From: Jim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Imagine plugging your nice, shiny external firewire drive into your computer, and moments later hearing an explosion and seeing a jet of smoke shooting out the back of your enclosure! This is exactly what happened to me THREE TIMES.
Since this is an issue with eMacs and iMacs in particular, I'm posting here.
I'm not clear, after reading your report (which was very thorough, thanks!), how this is an eMac/iMac issue. From your report, it seems to me this is a manufacturing defect on the enclosure makers' side, not the fault of any problem with the iMac or eMac. You mention that one of the drives exploded just by being plugged into another drive, not a Mac at all.
To me, your experiences indicate that there is a flaw in the drive enclosure that makes it unable to handle the amount of voltage being supplied through Firewire on Mac desktop models with Firewire (battery-powered portable Macs seem to output less power, and so the faulty capacitor "held" when plugged into a Firewire portable Mac). USB of course puts out less power and thus the faulty capacitor had no problems when plugged into a USB port.
It is much appreciated!!I had previously recommended this product to people on the g-books list, owing to the nice design, and apparent quality. I now feel obliged to report my horrendous experience to both lists, in the hopes that folks will be able to avoid the trouble.
It took me all of five seconds to find a picture URL via Google, btw: http://www.lynxpcwarehouse.com/spec/910.html
(vendor: "Computer Geeks", of Oceanside, CA, who issued RMA's for replacement equipment).
I appreciate the thoroughness of your report, but I don't understand why the vendor is mentioned, as they clearly are not responsible for the problem, which you identified as a manufacturing flaw. I'm glad Computer Geeks seems to know how to treat their customers, but as they had nothing to do with the failure it seems inappropriate to single them out.
This is REALLY good to know, that the capacitor failure will not trash the drive.The IBM drive mechanism was undamaged, and worked fine in the replacement enclosure provided by "Computer Geeks" on a Powerbook.
The eMac and both iMac computers continue to work properly with other brands of external firewire drives and equipment attached to them.
Which indicates that the problem is with Triumph Technologies, not anything from Apple. One can safely assume that this is NOT just an eMac/iMac issue, it seems safe to assume that you would have the same problem with *any* desktop Mac with Firewire ports.
I wrote to Triumph Technologies, with this information, inquiring if this was a known problem. They replied as follows:
There was one batch of them with bad capacitors, hence your "explosive"
problem.
This have been fix in later productions.
This, to me, seems to be the end of it. You identified a problem, the manufacturer acknowledged it and has already fixed the problem. You should let Computer Geeks know so that they can remove any older stock, but apart from that, what else is there?
I guess I have sufficiently bad luck to get THREE of the early ones. I doubt I'll be able to get Computer Geeks to accept the third one back for replacement,
Triumph Technologies, having acknowledged the problem, is now responsible for replacing the enclosure, not Computer Geeks. It seems to me that they owe you AT LEAST that much!
Too bad you're not in Orlando, FL. You could probably find one at Skycraft Surplus within minutes. :)Anyone know where to buy components like this on the www? Radio Shack doesn't seem to carry the one I need (220uF, 6.3V, radial, 105 degree C, electrolytic).
PS. If that's the spec of the "bad" capacitor, why do you want another one? It will likely just blow up again ... :)
Please don't take ANYTHING I've said above as criticism ... I'm sure everyone on this list is deeply thankful for the heads-up and detailed report!I will remain afraid--very afraid--to use ANY hard drive enclosure from this manufacturer on my eMac or iMac systems.
I hope this helps someone.
_Chas_ Come to ... The CHASbah! http://thechasbah.blogspot.com http://filmmoi.blogspot.com Chas' CULTural Calendar (for Orlando): http://ical.mac.com/chasm/Chas'CULTuralCalendar
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