Great Shiny GS-2000 (modification)
I've owned this interesting GS-2000 “PC Home Theatre System” for many years.
It's a rarer configuration. One of the speakers pictured here contains the controls, beefy transformer and PCB. The speaker wire connects it to the second speaker. There is no intermediate rack here.
The Great Shiny GS-2000 is from the Shen Zhen Shiny Science & Technology Co. Ltd.
I think I received these speakers as part of a freebie for buying a PC in the 1990s, and I've not seen any other set quite like it. I'm sure others are out there, but I don't know about them.
They're so handy, but I've never been happy the way that it clunks when turning on due to the inrush current. And there is a clunk when turning off. So I figured I'd try and sort out at least one issue.
Please note that what follows here involved working with 240V AC. Please do your research and have a good understanding of the dangers of high voltages if you wish to perform similar activities. An isolation transformer was used for safety during the work in this article.
First item on the agenda, open her up and take a look at what's inside:
A nice simple PCB with some power filter caps, hot glue, and some spider webs. Inside is a PXB-20 transformer that appears to have two secondary 12V taps.
My plan is to add a thermistor on one of the AC lines to soften the inrush AC current before it hits the transformer.
On one AC line is the on/off switch. The other is a joined wire with insulation, so this is a perfect point to insert the thermistor.
After getting the component into place and covering all dangerous contact areas with shrink tubing, I gave it a test, and yep: much much better. Turning on is almost silent.
So I'll stop there, this is just a quick one. And perhaps I'll deal with the turning off clunk later which is probably caused by Back EMF in the speaker coils. We'll see.
