drop out several times a day and not come back for about a minute. The issue seems to be the main power supply capacitor going bad.
As the oldest 1200AC's are now 5 years old, it's about time the hardware starts to wear out in them, especially if used heavily. I had to replace the power capacitor in the ASUS RT-N16 after about 7-8 years of service with it when it showed the same faults of random disconnects.
Although the WRT1200AC has some thru hole capacitors, the main power capacitor is surface mount and right by the DC plug. It is rated 16V 470uf. IDEALLY if you are buying parts to do this fix, you should get 25v 470uf, since 16v is too close to the operating voltage of 12v, and make sure it is rated for 105c or better. I had some good quality 105c rated 16v 680uf rated for 10k hours, so I used that. If you don't know what you are doing you should always use the same value capacitor in a replacement for repair, in this case the router won't be harmed from the slight increase in capacitance.
The first thing to note is your router will be very dusty if it's old so clean the surrounding area with solvent before and after desoldering the surface mounted capactior. The other thing is to use pliers which can grip the small black base of the capacitor, NOT the silver cylinder, or you might pull the cap off its base and cause damage.
The surface mount capacitor has long legs so you may need to add fresh solder and use a decent amount of wick before you can get one side lifted. You need to shift between both sides fairly quickly as it is lead free solder which requires more heat. It's best to turn your soldering iron hotter and use less dwell time on the board to prevent burning it.
After removing it, use wick to clean up the extra solder mess added during the removal process. As you can see in the 2nd to last photo below, I made quite a mess. But you can see in the last photo I accidentally got a little solder on the nearby surface mount resistors while removing the capacitor, so i used the wick quickly to clean it off.
Then simply cut the legs short on your capacitor and bend it on the table if it's a thru hole, like I use. I put a piece of insulation tape between the PCB and capacitor so that it won't short anything out.
Hold it in place with tweezers to get both legs held in place and then add a bit more solder for security.
It should power on right away. If you old capacitor was definitely going bad, you should notice it start up a bit faster than before.
Since doing this I have not had any random drop-outs.
Enjoy and hope this helps someone keep their router alive a while longer.
^ If the pads look like this when the capacitor is finally removed, be sure to clean up the mess with wick! Also solvent will wipe up all that yellow/orange flux making a mess on the board. Clean it well before continuing.
Last edited by wrt1200ac_repair on Sun Mar 15, 2020 4:21; edited 1 time in total
I replaced the 8 LAN leds, but these are now always on. no matter whether or not it has connected cables. Use the led you recommended. did I do something wrong?
I know this is a year old post i am replying to but it sounds like you may have shorted some leds together. I would take a multimeter check continuity between each of them.
and sorry for my english :S
