[narrod]

I had my first Broadband Converter failure today. It was connected to one of my HR20-700s. I was getting a searching for satellite signal. I replaced with a spare and all works as it should. I put the old one back inplace and, again, got a searching for satellite signal.

What causes these to fail? It was warm to the touch. Is it a heat related issue?

 

[hdtvfan0001]

I had my first Broadband Converter failure today. It was connected to one of my HR20-700s. I was getting a searching for satellite signal. I replaced with a spare and all works as it should. I put the old one back inplace and, again, got a searching for satellite signal.

What causes these to fail? It was warm to the touch. Is it a heat related issue?

The failure rate on them is actually very low...but like any other electronics (or dates) ...you get a bad one once in a while....

 

[K4SMX]

.....What causes these to fail? It was warm to the touch. Is it a heat related issue?

They run warm to the touch normally. They are LNB intermediate frequency output converters, and their source of power is the receiver's DC signal control voltage, the same as is used by the LNB/multi-switch at the dish. As such, they use electricity and thereby generate heat.

I've has one go bad as well. I would doubt if that amount of heat is a problem, but certainly there are internal parts which can fail for other reasons. The most common failure mode of the series 2 BBC's was not internal electrical failure, however. It was the physical failure of the pigtail attachment point inside the "box." Some of them would actually spin round and round on the pigtail.