Recently I’ve had 2 RB450’s come across my desk as “dead” units.

1 was the victim of a power surge, the other had just stopped working at some point.
As these were both going to visit the bin otherwise, I claimed both units in the hope that I might be able to use my limited grasp of electronics to fix them.

As it turns out thou, both had exactly the same problem.. namely busted capacitors.

So, I checked the specifications on the popped caps and picked up the closest suitable replacments I could find:

Originals: 6.3v 560uF

Replacements: 10v 470uF (20 cents each)

Used soldering iron and some wick to remove the solder on the existing ones, popped em out and swapped in the new.

Hey Presto, working RB450!

There’s a thread on the mikrotik forums about other people having similar problems, which seems to have been traced back to a batch of bad caps.

Either way, handy for anyone who has a dead one that’s either out of warranty or you’re too lazy to RMA 🙂