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SERVICEMAN'S LOG
The unfit Fitbit that was made fit
I’m not really into gadgets such as smart
watches, although the technology behind
them is quite impressive. Recently though,
I was given one to repair and it was quite a
challenge to make the Fitbit fit again so that
its owner could keep fit.
Many people these days are into
gadgets. Actually, it’s often not so much
the gadgets themselves but the fact that
they are connected to the internet that
people find so appealing. Then there
is this trend to wearable technology.
A few years ago, we bought a watch
just to tell the time. But these days, if
one is up and coming, one must have
a “smart” watch.
In addition, we have now been
reintroduced to activity trackers. I
say “reintroduced” because personal
pedometers were all the rage among a
certain set not that long ago, though like
all exercise fad gadgets, they usually
ended up gathering dust under the bed.
However, the latest wearable exercise
gadgets, typically futuristic-looking
wristbands, measure all sorts of human
activity, such as steps walked, sleep
66 Silicon Chip
patterns, pulse rates and other crucial
data we simply can’t live without.
All this data can be uploaded via
WiFi or GSM networks to the cloud
where users can plot everything on
impressive-looking graphs and spreadsheets in order to track their overall fitness, food intake, calories burnt, hours
of sleep (and sometimes even stages of
sleep) and other (more or less) useful
stats. More importantly, “Generation
Me” can share this information online
with their friends, colleagues and
competitors.
It’s a great idea and also a great
motivator, encouraging users get off
their rear ends and go and crank out
some more data to upload. So where’s
all this leading? Well, someone in
this household (not me!) has bought
herself a Fitbit, one of the fancier,
Dave Thompson*
Items Covered This Month
•
•
•
•
Dave’s Fitbit repair
Church audio system repair
Digitech ultrasonic cleaner
Intermittent electrical fault in
Holden Berlina
wrist-borne activity trackers out there
on the market.
It’s actually a very high-tech little
gizmo, from its supple, purple, rubberised moulded body to its relatively
small, high-resolution OLED display.
Hers is a middle-of-the-range Fitbit
and for what it cost to purchase, it
should be flash!
Depending on the model, a Fitbit
can include a heart rate monitor, an
accelerometer, an altimeter, the usual
clock/watch functions and a long-life
lithium-polymer battery. And without
trying to sound like an advertisement
for the manufacturer, it really is a nifty
little gadget and is easy to like. They
cram a lot into the small case and while
it’s quite rugged, they can break down.
Internet forums are awash with adopters complaining about this or that, as
with any product, but as these devices
usually cost a fair bit, users expect
high-end results from them.
The display on the Fitbit is impressive. The resolution is fantastic and
the figures extremely sharp and clear
and easy to read, even in the brightest sunlight. They really are “cool” to
use and work very well for counting
steps, which is essentially what my
wife bought hers for.
Fitbits are very reliable but as stated,
they can have problems although it
isn’t always the electronics that fail.
External parts can take a hammering
and they need to be very hard-wearing
to stand up to the punishment active
users give them. However, this particular Fitbit was a bit unfit in some
respects.
First, the material used in the strap
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and body on my wife’s version feels
durable but splits very easily if bent
the wrong way. Then there is what I
consider to be a design flaw. In order
to charge the Fitbit, it has to be connected via a short USB cable to a computer or to an optional plugpack power
adapter. This cable has a proprietary
fitting at the Fitbit end and this clicks
solidly into place in the bottom of the
unit, through a U-shaped hard plastic
bracket that wraps around three sides
of the case and hides the charging port
inside.
The fourth “side” of the rectangle
formed by this U-shaped strip is the
display, with the rest of the case being
there simply to hold that bit in the right
place on the wrist for the sensor. And
here’s the design flaw; the other day,
when Nina went to put the Fitbit on
after charging it, that U-shaped bracket
stayed behind, still securely clipped
to the end of the charging lead. It had
completely come away and when I
looked closely at it under my microscope, it was easy to see why.
As I said, that bracket forms part of
the “back” of the unit and it is held
in place with four tiny plastic pillars.
They are so thin and fragile, I was
surprised that they’d lasted as long as
they did! I know that everything has to
be small in gadgets like this but given
that the charging lead clips soundly
into the charging slot in the plastic
bracket, it wasn’t going to take much
to wrench the bracket from the body,
as those tiny bits of plastic were all
that held it on.
They could have made those plastic
pillars bigger and still had room for
other things. However, they really
should have gone down the road that
Apple went with their charging leads
and used a magnet to hold it in. Or
maybe the charging plug could have
clipped into something built more
securely into the body of the case,
rather than just the hard plastic piece
on the back.
It’s a poor design in my opinion,
considering everything else on the
unit appears to be well thought-out
and implemented.
The first job was to correctly refit
the back to the body of the device. Just
below where the bracket sits, there is
a sensor. This is designed to sit on the
top of the wrist and two bright-green
LEDs flash away, monitoring the user’s
heart rate through the skin.
The problem was that the bracket
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had deformed slightly as it came away
and when placed back into position,
it didn’t fit properly. The broken-off
plastic pins didn’t line up to where
they should have and the sides had
flared out, so that was going to be a
problem.
Another tricky problem involved
the button that controls the display
functions. This is a separate assembly that passes through one
side of the bracket and has to
line up with a tiny microswitch beneath. This would
have to be held in-place when
the bracket was finally finagled into
position.
I had to gently tweak and
manipulate the bracket’s
plastic until it sat back where
it should. This was a bit awkward
but the plastic behaved itself and I
eventually got it to sit in place. If the
bracket had broken, it would have
been game over.
The next challenge was to devise a
method to securely hold the bracket in
place. Gluing the original plastic pins
was out of the question as there was
virtually nothing to glue anything to.
When a part has pins that break off, I
can usually just glue them back into
place and they are then strong enough
to hold the part securely. However,
with the Fitbit, the broken pins were
so tiny that even if I could successfully glue them, the assembly was
highly unlikely to be strong enough to
withstand the stresses of the charging
lead.
As a result, I initially considered
simply gluing the edges of the bracket
to the unit but again I doubted that it
would work. None of the glues I had
on-hand would adhere to the rubberised body and I wasn’t sure if there was
such a glue available anyway.
In the end, there was really only one
thing I could do; screw the bracket
back on. This involved some risk, as
I wasn’t absolutely sure whether or
not there was anything vital to the
operation of the device beneath the
holes for the pins that originally held
the back on. If I went poking about in
there too deeply, I might hit something
critical and that would surely be the
end of the device.
Well, sometimes a serviceman has to
make a bold decision and since there
is next to zero information about the
insides of these things anywhere on
the web, I figured that I’d just have to
take my chances. If I couldn’t attach
the bracket, the thing would be useless anyway.
I wasn’t about to break out my taps
and dies because the set I have didn’t
go anywhere near small enough for this
job. Instead, my plan was to use a tiny
drill bit to clear out as much of the remains of the pins as possible, then use
one of my dental picks to get the rest
out. I’d then be able to use tiny screws
to self-tap into the holes left behind.
I was a little wary about using a drill
but winding it by hand in my pin vice
gave me enough control to ensure that
I didn’t go too deep. I also wrapped
some tape around the bit to prevent
it from going much deeper than the
length of the screws I intended using. The four screws to be used were
gleaned from my spares tray and once
Servicing Stories Wanted
Do you have any good servicing stories that you would like to share in The Serviceman column in SILICON CHIP? If so, why not send those stories in to us? In doesn’t
matter what the story is about as long as it’s in some way related to the electronics
or electrical industries, to computers or even to car electronics.
We pay for all contributions published but please note that your material must
be original. Send your contribution by email to: editor<at>siliconchip.com.au
Please be sure to include your full name and address details.
September 2016 67
Serr v ice
Se
ceman’s
man’s Log – continued
It wasn’t divine intervention that
got the audio system in the church
cry-room going again. Instead, rather
than working in mysterious ways,
B. C. of Dungog used old-fashioned,
down-to-earth sleuthing to track the
problem down. And he got the T-loop
system (for those with hearing aids)
working for good measure. Here’s
his story . . .
Our local church is celebrating its
100th anniversary this year and all
stops are being pulled out to get the
necessary preparations under way
for this big event. One of my tasks
was to investigate the lack of sound
from the church’s cry-room loudspeaker and from the T-loop system.
Before starting, I was given a
brief run-down of the sound system upgrade that had been done a
few years ago. This had involved
the installation of a new mixer, a
multi-core cable, a large stereo power
amplifier and two large speakers.
During a past building renovation,
a cry-room (where crying children
are taken) had been added inside
the back corner of the church, along
with a T-loop system for the hearing
impaired.
Inside the cry-room, I found an
old column speaker box mounted on
the wall. This had been fitted with
a 5-step attenuator control, while
a figure-8 cable had been run back
from the box to the sound system
control cabinet.
Upon inspection of the sound system installation, there appeared to be
only four microphones on the stage
area (at the front of the church) plus
an old Teac DVD player connected to
a Yamaha 18/20-channel mixer. This
meant that there was plenty of scope
for future expansion! There were
also a number of figure-8 speaker
cables (entering via a flexible conduit
through the floor), with most of these
having being decommissioned during the last sound system upgrade.
I began by testing all these figure-8
cables with a multimeter and eventually found one that measured about
80Ω. To double check this, I disconnected one of the input wires on the
back of the speaker level attenuator
control in the cry-room and this confirmed that I had the correct cable.
I had also noticed a small transformer on the back of this plate.
When I removed the speaker grille
and the bottom speaker, I found
another transformer underneath
the inner bond filling. This had all
been meant to be run on a 100V line
public address system. No wonder
the cry-room speaker cable had been
left disconnected after the upgrade!
Initially, I considered rewiring
the column speakers and fitting a
rheostat to control the volume level
but that would have meant tapping
into an amplifier speaker output at
the front of the church. It would
also have been necessary to rewire
the four column speakers to get the
correct impedance.
When I returned to the sound
system control cabinet, I noticed an
old CS A600 series mixer-amplifier
down on the bottom shelf. I pulled
it out and found that it had a 100V
line output as well as a normal 8Ω
output. There was also an auxiliary
input with its own level control but
this had seized from lack of use over
the years. Spraying some CRC 2-26
onto the seized shaft soon had this
auxiliary input level control working again.
I now had to figure out how to
connect a signal from the Yamaha
mixer to the CS A600 amplifier’s
auxiliary input. A quick inspection
of the mixer soon revealed unused
left and right channel “record-out”
sockets so the next step was to come
up with a suitable patch lead.
Rummaging through the back of
the cabinet soon turned up an unused 6.5mm jack plug and a spare
stereo RCA-type audio lead. A pair
of side-cutters, a hot soldering iron
held parts of a smart-phone together.
I didn’t measure them but they were
just the right size to self-tap into the
holes that had been cleared using the
drill and pick.
Digressing slightly, I never leave my
dentist’s surgery these days without
asking for any old tools they can spare.
Many such implements are retired after a certain amount of time and service
and while they’re no longer any good
for poking around inside someone’s
mouth, they are perfectly suitable for
hobbyist use. They are cleaned in an
autoclave and put aside for disposal
but can come in handy for fine work
and my dentist is always happy to
let me rummage through their box of
unserviceable tools.
I always grab a couple of handylooking picks each time I go to my
dentist and I then don’t feel so bad
when it comes to paying their bill.
Anyway, after clearing out the rivet
holes, I used one of the screws as a
tap and threaded each hole with it. It
is always a bit nerve-wracking when
brute-force tapping holes and in this
case, I wasn’t sure that the material
would stand up to the process. My
luck held though and the four holes
were soon boasting nice new threads.
I went just a little deeper than I had
to, taking into account the length of
the screws and the thickness of the
plastic they’d be going through. After
all, I wanted to be sure I could tighten
them down easily, to avoid breaking
the plastic bracket.
Once that had been done, I drilled
four new holes in the bracket itself,
using the old broken pin stubs as a
guide. I made the holes a neat fit for the
screws and used a larger drill to care-
fully countersink the holes so that the
screws wouldn’t protrude and cause
any discomfort on the wearer’s wrist. It
was then simply a matter of lining up
the bracket, making sure the activity
button was sitting in place, and gently
driving the screws home.
This is where my precaution of
pre-tapping the holes paid off. If the
holes hadn’t been pre-tapped, I would
have had no idea as to how hard I was
clamping down on the bracket. If I’d
over-tightened the screws, I would
have risked cracking the already-brittle
plastic. And if they hadn’t been tightened sufficiently, the bracket could
potentially work its way loose again
By pre-tapping the holes, I could accurately judge just how much I needed
to tighten them. As it turned out, the
bracket is now held on much more
tightly than the original ever was and
No more crying in the chapel
68 Silicon Chip
siliconchip.com.au
and some solder soon produced the
required patch lead. This was connected and a test CD played through
the church sound system. The auxiliary input level control on the old
CS A600 was then adjusted so that a
parent in the cry-room could adjust
the speaker box over a useful range of
volume using the attenuator control.
Now for the T-loop system. Also
inside the cabinet was a rack-mount
black box labelled “Printacall Hear
All Powered Audio Induction Loop
System”. This had a volume level
control on the back panel, while the
front panel carried green and red LED
indicators.
Sliding the box forward off its shelf
revealed that the original figure-8
loop output cable was still connected
but there was nothing connected to
the input socket! No wonder it wasn’t
working; you didn’t have to be a
genius to figure that one out!
I found a suitable mono RCA-toRCA audio lead in the back of the
cabinet. This was then modified by
cutting off the RCA plug at one end
and wiring it instead to a 6.5mm
jack plug. It was then just a matter of
connecting it in place and adjusting
the level control on the rear panel so
that the red peak level indicator LED
occasionally flashed briefly when the
unit was being driven by the mixer.
And that was it – the service is now
available to those in the cry-room
and those with hearing aids!
the repair should now last for the life
of the device.
Digitech ultrasonic cleaner
Ultrasonic cleaners are great for
cleaning parts – except when they
don’t work. B. B. of Northland, NZ
seriously contemplated buying a new
ultrasonic cleaner when his old one
failed but eventually managed to get
it going again . . .
My Digitech CT400D ultrasonic
cleaner usually sits at the back of a
top shelf in my workshop, its bright
blue colour making it easy to find for
those occasional cleaning jobs. It’s easy
to operate – just put the items to be
cleaned into the tank along with a suitable liquid (a solvent or sometimes just
water), the press either the 35W or 60W
buttons. A 2-digit LED display then
counts down from 99 seconds and then
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the ultrasonic cleaning action stops.
A job requiring its use came up
recently and after putting the cleaning solvent and the bits to be cleaned
into the tank, I plugged it in and tried
to start it. There were no signs of life
whatsoever, so I emptied it all out so
that I could have a look inside.
After undoing three screws, the
case came apart to reveal a small PCB
beneath the display and the buttons, a
round resonator glued to the bottom of
the cleaning bath and a larger PCB on
the base that does the “heavy lifting”.
There weren’t all that many components so how hard could it be to fix?
Because it was completely lifeless,
the first thing I looked at was the fuse.
It had blown but not with any signs of
violence. The first replacement fuse
lasted until I pressed the 60W button,
while a second fuse stayed intact when
I pressed the 35W button but smoke
soon started to appear from two 100Ω
resistors. It was time to reach for my
multimeter.
A quick check of the two BUT11AF
TO-220 transistors gave low resistance
readings and after removing them, I
was able to confirm that they were both
indeed faulty. I looked for other signs
of heat and damage but found nothing,
so I ordered replacement transistors
and put the unit aside until the parts
arrived.
When ordering replacement parts,
it’s often difficult to know just how
many to get. Was the failure caused by
these transistors? If so, only one pair
would be needed; if not, how many
would die (probably in twos) before the
real cause of the problem was found?
In this case, the transistors were cheap
and are general-purpose enough to be
useful for other jobs, so I ordered six.
With the new transistors fitted, I
did a few more resistance checks and
then plugged it in. The fuse held in
both the 35W and 60W modes but the
sound was wrong. I could hear some
100Hz hum but not the normal “fizzing” sound it makes when working.
The display PCB was working OK and
just controlled relays on the main PCB,
so I was able to eliminate it from my
investigation.
A schematic was looking like a useful thing to have in order to figure out
what might have “killed” the transistors and what, in turn, their failure may
have affected. Resorting to Google to
find one gave me a sense of the likely
configuration but nothing close enough
to this unit to be worthwhile.
At this point, it was very tempting
to simply buy a new unit rather than
repair this one. Working on it “live”
would mean dealing with mains voltages since there was no transformer, so
I would need to take extra precautions
and make sure that an oscilloscope
was properly isolated. Alternatively, I
could try working out the schematic by
“reverse engineering” the unit.
Another option was to try working
out what was wrong simply by checking the components one by one. And
since there were not many of them,
this became my preferred option, especially after I noticed a small hole in
the coating of a 1Ω 1W resistor.
I checked this resistor and it measSeptember 2016 69
Serr v ice
Se
ceman’s
man’s Log – continued
This story relates to a car that
was once owned by my wife. At the
time, it was a near-new 1993 Holden
Berlina which we purchased from a
car yard in Auckland. It had a fuelinjected 4-cylinder Opel Vectra engine and was popular in NZ because
of its good fuel economy.
It had done about 5000km when
we purchased it and I wondered why
the original owner had traded it in
so soon and why the price seemed
so reasonable. Well, we were about
to find out.
After just a few days of driving it
here and there, the engine suddenly
cut out during a short trip. After the
car had drifted to a halt, we attempted to restart it but it would simply
turn over without even a hint that it
would start. And then, after about 10
minutes, it suddenly started again
and all appeared to be normal.
The car then ran normally for a
few days before doing it again. This
pattern of engine cut-outs was then
repeated over the next two weeks
and each time the engine could be
restarted after waiting for somewhere
between three and 10 minutes.
Alarmed by this, we took it back
to the dealer and left it with their
service department for several days.
At the end of that time, they told me
that they couldn’t fault it and on top
of that, no error messages had been
recorded by the ECU.
They gave the car back but the
fault quickly reappeared, the engine
regularly cutting out although it ran
faultlessly for up to three weeks at
one stage. On delivering it back to
the service department for a second
time, I noticed as I gazed over the
counter that its rego plate had been
recorded in their service log book
multiple times. I’d only brought the
car in twice, so what was going on?
When I questioned them, I discovered that the original owner had
brought it in with the same fault on
multiple occasions, before giving up
and abandoning it as a “lemon”. They
had even replaced the ECU (engine
control unit) but to no avail.
I said to the service department
manager “You sold my family this car
knowing that it had an intermittent
fault and that at any time it could
stop on a motorway and place them
in danger”. He looked alarmed and
became very defensive. “No I didn’t,
it wasn’t me. It was those guys over
in sales”, he replied, as he gestured
towards the showroom.
I decided that since we liked the
car otherwise, and since the dealer
was incapable of fixing it, I would
have a go at it myself. Thinking
about the basics, an engine needs
the FACTS to run: Fuel, Air, Compression, Timing and Spark. In this
case, it was likely to be either a fuel
or spark problem, as it was unlikely
that the timing (either electronic or
mechanical) would suddenly go haywire in a previously working engine
and then suddenly fix itself again.
It was also unlikely to be an airflow issue that was producing the
abrupt engine stoppage although
an air-flow meter fault is always a
possibility. What’s more, the ECU
would have detected an out-of-range
input from a faulty air-flow meter and
thrown up a fault code. Since there
were no recorded errors, an output
device of one kind or another in the
fuel or spark system was most likely
intermittent but the problem was just
how do you go about finding it?
The fact is, intermittent faults in
an ECU-controlled engine can be a
nightmare to track down. If anything
stops the engine, the ECU detects that
there is no engine rotation (because
there is no signal from the engine
rotation sensor) and it switches off
the fuel pump, the injectors and the
ignition system. So at that point, once
the engine has stopped and you pop
the bonnet to find the fault, there’s no
way of knowing which of the basic
functions dropped out first to initiate
the engine failure without fault codes
and computer diagnostics.
What’s more, those various subsystems cannot easily be checked in
the case of an intermittent fault that
sometimes occurs weeks apart. Because of this, I quickly realised that
what was required was a monitoring
system with latches to record which
part of the system stopped first. In
other words, I needed an “event
recorder” with a memory.
Given that this was an urgent
problem, I scrambled to the junk
box to find some parts. I quickly
grabbed some CMOS hex Schmitt
trigger inverter ICs because they can
be cobbled together in a myriad of
ways and have a handy high input
impedance. I also had some spare
4013 dual D-type CMOS flipflops
and some diodes and LEDs.
There were several likely fault
possibilities: (1) a fault in the output
from the ECU to the fuel pump relay;
(2) a faulty fuel pump relay output
to the fuel pump; and (3) faulty ECU
ured much higher than its 1Ω markings
indicated, so I replaced it with a 1.2Ω
resistor, the closest 1W value I happened to have on hand. I then tested
the unit again but there was no change;
it still wasn’t working.
As I continued component checking, I was contemplating what sort of
test equipment I’d need to check the
resonator and the coils when I found
a second 1Ω resistor that had gone
high. During this time, I was vaguely
aware that our cat had come into
the workshop and was sitting on the
floor, not far from the bench. However, my awareness of his presence
suddenly increased after I had replac
ed this resistor, the cat taking off in a
blur as soon as I turned the cleaner on.
That was one bit of test equipment
I didn’t realise I had: an ultrasonic
detector that runs on cat food!
Confirming the cat’s diagnosis was
easy because the fizzing sound was
back. I then reassembled the unit, put
some water in the tank and switched it
on. It was now back to normal opera-
Fault detector solves difficult
intermittent in a Holden Berlina
by Dr Hugo Holden
70 Silicon Chip
Giving it a go
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outputs causing either the fuel injectors or the ignition spark to stop. Each
of those would require a monitoring
line. Since the latter two rely on pulse
signals, they would have to be monitored using pulse detector circuits.
Another possibility was that the
engine rotation sensor itself was
defective but I decided to hedge my
bets on that one. As a result, I initially
built a 4-input detector system. This
was designed so that if an event occurred, then that channel would be
latched and inhibit the other three
recording channels. At the same
time, one of four LEDs would light to
indicate which channel was at fault.
The basic circuit I used is shown
in the 4-Input Automotive Fault Recorder project overleaf on page 73.
Rather than using more logic gates to
inhibit the other channels, I simply
used 10kΩ series resistors and clamping diodes which are driven by the
Q-bar outputs of the 4013 flipflops.
I didn’t bother adding refinements
like a zener diode on the 12V rail
and cobbled it all together on protoboard, with light-duty wire-wrap
connections.
I also used the same thin wire to
connect to the fuel pump relay coil
connection (at the output from the
ECU) and to the fuel pump relay
output (at the pump itself). This was
done simply by pushing the wire into
the spade connectors and the same
was done for the connection to one of
the fuel injectors. Spark monitoring
was achieved by wrapping five turns
of wire around the outer surface of
a spark plug cable, to make a “gimmick” capacitor.
I had previously realised that I
should ideally be monitoring circuit
currents instead of voltages. That’s
because the correct voltage can be
present at a given point but there’s
no current due to an open circuit
condition. In fact, I had this up my
sleeve as “plan B” if monitoring the
voltages didn’t bear any fruit.
I also realised that if worse came to
worst, I would have to fit a pressure
sensor to the injector’s fuel rail but I
hoped that I wouldn’t have to go that
far. For the time being, I figured that
voltage monitoring was the easiest
approach.
Anyway, I fitted the assembly to
the car, ran the wires through to the
engine compartment and taped the
horrible looking mess with its four
LEDs to the dashboard. I then started
the engine, pressed the reset button
and found that all LEDs were off, as
they should be.
Nothing happened during the first
few days of driving and then suddenly, on the fourth day, the engine
cut out. I looked at the panel and
saw that LED2 had lit, indicating that
although the fuel pump relay was on
(LED1 off), the output from this relay
had vanished. After a 5-minute delay,
the car started again and I rushed
back home and unplugged the fuel
pump relay for inspection.
It turned out to be a Bosch unit
with a grey plastic case. Its base was
sealed onto the case with silicone
rubber and I removed this before
prising the inner assembly out.
Once it was out, I found that it
mainly consisted of a relay bobbin
assembly mounted on a small PCB.
This PCB also carried a diode that
looked like a 1N4004. It was in series
with the coil, presumably to prevent
the relay from turning on with reverse polarity applied.
The wire enamel on the coil was
discoloured, indicating that the relay
had been running quite hot. I took a
closer look at the PCB and the answer
was staring me right in the face; a
360° crack around the soldering on
one of the relay coil’s connector pins.
As it heated up, it was expanding
and going open circuit and it was
probably being affected by vibration
as well.
Once it had gone open circuit, it
then cooled down again until it eventually remade the connection and
reapplied power to the fuel pump.
This explained why the car could be
restarted after a short wait.
I measured the resistance of the
coil and, using the formula P = V2/R,
calculated that the relay coil was
dissipating about 4W, assuming a
supply voltage of 14V (as it typically
was). That explained why the coil
wire looked as though it had been
overheated.
Fractured solder joints like this
appear to be more common when
there are a combination of factors:
(1) significant heating and cooling
cycles of the pin which can harden
and crystallise the solder; (2) a PCB
hole which is larger than necessary
for the pin passing through it; (3) a
fairly sparse or thin sheet of solder
bridging the gap between the pin
and the PCB pad; (4) the PCB hole
not plated-through; and (5) physical
forces due to a weighty object (in this
case the relay).
Resoldering the faulty joint and
covering the crack with a generous
amount of solder cured the problem
once and for all and the car ran
without any further engine problems.
I returned to the dealership a few
weeks later and explained to the service manager how I was able to find
the fault with my home-made fault
recorder. He seemed to be astonished
at the notion of a fault recorder and
had never before heard of using such
a technique to track down an intermittent fault.
At the end of the conversation, he
offered me a new relay for free so I
took it to keep as a spare. However,
the fact remains that the dealership
should never have sold us that car
without first fixing this potentially
dangerous fault.
tion, with the familiar ripples on the
surface changing pattern between the
35W and 60W modes.
So, as it turned out it, I only needed
a multimeter to identify the faulty
parts. The components markings were
readable and the replacements readily
available, so it wasn’t too much of a
hassle to repair the unit. It would have
been interesting if I’d had to check
the resonator though but fortunately I
didn’t have to.
Looking at the schematics I found
on-line, it appears that the two BUT
11AF transistors operate in a highpower oscillator. A ferrite-core coil
and a capacitor are tuned to the same
frequency as the resonator, allowing
self-oscillation with low-gain, highpower transistors. The ultrasonic
signal is superimposed on 100Hz of
unfiltered, rectified mains to include
both high and low frequencies in the
cleaning “signal”.
As for the cat, he spends a lot of time
at the other end of the house whenever
SC
the unit is operating.
siliconchip.com.au
Nailing the fault
September 2016 71
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