The Airport Express

In June of 2004, Apple released the original Airport Express. I’m pretty sure I ordered mine that very month, possibly that week.  The lure of streaming music remotely to your stereo, and at the same time, serving as a WiFi bridge, was too much to turn down. My AEX got used sparingly, mostly re-transmitting the wifi signal at my parents place so I could use my Powerbook G4 out on the deck, and it also came in handy streaming iTunes to my tube amp in the dining room. There was a time when I wasn’t living at home and it sat idle, unplugged most of the time. And then the W22nd apartment years where it served as a base station transmitting from the sleeping porch, which spent a good chunk of the time below 50F thanks to Iowa’s generous other 3 seasons.

This last tidbit is important. I had known for some time that AEX’s were failing, even when mine was serving up webpages from a low-temp area and had lead a charmed life. It seems that continuous use and high temps would cause them to fail (or fail more rapidly). As it stands, thousands of these units up and quit, with death occurring on average at the 16 month mark (the problem is so serious there are statistical websites on it). The problem is in the power supply. A power supply designed and supplied by Samsung. It seems that low quality capacitors were chosen, and to make matters worse, their operating environment in the sealed unit exceeds their ratings, leading to rapid failure, which in turn causes damage (and smoke) to the power supply and other components.

So it was with interest that I was revisiting this subject some years later….Wednesday, actually. And that night, in a Lodge-to-CS3 Wi-Fi transmitting experiment, I got out my AEX, reset and configured it, and perched it atop a bookcase with a long extension cord. To my surprise, Thursday after work I went to sort and organize in CS3 and the sucker was dead! Reeking of failed electronic components.   

Now, there’s plenty of repair info out there on these, but the big trick is getting inside. Dremels, saws, and soldering irons used as melting instruments are the most popular (and recommended) method. I was lucky. A flathead screwdriver and a hammer worked for me. Sure enough, same failure mode. Now the big Q. Try to repair the supply? (new caps, surface mount components, etc) Or take the easy way out with an external wall-wart supply?