Fixing Remote Control of Kenwood VR-507

While looking for remote control codes to control my Samsung SIR-T351 by my RC-R0720 (remote for my VR-507), I came across the thread at ecoustics.com talking about other people having trouble with their remote where it would work for a while, and then stop working. The thread pointed to another thread on remotecentral.com, and two fix it guides by apastuszak and moerk.org.

The symptoms are that the receiver works with the remote sometimes, but usually not. Some people reported that thumping the receiver's front would get it working, but I never tried it. Fresh batteries would do nothing, and we could see that the remote was working by pointing it at a digital camera and seeing it light up. Yet somtimes it would work.

I decided I might as well take a few photos to document fixing my receiver. Things so far are working great, and the entire procedure didn't take very long. After pulling off the face place, it was very obvious which solder joints were the problem, so I didn't even bother finding out if they were really the correct ones, I fixed the broken ones. To fix them, you just apply heat (using a soldering iron) to the joint and have the solder reflow creating a new solid joint. I did add a bit of solder to them since when I first melted them, it opened a bit of a hole around the pin, and I wanted that to be filled.

Now if I could just find the codes to control the SIR-T351 from my Kenwood remote, I'd be set!

The bad solder joints: Bad solder joints.

The repaired solder joints: Repaired solder joints.

To help people locate the joints, here is picture including more surrounding board: Image of bad solder joints with near by IC