I stumbled upon the IG6000 modem by mistake, I was actually looking for a regular old dial-up modem for my test dial-up network. I’ve since learnt that NetComm has been eaten up by Casa Systems. That’s ironic because NetComm gobbled up most local modem manufacturers of the 90s. Avtek, Banskia, all absorbed into NetComm. Interestingly of the dial-up modems I have, most are NetComm branded internally with either Avtek or Banksia branding externally. A peek inside the NetComm IG6000 reveals the inner workings.

Anyhow, I went through and replaced all the electrolytic caps for maintenance, after discovering the board looks to have been manufactured in mid-2012. A bit early for a recap, but it was already mostly done by the time I realised my mistake.

To make things extra interesting everything appears to be covered in a film, likely a fire retardant. Thankfully, we had high quality? Licon capacitors installed and I didn’t mind replacing them. The poor Sharp PQ05SZ51 voltage regulator (above) sure did look toasty.

Unfortunately for the IG6000, one of the capacitors I was replacing intercepted a patched-up hack of some sort that wouldn’t fit on the PCB (pictured above). A 1uF 50V capacitor joined to a resistor, attached to a lifted leg on what appeared to be a Fairchild PG8SB chip with V574 and some obscured letters. It looked to be a 20-pin TSSOP. That’s right, past tense - uh oh.

The other side of the capacitor leg lifted the pad from the board and went… missing. A post mortem revealed the solder pad appeared to be connected to ground, albeit underneath the chip. I really should have ceased work on this once the sun disappeared behind clouds as my bench lighting is lacking.

This unit was powered by a Conexant RP56D/SP R6764-61 ACF2 Modem IC coupled with a Motorola MC68302PV33C RISC CPU. Going off their datecodes, they were manufactured mid-2005 and late 2000 (if I’m reading that right) respectively. Below are the capacitors that I was replacing, save it as plain text and it should format correctly. I still need to fix my formatting to scroll on either code or pre tags.

Interestingly a reference to the IG6000 was found on the Avtek website through archive.org in October 2000. It’s a very small gif!


NetComm Industrial Modem IG6000
14 capacitors
All replacements are 2x taller (What did Licon leave out?)
Completely Broken

Location	Value	Voltage	Height	Width	PCB spacing			Notes    				Element 14 Order Code


C15 		47uF	16V		6 mm	5 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is full!		8126747 	2x taller, upgraded to 35V
C60			47uF	16V		6 mm	5 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is full!		As above

Babies (11x)
C34			2.2uF	50V		6 mm 	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	2346265		2x taller
C89			2.2uF	50V		6 mm 	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above
C101		2.2uF	50V		6 mm  	3-4 mm 	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above
C102		2.2uF	50V		6 mm  	3-4 mm 	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above

U4			1uF		50V		6 mm 	3-4 mm 	2-2.5mm spacing		Joined to U4 w/ resistor 234626402 	This broke!

C53			10uF	25V		6 mm  	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	114463202 	2x taller, upgraded to 50V
C72			10uF	25V		6 mm  	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above
C51			10uF	25V		6 mm  	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above
C69			10uF	25V		6 mm  	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above
C21			10uF	25V		6 mm  	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above
C22			10uF	25V		6 mm	3-4 mm	2-2.5mm spacing		Silkscreen is ~5mm (w)	As above

POWER SUPPLY (Mean Well ~7.5V 1.6A 60mV Ripple)
GEM12I07-P1J																			2815709
AC PLUG-AU2																				2816209

We wish our modem, the NetComm IG6000, the best of luck. Goodnight and farewell to the dearest black box we knew!

References: