Recently my 15+ year old AirPort Express decided to stop working. This is was a dissapointment as this device is actually amazing at streaming high quality audio from iTunes via Airplay (I use it over a wired connection).
Some investigation learned that a common failure with these devices is a broken power supply, so time to crack open the well sealed case. Some people on the internet use a Dremel-tool, but a screwdriver and a hammer did the trick for me (be careful though as there is some wiring that might get damaged if you go in too hard :-).
The power supply seems to provide 3.3V and 5V DC. It has 3 wires towards the logic board:
- Orange: 3.3V
- Red: 5V
- Black: GND
To check if the logic board was still ok, I first used my lab power supply. This also allowed me to see how much current the AirPort Express is pulling when streaming audio to my Amplifier.
Since I do not like messing with 220V, I decided to use an off-the-shelf breadboard power supply. These are very cheap; I got one for Euro 2.25 from Kiwi Electronics.
To fit it inside the AirPort Express case, I had to desolder the pin-headers on the bottom of the board. I also removed the pin-headers top center, to directly connect the 3 wires from the AirPort Express logic board.
With some isolation- and duct-tape the result looks as follows:
The breadboard power supply needs a standard DC power adapter providing 6-12V DC.
I used a 6V, 1000mA one I had lying arround.
This fix worked for me; your milage may vary….
Happy iTunes music streaming 🙂
