Date:         Wed, 22 Jan 2003 00:59:56 -0500
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: Idle Stabilizer
Comments: To: Todd Last <Rubatoguy@MINDSPRING.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <3E2E2452.1070505@mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 11:55 PM 1/21/2003, Todd Last wrote:
>I put some photos of the unit on a web page.
>If anyone notices anything that looks fried, let me know so I can try
>replacing it.

No, nothing obvious.  That big resistor obviously gets hot, but you can see
from the way they mounted it clear of the board that they expected it to.

The large transistor-or-whatever (4th component from right, bottom row, top
picture) should be looked at closely, and a strong glass or a dissecting
microscope could be a good friend in general.  But frankly without tracing
out the circuit and figuring out what it's supposed to do, you really are
reduced to testing components, and quite a few of them you'll probably have
to lift one or more leads to get a correct answer.  BUT! there's one
technique that's definitely worth trying, which is to "reflow" i.e. reheat
and re-melt the solder on each joint on the board(s), adding a tiny bit of
solder if needed to freshen things up.  Solder joints have very poor
fatigue resistance, and an open joint may appear perfectly normal except
under a microscope.  It's really quite astonishing how many things I've
fixed by simply reflowing every joint on the board.

Good luck,
david


>http://rubatoguy.home.mindspring.com/index.html
>
>
>Thanks,
>
>Todd
>'88 Westy

--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"