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 Fatties (2x) Element 14 Order Code C15 47uF 16V 6mm (h) x 5mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is full! 8126747 2x taller, upgraded to 35V Order 10x C60 47uF 16V 6mm (h) x 5mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is full! As above Babies (11x) C34 2.2uF 50V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) 2346265 2x taller Order 10x C89 2.2uF 50V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) As Above C101 2.2uF 50V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) As Above C102 2.2uF 50V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) As Above U4 1uF 50V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Attached to U4 with resistor 234626402 This broke! Order 10x C53 10uF 25V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) 114463202 2x taller, upgraded to 50V Order 10x C72 10uF 25V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) As Above C51 10uF 25V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) As Above C69 10uF 25V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) As Above C21 10uF 25V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 2-2.5mm spacing Silkscreen is ~5mm (w) As Above C22 10uF 25V 6mm (h) x 3-4mm (w) 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:
Datasheet, user manual and firmware
since sometime in the mid-1990s. We are powered by a 