Another useful tool is a can of freezer spray and a nozzle. If freezing a small area creates / clears the fault, you have narrowed it down for a very close visual inspection / reflow.
Even a cheap hair dryer can pull up the bugs. I retired from it about 9 months ago. High tech made me money, but Ivan is correct. Parts availability will kill all computerized anything.
Reading a lot of the comments on these videos shows me a couple of things 1) a lot of people here now what they are talking about 2) so many people comment when they have clearly not watched the whole video. There was nothing wrong with the repair, it doesn't put anyone's safety at risk, Ivan did check powers and grounds, the alternator has no bearing on the fault and so on. Great diag and temporary fix!
In a tough spot, the tough get going. You do good work, sir. As we always said in the airline industry. 'there is always a workaround' if you look for it.
Typical multi-layer board internal crack. The voltage of the RX/TX comms with the hand unit looks like a TTL level RS232 serial communication. That PCB twist trick will only work for a while - great that the owner found a new board! Overall great diagnostic, Ivan!
I was really expecting this to be a case where the lift was sold in a year and the buyer saw the binder clip in it. Happy to read the message at the end about the owner buying the new board.
I wood try your thermal camera to see if you could spot any temp. changes when working and non-working locations or parts. In the olden days when I worked at Tv repair shop we would use a heat lamp & Freeze spray to try to locate the bad parts or cracks.
The negative voltage you seen on the remote control box signal wire was probably RS232 signal (+/- 3 volts to +/- 15) Not that you want to repair the printed circuit board but if you did you can use a can of quick freeze (component cooler) and freeze spots on the PCB, it really helps to narrow down where the problem is.
Yup. that -5V was perfectly normal, it's the logic low for RS232. You could probably plug in a computer if you could ever find the software for that thing.
Been in similar situations - and after enough hard work, I got lucky. Once it was defective optical isolator chips that failed when warm. I guess it was a bad batch, because new ones weren't affected by heat. Another time, it was a tantalum capacitor on the reset pin of a microprocessor - the pin was pulled up to 5v by a resistor, but cap leakage pulled it low enough to reset (German eqpt, with no replacement available). I'll bet that you could fool around with that board a while longer and find a bad solder joint at one of the literally thousands on the board, BUT that would not be practical, esp with the coating on the board.
Optocouplers are pretty common failure points. They have an internal LED that gets weaker over time, and suddenly they cannot turn the output on anymore.
Having seen video cards from the same vintage (1998) gotten repaired, and what shocked me the most is that the most common fault was bad solder joint for the chips. A leg on a chip was basically just hovering over the pad, sufficiently to not make contact, and the fix was a simple desolder and touchup with a soldering iron using leaded solder.
I've troubleshot these flex board issues before. When there isn't an obvious cold solder/broken trace on the surface, it can still be a trace connection inside the board sandwich multi-layer. For the most part, the trace barrel connecting the multi-level traces inside the card are cold connected. The two fixes are 1. Reflow all the PTH (Pin-Thru-Hole) connections in that area with flux, from both sides of the board. 2. Any what look like traces that drop like a well into the board, need to be solder-vac'd and then reflowed with solder and flux from both sides of the board. If it is possible to insert a small wire like uninsulated magnet wire into the trace wells, do that. You can verify the trace run integrity with an O-Scope looking for noise on the bad trace when flexed. Resolder that component you touched at 23:04. Especially the Source tab. That looks like a 4 leg Schottky ... maybe has something to do with that negative voltage you discussed earlier. Edit: Added Content
That light is the CPU heartbeat. Could be a something with the crystal oscillator, CPU reset circuit or just a power/ground trace. I’m thinking the latter as the relay seems to click at the heartbeat speed… Almost seems like there is a bad ground trace on the board and the cpu finds a ground path through the relay. Who cares, the owner found a new controller!! 😂 Really interesting case study, Ivan!
You can localize the fault by using a heat gun, and then cold spray to cycle the board between cold and hot. You could possibly locate the fault using that method.
Man oh man. Finally got the 1996 F150 4.9/300 running again and no check engine light. Replaced the pick up coil in the distributor and put the original black motorcraft ignition control module back on. Was throwing codes with the aftermarket icm. Not fun pulling that gear off and getting it back on in 90° heat and a plague of mosquitoes but it was worth it. Profile ignition pulse system...
Have you ever had a call where you just said nope, not gonna touch that one? In other words, is there anything you CAN'T fix? Sure doesn't seem like it. 😂
Hi Ivan that board is designed with life safety in mind, even though causing it to work puts the worker in peril, just dead line the equipment and replace the module don't band-aid. you did what you were paid to do that is diagnose it, don't turn the lawyers loose.
Fantastic diag as always ivan I fix electronics a lot for this kind of situation i usually use some flux on the suspecious area if there is any heat it will evaporate and you could put a super white led light on the back of the board to see the internal layers it doesn't work all the time it's very tedious but worth a shot
Ivan - you're addicted to fixing defective vertical lifts and boom lifts, but it seems you are the only one who actually knows how to diagnose and fix them. The comments offer some interesting suggestions on using R134-type spray to freeze circuits to find badly soldered connections on circuit boards and switches, etc. The spray that doctors use to quickly cool and desensitize skin and nerves immediately before a deep injection might also work, if refrigerant gas is not available.
If you use a thermal imager, you might be able to identify the bad trace or joint... Alternatively, if you can identify the general area, maybe a heat gun to hot air reflow the components in the area, although it would be better if you could strip the conformal costing first and do a Louis Rossman amount of flux the help the reflow...
Hi Ivan . I really enjoyed that one . 4 hours drive & an other successful Russian fix . Getting into the nitty gritty ‘s of the mother board is extra interesting for me . Good outcome .
Ivan, great to see you out on the road, enjoying the sunshine, doing what you do. Lots of great comments below about what to do about that board but I have to say I really like that Russian temporary fix. I think I'm going to re-stock my supply of binder clips as I believe I'm getting low. Enjoyed this one. Thanks for Sharing!
Amazing! This just adds to your resume (rez-u-may). I hope the owner replaces the board. Wouldn't want any safety problems with that junk board. Great diagnosis Ivan!
Wow, another boom lift!! You're already on roll!! Nice job on flexing the board since it's 100% covered in goop. It's nice little oscilloscope! Great things for jobs like this!! Awesome job Ivan! Hopefully there's more boom lifts lol. Great video!!
In So Cal SB60 would indicate southbound on the 60 freeway, EXCEPT that the 60, being an even number runs East - West😂 Ivan videos are so cool because he tackles tractors and such.
Once had to solve a problem in an electric fork truck. It would only move full speed or not at all. Never found the problem, but solved it bridging 2 sensitive points on the control PCB with a capacitor. They never replaced the controller PCB but used it like it was "repaired" until the truck was scrapped 🙃
when flexing a board to get it to work or fail, it sounds like it could be a cold solder joint someplace. Possibly on a crimp on a wire is bad. Hold the board firm, then using needle-nose pliers move the wires on the connectors one by one.
I paid good money for an electronics college degree and invested my time in electronics, went further, joined the Navy and became rated as an avionics technician. Did it for twenty years. It doesnt pay, and the jobs dried up. I could still get work. Just not a lucrative profession anymore, still a great skill to have
A great tool to have is a thermal camera.. Flir makes a multimeter (DM285) with a built in thermal camera.. If you look at the board with the thermal camera - and there is a failed component, or a bad connection- it will almost always show up.. Even on potted boards- you can at least get pointed in a direction, if there IS a problem on the pcb..
I had something similar to this happen on a 1995 Attack from Mars pinball machine, except in that case it affected the game's scoreboard display. Similar design/construction with a mixture of thru-hole and SMT devices. What I found after testing and flexing the board a bunch, was a cracked via (small thru-hole that passes a circuit between top and bottom of the PCB). Simple fix was to evacuate the via, stick a wire through it, and solder it in place on both sides. The ONLY way to really diagnose this type of issue is with a schematic for the PCB, and I doubt that exists for this machine.
I would bet this is a power supply failure (bad/intermittent cap?). Which will have to be repaired. But, given the boards age, you would also recap the whole board (meaning replace the Aluminum and Tantalum electrolytic capacitors) and then test the board for proper operation. Which may lead you to replace some Ceramic capacitors. To do basic tests on the conformal coated board with a DMM you will need to have a set of piercing tip meter probes like Fluke TP220 tips or Pomona 5953A lead set. You have to punch through the conformal coat to take a voltage measurement. RS-232 voltage levels evolved, in circuit design, from using dedicated +/- 15VDC supplies (usually derived from Op Amp circuit supplies) to the use of interface ICs (switched capacitor devices like the MAX232A) giving +/- 10VDC from a +5VDC logic supply (used to power the +5VDC microcontroller). The MAX232 device was one of the earliest successful ICs from Maxim Integrated Circuits. The conformal coat is just ridiculous on this board. To repair the board you have to remove the conformal coat on the failed devices and then re-apply it. The board is shielded, partly due to EMI and partly due to providing a metal ground reference for static discharge. In other words, if you want to reject static charge you have to give in somewhere to go, either directly (just due to the shield being metal and having a large surface area) or by way of an I/O pin input protection TVS circuit. Really to work on the unit you should have an antistatic wrist band grounded to the metal enclosure to ensure that you don't damage any of the older ICs. Given the unit is outside, static is probably not an issue, but you want to still prevent ESD so as to not create additional problems. You also should remove your wedding ring when doing electrical work, not that it may get damaged, but because it provides a very good connection to your skin (and by extension your body). It's like wearing an electrode. The common theme for industrial control is to isolate control (logic, input processing, A/D processing) from actuation. The circuit at the bottom of the board looks like and isolating supply to power the relay drivers (outputs). This circuit uses the beige colored Tantalum Capacitors, which are more reliable than the old Cherry Drop type (which are crap), but will still fail given the age of this board. With industrial machine troubleshooting I like to use my FLIR thermal camera to see what there is to see. It will show not only PCB hot spots but also high resistance joints.
OEM controls is still in business in Connecticut. They offer some repair services unless the unit is custom made for a particular Original manufacturer.
Probably a long shot, but it would have been fun to see if one of your thermal cameras would pick up a hot spot on the board where there was a dry joint. Probably not enough resolution and too many legitimate hot spots on the board though.
You are a gamer man than I. I wouldn't get on that thing for any reason .Electronics just don't belong on heavy duty machinery where workers lives are at risk . It showed that it could be used from the ground with hydraulics a good known analog system that will work under difficult & dirty circumstances.Good video thanks for showing something different Cheers.
Would have been a great application for the heat or thermal camera. It might have shown you which component could be getting warmer then the other. Not sure parts are still available but might have been a starting point for possible fix. Also the controller has the name of the corporation that designed and built it. Perhaps it might be worth seeing if they are still around. Did the new controller fix the problems?
What a weird machine. 😅😂 You didnt say. Did he find a new board or is it a used one that might quit any minute now? 🤔 One of my cousins was a fire control tech in the navy. He'd understand all that electronic stuff you talk about. I'm in the back of the room yawning most of the time but I try to keep up. Sadly he died a while back. He was one of my favorite cousins.
Well, I did get stuck in a JLG boom lift a few weeks ago. One safety sensor that had "jumped over" the plate it should press against preventing it from folding properly, so I was there 6 meters up in the air looking like a dummy. Finally got down by stepping out on the roof of a low building and using a ladder to get down. On the positive side - it didn't rain.
I wonder how hard it would be to turn that machine into a functional analogue system. The controller station seems to have enough room for the necessary components. Happy to know the owner was able to source a new board for the machine though. Gret diagnosis as always Ivan. Be well.
I have seen little microscope lenses that can be attached to cell phone cameras. I am sure the quality is not great, but they are small. It might be worthwhile getting one and putting it in your toolbox so you can inspect for things like cracked solder joints or capacitors.Another option for testing would have been to use your thermal imager if you had it with you. If it is a case of power being lost, you might notice a component not warming up when the problem happens.
One thought would be to use a terminal camera to spot what gets warm and then carefully look there. Hot spots mean thermal cycling that may have broken a connection.
Seemed odd it only acted up with the one connector plugged in. Sure there wasn't a chaffed wire or something in that bundle of wires? Also suspect the umbilical going up the boom, they are known to cause issues in bucket trucks with fiber or electric over hydraulic controls. Not sure exactly how that system works on that though. But, hopefully the new board fixes it, even though it seemed to work fine after you were done anyway.
On the boomlift, I was wondering if you inspected the board to look for a bad trace or cracked solder joint, or anything else that could have fixed it?
What a dodgy pcb, i bet the bad joint is under one of the chips, but the owner has one now :-D i bet there are companys that clean the board of sealer and reflow the antique chips lol. Potted circuits in a box are a nightmare.
On the packaging machines I repair they have Category 3 dual channel Safety Systems require a +24 and -24 circuit to decide if everything is actually SAFE and it’s a nightmare when one decides something is not OK for no measurable reason
Ivan, heating and cooling components will likely locate problem, if you can get the board to Mr Carlson`s lab, he would probably be able to fix on bench for a You Tube video.
I had to buy a wiring diagram for my Samsung range from Russia. The web page would only use my Visa card. 6 months later there were Amazon charges on that Visa card. But I never use that Visa card for Amazon so I knew it was fraud. Visa reversed the charges and issued a new card. I asked Amazon about the order but they told me that since I was not the one that had ordered it they couldn't tell me anything about it. I pointed out that I was the one that had paid for it and they still said no. The schematic for the Samsung range was excellent and accurate. But it broke again and at 4 years old I carted it out to the curb for the garbage men to haul away.
I wonder if a thermal camera might pick up an issue? If it din't have that goop plastered on the board you could check voltages on the board till you find the open, gotta be a solder joint. Pulling hair.
oemcontrols still exist and may be able to replace the board. These things have a tendency to have their electronics guts replaced several times over their lifespan
I would use a (not very powerful) microscope with camera to see closeup of the board. They are $40.00 up to $300.00 and you might even be able to use the inspection scope you already have if you can hold it steady enough. It only needs to be 30x magnification.
negative voltage on that data line and pulses, looks like simple RS-232 serial. ideally it should be +15/-15,(referenced to common ground) but that spec has not been adhered to and it's often as low as +3/-3, but more common to have +5/-5 or +12/-12(in computers and gear). a good visual inspection of the board would likely locate one or more bad solder joints, but it could be a component also, like capacitors leaked(at that age, very likely) and kind of fits the symptoms, but so does bad solder joints.
I used to work on these hateful pieces of junk in Australia, I’m so glad the company I work for ditched them for Genie and Snorkel 😂 I hope you never have to deal with Haulotte, they’re worse! 🤪
Im so pi$$ed but I knew better. 2009 chevy comes in with the classic tick. After tearing it down cylinder 6 lifter was collapsed. I called every dealer in my area with noone having the AFM lifters. I even called summit racing and local part stores in my area with no luck. So after shopping online I found a place that had decent reviews and placed my order. After reassemble I had a very slight tick. So I took it around the block and 1 of the new AFM lifter failed. Cylinder 4 intake lifter is collapsed. I've done atleast 20 chevys with this exact problem but the only difference is I always used dealer parts with no issues. The first time I use internet special they stick it right up my a$$. I can't believe I did that knowing this could or would happened. I even told my brother "I really shouldn't buy these parts off line like this because everything is junk". I have 1 or 2 part stores I order online with somewhat success but they to couldn't get them for 2 weeks. Now I get to do the job again. This is getting way out of had with parts. About 5 years ago I had very little warranty issues, now I'm having issues every week.
Hey Ivan! Is this what they call a 'Russisn fix' mate? "Get it out of the driveway" - you achieved the objective & diagnosed the fault - just a coupla hardware bits only required.
You must've grown up experimenting with whatever you had available to you and learned how to make it work because throwing parts at it wasn't an option. There's workarounds to everything.
I started fixing my own car as a teenager because I needed a car for work but couldn't afford a lot of repairs, i didn't have mommy and daddy to bankroll anything for me. It was out of necessity that I found a career and have been quite successful.
Alot of us did! I know I sure did. I grew up in the Era where my parents threw out the old VCRs to make room for DVD. I was in my glory when I saw them next to the trash. Absolute gold mine of parts and motors inside for me to tinker with and build things.
@@mikeg3529 that's awesome! I loved tearing things apart and modifying whatever I could. Excellent way to practice self reliance and discover how basic most everything is and the reality that things don't run on magic but theories and principles of basic mechanical and physical properties. I got old lawnmowers from the dump because people would come up for the summer and forget to put gas in it and it wouldn't start so right to the metal pile. Carl Childers said it best.
It's just a dry joint. If it wasn't covered in gunk an hour with a soldering iron would have it sorted. Bad connection from one of the cables going into it is also very possible - an okd springy crimp giving up or something.
It very well could be a bad joint however it can also be a cracked trace with the 7 layers of the board. And without a board schematic would be very hard to reconnect externally what needs to be reconnected.
@@ketel556 I didn't hear anything about 7 layers? Internal trace cracks (or any trace cracks) are pretty unusual though.. It's far more likely to be one of the big through-hole connections for the sockets I reckon. I'd love to see a repair on something like this.
One must pause and ask is all this technology necessary just to hoist a person up in air ? More tech and hardware than Apollo 11 or Souyez USSR .. I worked on these since 1980s. Excellent channel 👍 Ps I flexed Boards with rubber bands similar issue..
