I recently got Wifi Pineapple Mark V from eBay, for about 15\u20ac or so. Although the Mark V has since been superseded by a superior model, that is still a very good price. The main reason for this is, that it has a defective power connector and can now only be powered by USB. Since that didn\u2019t sound like a big deal to me, I decided to give it a try. I figured, that it can\u2019t be that hard to fix and even if I couldn\u2019t, I could Hotwire 5V to the USB port somehow.<\/p>\n
At first I thought it might be a damaged connector or a PCB trace that had burnt through. But a first glance I couldn\u2019t see anything wrong. So I just plugged it into a weird adapter cable and played a few days with my new, slightly broken, Wifi Pineapple V. As far as I could tell, everything worked perfectly, so at least I got a working Pineapple out of it.<\/p>\n
After I was done with testing\/playing, I decided it was time to figure out, what was actually wrong with it. Again, nothing looked damaged but now that I was paying closer attention, I realized, that I can\u2019t seem to find the voltage regulators. After following the PCB traces more carefully, it turns out, that the power bus part of the Pineapple Mark V is actually on the other side of the PCB. It is hidden under a metal shield, so I originally thought, that it housed part of the RF circuit or something. Turns out, there are a bunch of SMPS hidden under the shield and will you look at that: I found the defect.<\/p>\n
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It is a little bit hard to see, but the chip is a Fitipower FR9888, Step-Down Converter. Weirdly enough, the damage looks like rapid overheating, although the chip can tolerate up to 23V, while supplying 2.3A. It also has short circuit and thermal protection. So I can\u2019t even guess, what the previous owner attempted to do in order to fry that poor little Step-Down Converter. I also have neither heard of that chip nor of that company before but\u00a0the available Datasheet<\/a>\u00a0looks pretty promising. Especially the PCB layout recommendation looks like the figurative grandfather of the circuitry on the Mark V PCB. Lucks seems to be on my side, since I have not only identified the Problem, but was also able to find the chip on ebay, for about 3\u20ac. For 5 pieces. That is the smallest quantity I could find. Guess the FR9888\u2019s most important function in this circuit is cost reduction. But, hey, whatever works. I don\u2019t judge. I used my rework station to exchange the chip, which was more difficult than I thought, because Pin number 2 was literally welded to the PCB trace. Not entirely surprising, since this is the Pin where the external power supply is connected to. I still have no idea what the previous owner was messing around with, guess we will never know.<\/p>\n [placeholder]<\/p>\n But hey, I have a fully functional Pineapple!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [placeholder]<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently got Wifi Pineapple Mark V from eBay, for about 15\u20ac or so. Although the Mark V has since been superseded by a superior model, that is still a very good price. The main reason for this is, that it has a defective power connector and can now only be powered by USB. Since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":267,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"project_type":[22],"technology":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madgyver.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madgyver.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madgyver.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/project"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madgyver.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madgyver.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"project_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madgyver.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_type?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"technology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madgyver.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/technology?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n[Platzhalter]<\/p>\n