Date:         Thu, 07 Apr 94 21:01:19 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: Stupid Electrical error

>What's happened. I've pulled out the dash and visually inspected the printed
>circuit foil (a $107 part) and can't see anything obvious.  So, I pulled
>out the three dash lights, and two of them have no continuity across
>their terminals.  However, the turn signal and battery LEDs don't light
>either, so I can't imagine how the dash lights being fried would affect
>them.  I'm going to pull them out.  Would continuity in one direction be
>enough verification that they're ok?
>I found the "voltage regulator" thing.  The parts fiche (thanks Joel!!!)
>calls it a "vibrator."  My wife wanted to know why it wasn't installed in
>the seat <grin>.  I can't imagine how I would check it, but it has 10V
>printed next to it on the card, so if I managed to send 12V+ through this
>thing the wrong way and it was expecting 10V, I can imagine I might have
>toasted it.  Anyone know a way to test it?

Bentley sez:
Voltage stabilizer, checking:
- connect voltmeter between positive connection 1 and ground 2 (1 is the
  pin closest to the round clock module, 2 is the middle one).
  * voltage should be approximately 10v
  * if voltage is above 10.5v or below 9.5v, voltage stabilizer is defective
    and must be replaced.

me sez: it is also possible that you fried the LED's ... i've found LED's to
be a bit sensitive to high voltages. get some radio shack LED and try
connecting in across the battery and turn signal places. (the same size RS
LED's work, cause i have a yellow one in my turn signals. :) well ... they
are yellow lights on the outside, i figured i'd put yellow on the inside!)
** be a little careful of the polarity when you put it in ... touch test
first. on the vw LED's, bentely sez that the negative (annode?) lead is
slightly wider (like you can really tell in the photo!).

as for the dash lights, you are talking about those little bulbs in the
little square white housings, right? those are incandescent bulbs (as i
recall) and you have to twist those white housings 90 degrees to remove it.
you might be able to replace them with radio shack wheat bulbs.

the bentley book doesn't show any fuses in the foil, but a resistor could be
bad. if you match ohms and carefully solder it, it should work ok. on my
1980 bus, i added a tach (in place of the clock), and had to solder some
connections to the fold. in doing so, i broke the foil in one place, so i
soldered a straight piece of wire across the break and it worked ... still
working, i guess. i saw the old bus going down the road a couple of days ago.

hope it helps.
joel