Kenwood KR-V6060 Broken by Courier

Unfortunately, this amplifier became a casualty of the courier service. For some reason, they ignored the label on the box marked "Fragile", they thought it meant to throw it around! By the time I received it, it had become a very large jigsaw puzzle!

Oh Yeah! Wait a Minute Mr Postman...

The plastic pillars of the front fascia, had sheared off during impact, detaching the PCB. To repair the plastic I decided to buy a hot glue gun, which not only helps to bond but also to reinforce the broken plastic. Super glue could work just as well; however, it would leave white residue marks within the cracks, which would make them look obvious. I think I have done a good professional job of assembling it. When I was a young whippersnapper, I used to glue plastic Airfix models, so this was a useful skill that came to some good use.

I managed glue all the plastics together -- a jigsaw puzzle that took three days to complete -- to get some photographs for this article; however, the amp was not repairable because the circuit boards had multiple cracks on them. These boards are multi-layered and double sided, and once there is a crack on it, it not possible to repair it. It was an impossible job to repair it, but necessary. I painstakingly repaired some of the visible tracks that were broken, and managed to get the display to work, but shortly afterwards there was a puff of smoke and it all switched off again. As Scotty in Star Trek would say, "As long as you don't give me any bumps Captain, she's by-passed like a Christmas tree."

On this one, the selector switch had sheared off during impact. The PCB had detached from the plastic panel, because all the plastic pillars that the PCB fixes to had broken off. The only thing holding the PCB in place was the large mounting nut of the selector switch and a terminal wire.

The exact replacement part costs around twenty pounds, but I decided to find a cheaper alternatives. I managed to find a rotary encoder switch on eBay, but it was not a straight replacement as the pinout arrangement was not the same. The original switch required the earth terminal on the side pin, whereas this switch requires the earth pin to be at the centre. The deformed and twisted metal chassis required bending back into shape. Was it worth it? No, but I figured some nice photographs, of the amp might be useful to future buyers.

Packing Amplifiers

Amplifiers are very bulky and heavy items, and the best way to pack them is by using polystyrene foam packing. My local recycling centre has a huge skip full of the stuff, and I always go there, to dispose things I do not need, and bring some polystyrene back for packing. Large supermarkets also have this material and if you ask nicely, people are always happy to help.

I once had an amplifier sent to me wrapped in a bin liner bag, and when it finally reached me, all the corners were dented and the PCBs cracked. Once the multi-layered PCB has a crack, it is beyond economical repair.

Couriers often stack parcels, hence the box has to be sturdy and bear the full weight of all the other parcels on top of it. I often receive amplifiers where the top panel is squashed inside due to the weight of all the other stacked parcels above it. The sides of the cardboard box require reinforcing to prevent this from happening.

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