Well, one of my trusty Fathoms has become wonky and needs to go to JL for surgery. Any recommendations on which shipping company to use? Got some online quotes from FedEx and UPS and darn near fell out of my chair. Then again, they're not exactly light are they?

Just remove, and send back the Amp Plate. ;)

It's the flat fee thing. They need the whole sub. Story of my life, ML. Rode hard and put away wet.

I will say Subscribers get to use my Freight connection, and save tons of money. :yes:

Attachment 62066

First post as member of this fantastic forum. Repaired my F113 following the instructions here two years ago, changed the two capacitors in the standby power supply. Now I suddenly experience a period of hum following power outages. The hum disappears after 10- 30 minutes and the sub works perfectly therafter. Suspect that there might be an issue with some of the other caps as well, i.e the larger 2200uF 200V. Anybody else having this kind of symptoms and have replaced the big caps? Or is it more likely the other remaining smaller caps that cause the problem?

Norway1000... Welcome to AA! :wave:

I recently sent one back to JL. I sent UPS, but it was too expensive. It came back from JL via freight, but I can't remember which company.

Thanks to this thread, I managed to repair my F212 V1.

Appreciate all the kind folks here for sharing how and why the board fail and even how to remove the amp board from the subwoofer. Thanks again.

FIXED: Replaced the 5 small caps C504-C508 and the hum problem disappeared. Was planning to also replace the larger 2200uF caps but I had unfortunately ordered caps with too large diameter (35 mm), installed version is 30 mm. in diameter.

rtankm... Welcome to AA! :wave:

Experienced the same with my pair of F110, fixed at JL, replaced defective worn out caps and before I re-installed the heavy back plates I replaced the large size 5.0 amps fast blow fuse with audio grade to conduct test.
The sub responded to fuse changes, this particular fuse smoothed out the base so much making my eye lids drop.
Kept experimenting until I found what I wanted.

I bought a used f110v1. It had a slight hum when only the power was plugged in. Changing the volume or high pass filter didn’t make any difference.

After using it for a month or so the sub now has a rumble when not plugged in. The rumble gets louder and quieter with the volume knob and even goes quiet when volume is all the way down. Also changing the high pass filter will affect the sound. I’m assuming that somehow the amp is being fed a constant signal somehow. When I connect it to the receiver via rca it won’t play what is coming from the receiver, just the rumble.

I am planning to open it up and replace the capacitors when I get some free time. I think I’m gonna try to replace all the capacitors so I don’t need to order capacitors multiple times.

Does anyone know if it is easy to replace the capacitors at the bottom of OP’s picture with the black tar looking like stuff?

Hi. Im new to this forum and i signed up just for this thread. (they dont sell much of these subs in Norway so not much help to get here).
Ive had a jl fathom 113 for 6 years and last week it died a silent death. No response when i shut it on or off, no lights and no humming noise.
So i did what dan suggested and removed two of the capacitors (33µF 400v and the 100µF 35v). I checked them using a multimeter with capacitance, and it showed 31µF on the former and 87µF on the latter. So i guess its not these capacitors thats defect. Any ideas at whats the cause? All the capacitors looks ok and there are no "burned electronics" smell.

There are no active light diodes on the curcuit board as well, and the main DC in only has 1v when measured. So the fault must be pretty early in the power chain. Will a defect capacitor terminate the current or wil it go through it?

I changed the two capacitors (same as dan), and i got my jl f 113 working again. So i saved at least 500 usd on the repair as jl norway dont have a standard fee. Hopefully my sub will last more than 6 years now that i have installed better capacitors

Way to go...glad things worked out for you! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Just to be clear, even though they checked out “close enough” with your meter, changing them out fixed the issue?

I have the same problem as Steven84 last year and changed out the caps as suggested by some of our fellow contributors in this forum. It works!

This was how it look like before I replace it, looks good on the outlook.
<a target="_blank" href="http://imageshack.com/f/ponlNV57j"><img src="https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1024x768q90/924/nlNV57.jpg" border="0"></a>

This is the cap removed, and it looks dried out or something and crack open. Not sure if it is due to me when desoldering it.
<a target="_blank" href="http://imageshack.com/f/pnACKwvrj"><img src="https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1024x768q90/923/ACKwvr.jpg" border="0"></a>

Many Thanks
 

Hi All,

Just had to join and offer some heartfelt thanks for the contributions in this thread.

I have two of the original F112s. Both had died within a short period of each other.

Perhaps not a huge concern if you live in the US, but the possibility of even shipping the amp section from Australia for repair/upgrade was a no go.

I did the cap replacement on both, and am pleased to say they are now both back up and running. I had absolutely no experience with this sort of thing, so the sight of those beautiful green lights on the front panel was one to savour.

Thanks again.

Theduma... Welcome to AA! :wave:

I have a F112 v1 with no power problem. I live in Australia so I plan to do the repair in accordance with the instructions on this thread.

First question are the capacitor values indicated by Randy for the f113 the same for the F112? If someone who has repaired a f112 could confirm this.

I will replace the two to the left of the transformer. Is it advisable to replace the other five at the same time or is that part optional?

Thank you in advance.

Eaglewood... Welcome to AA! :wave:

Here is an actual step by step video I just uploaded to Youtube of my Fathom F113 power on capacitor repair. Thank you SOOOOOO much jdandy for creating this thread a few years ago. I hesitated to join this forum as I am quite busy, but felt like it may be good to help get the word out as there are likely many others experiencing this same issue. I also obtained most of my information for the repair form this thread and am very thankful it was "findable" on google, so felt compelled to give back to this community.
If the admins would like, it might be good for me to create a new thread dedicated to the video which can then be "stickied" as I feel this post might get lost in this long thread...

I want to humbly thank everybody in this thread as I have read each comment many times looking for information and you guys did not disappoint! Great Audiophile community here. :)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMY1xldQP2Q&t=364s

One of mine just stopped turning on.

Apparently this is very common...a friend has a six pack of F113 v2 subs and he is on his 4th and 5th failure out of six subs in less than a year. He sent #6 in as well and told them to fix it proactively as he's about had it with the issues.

Chad, see my post above. I made a video to help everyone. My sub has been working flawless for weeks now so I'm confident of the repair. Message me if I can be of help in any way. I might need to get my video posted in a sticky because it will likely get lost in this massive thread.

I joined audioaficionado just so I could say thank you for this thread...really appreciate the awesome detailed notes, parts list, and explanations for the repair of a "dead" fathom. Will post more later, just a quick hello for now. Looks like a great site overall too; can never have too many audio sites to follow!

The Bogg… Welcome to AA! :wave:

Thanks Masterlu!

A little about me and my Fathoms: I bought the first pair of F113s sold in Canada about 15 years ago...my how time flies. I bought the second pair some time later. Had a few issues with a couple of them, I think there was a "coffee percolating" sound from one after a while etc... Warranty service was very good and they traded out for a new one I think. I recall having an issue with a different one and Barry Ober (Soundoctor) was the tech support guy and after learning about my back and forth issues he authorized a replacement sub for me, which was above and beyond. I had changed one of the dsp units in one sub, can't remember why. Then after that I had many trouble-free years. Recently one of my subs started humming a bit more than it used to...I put the xlr input into the other input and it seemed to help. I get the impression a little hum has started to come back but still tolerable in my very quiet room so far.
The other day, I think after a short power outage, I noticed that one of the subs wasn't on...went through the process of checking the outlet etc... Eventually came across some posts which linked to this thread and it sure sounds like that is what the issue is with my dead sub. I don't mind giving it a try and if all else fails it can be sent to JL.

Not sure I have confidence in the service section of the Canadian distributor so I was thinking that if I'm going to keep these subs indefinitely then it may be worth sending a pair at a time to JL in the USA to "recondition" and bring back to a like-new state. The $400 cost is not too bad but the shipping may be a PITA. Or I could sell them and try something new since sub technology seems to have advanced in the past 15 years. Decisions decisions, lol.

I had the same issue with 1 of my F113.I better check the other 1. I believe it was a capciter issue. I called the dealer they came and fixed. Since this is such a common issue they would do something to fix it.

Does anyone know if this problem with capacitors has been addressed by JL with newer (V2?) versions? I just purchased two f110V2 and would like to know if I need to keep an eye out for this problem.

I have had one of my F113v2 subs for ~6 years with no issue at all. Don’t lose any sleep over it.

No, I do not know if JL Audio made any changes to the capacitor from V1 to V2.

From my research, I read somewhere that the Version 2's did have upgraded caps, but not sure if they upgraded the power on cap in my video. It's possible they simply upgraded the power amplifier caps since the Version 2 F113 subs do put out 500W more power compared to the Version 1 F113 subs.

Here is the link to JL's page with the upgrades to the Version 2 subs. I'll also paste the content below for convenience.
Link: https://jlaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us...es-What-s-New-

Gotham and Fathom v2 Upgrades - What's New?

Our Gotham® and Fathom® v2 powered home subwoofers are clear statements of our commitment to the pursuit of great audio. Below is a summary of all updates and improvements implemented in the Gotham® v2 and all Fathom® v2 subwoofer systems, in comparison to the original Gotham® and Fathom® models.

Driver Enhancements!
All v2 subwoofer drivers have modified suspensions for greater linearity and lower distortion.

More Power!
The v2 powered subwoofer amplifiers have been further optimized, with all-new layouts and upgraded components, resulting in increased power output and efficiency. The net result is a 20% increase in available power.
https://jlaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us...1-v2_power.png

A.R.O. Goes Digital!
Our innovative A.R.O. (Automatic Room Optimization) system gets a complete overhaul, creating an even more powerful tool!

D.A.R.O. (Digital Automatic Room Optimization) now includes 18 bands of digital EQ correction making it capable of correcting more complex frequency errors.
Each band is independently and automatically adjusted during calibration
The system applies an automatic global level adjustment to maintain equal loudness, post-calibration.
Calibration stimulus is now band-limited pink noise with measurement averaging – this means more in-room noise immunity, making measurements more reliable and repeatable.
One button operation makes D.A.R.O. easier to use. Subwoofer output levels and mic gain are set automatically, requiring no user intervention. This results in more reliable calibration.
Calibration data is easily cleared with the press of two buttons.

Even More Improvements!
Further circuitry enhancements used in all v2 models result in improved performance and efficiency.

Analog input/output circuits, as well as the digital signal flow have been upgraded for improved small-signal linearity and significantly better noise performance.
Unbalanced input signal isolation circuitry has been modified, improving signal-to-noise performance.
The mechanical layout of the low-level circuits has been revamped - audio signals no longer pass though the front control panel, significantly simplifying internal wiring and improving audio performance.
All small-signal circuitry is housed within a separate, cast-aluminum enclosure, with signal and AC power circuits isolated from one another, for improved noise rejection.
For ease of service, the main AC power fuse is now externally accessible.

My cap repair video for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMY1xldQP2Q&t=856s

My v1 is in for service too.

Too bad they used crap capacitors. I’d have gladly paid a bit more up front to have more longevity. I Hate when cheap parts are found in expensive gear.

Yup, I upgraded every one of my V1’s to V2’s years ago; all 14 of them. :confused-18:

So after 14 years my JL Audio f113 is starting to act up. The power is fine but getting static. I’m not sure if anyone has had any static issues with their subwoofer and if so was it one of the capacitors?

I’m on the fence with do I just replace all the capacitors when I open it up or just send to JL Audio for their flat fee fix.

If I decide to send to JL Audio do they accept just the back amplifier plate or do I have to send the entire subfloor?

Paul - can't answer your question concerning what to send to JLA, but am wondering if you've tested your f113 with another set of preamp outputs and cables to insure it is the sub rather than something else?

Hi Glenn, I have not done any testing. I will try another set of preamp outputs and cables to see if it is the sub or something else?

Thanks :thumbsup:

Paul… it is your Sub; and yes you can send them just your Amp Plate. Once you arrange an RMA, they will send you simple instructions on how to remove the amp plate.