I'm proud to say I'm going to contribute a thread about something going wonderfully right with my car :cheesy:
I suffered from missing pixels in my ACC unit long enough, and I decided to do something about it.
Long story short, I've determined that there is a bulletproof method to not only repair a faulty display, but to also eliminate the possibility of future failures.
At the time I was doing the repair I was too tense to stop and take pictures, but I did manage to snap a frame or two of the more revealing steps. I don't have the ability to upload them at the moment, so I'll just breeze through my steps in case anyone else suffering from the same problem wants to take a stab at it for themselves.
THE PROBLEM
The LCD on the front of the ACC unit is controlled by a delicate ribbon cable that attaches to the circuit board behind it, and this cable is not securely attached. Rather than using a socket, the ribbon is simply glued to the board so the contacts on the ribbon are touching a matching set of contacts on the board. After nine or ten years, that glue no longer assures a good connection.
THE SOLUTION
While pulling the ACC unit apart I accidentally yanked the ribbon cable right off the board. It reattached well enough due to the residual glue, but there was no reliable electrical contact. I first attempted to fix this by pressing the ribbon against the board with some foam padding and a few tightly wrapped layers of electrical tape. This failed miserably; with this method I lost what pixels I used to have.
So, I ripped the whole thing apart again and went for broke. The plan this time was to solder the connection and be done with it.
Though the pins are very close to each other and are embedded in plastic, it's possible to make a decent solder joint for the entire cable using some basic instruments, and you don't even need that steady of a hand.
The first step is to remove the ribbon cable completely and apply a little bit of solder to each of the contacts on the circuit board. You do not have to worry about solder clumping up or bridging between pins; it's just important to make sure there is solder on each pin. Next, use a piece of braided soldering wick to clean everything up. By heating the wick and dragging it along the pins, all clumps can be removed and you'll be left with a nicely tinned set of contacts. I was very clumsy when I did this and I can confidently say that the board itself is very robust; there's not really a chance of scorching anything, even if you have to go over it a few times to get everything clean.
After the contacts on the board are tinned, the ribbon cable can be reapplied to the board and should remain in place due to that glue residue.
Now, using that same solder wick to diffuse the heat of the soldering iron, the backside of the ribbon cable can be heated up to seat the connection between the pins. The plastic is pretty temperature resistant, as it turns out. After making a few slow passes, the ribbon will be firmly attached to the board. I still wrapped the board with electrical tape so as not to tempt fate while shoveling the components around during reassembly.
THE CONCLUSION
I plugged her back into the car and let the computers sort themselves out (SID apparently wanted to talk to the ACC before returning control to it), and after a moment everything went back to normal, and the display is perfect!
Since those pins are now affixed to each other instead of just pressed together, there's no chance of the cable coming loose again.
I'll post pictures in just a little bit
I suffered from missing pixels in my ACC unit long enough, and I decided to do something about it.
Long story short, I've determined that there is a bulletproof method to not only repair a faulty display, but to also eliminate the possibility of future failures.
At the time I was doing the repair I was too tense to stop and take pictures, but I did manage to snap a frame or two of the more revealing steps. I don't have the ability to upload them at the moment, so I'll just breeze through my steps in case anyone else suffering from the same problem wants to take a stab at it for themselves.
THE PROBLEM
The LCD on the front of the ACC unit is controlled by a delicate ribbon cable that attaches to the circuit board behind it, and this cable is not securely attached. Rather than using a socket, the ribbon is simply glued to the board so the contacts on the ribbon are touching a matching set of contacts on the board. After nine or ten years, that glue no longer assures a good connection.
THE SOLUTION
While pulling the ACC unit apart I accidentally yanked the ribbon cable right off the board. It reattached well enough due to the residual glue, but there was no reliable electrical contact. I first attempted to fix this by pressing the ribbon against the board with some foam padding and a few tightly wrapped layers of electrical tape. This failed miserably; with this method I lost what pixels I used to have.
So, I ripped the whole thing apart again and went for broke. The plan this time was to solder the connection and be done with it.
Though the pins are very close to each other and are embedded in plastic, it's possible to make a decent solder joint for the entire cable using some basic instruments, and you don't even need that steady of a hand.
The first step is to remove the ribbon cable completely and apply a little bit of solder to each of the contacts on the circuit board. You do not have to worry about solder clumping up or bridging between pins; it's just important to make sure there is solder on each pin. Next, use a piece of braided soldering wick to clean everything up. By heating the wick and dragging it along the pins, all clumps can be removed and you'll be left with a nicely tinned set of contacts. I was very clumsy when I did this and I can confidently say that the board itself is very robust; there's not really a chance of scorching anything, even if you have to go over it a few times to get everything clean.
After the contacts on the board are tinned, the ribbon cable can be reapplied to the board and should remain in place due to that glue residue.
Now, using that same solder wick to diffuse the heat of the soldering iron, the backside of the ribbon cable can be heated up to seat the connection between the pins. The plastic is pretty temperature resistant, as it turns out. After making a few slow passes, the ribbon will be firmly attached to the board. I still wrapped the board with electrical tape so as not to tempt fate while shoveling the components around during reassembly.
THE CONCLUSION
I plugged her back into the car and let the computers sort themselves out (SID apparently wanted to talk to the ACC before returning control to it), and after a moment everything went back to normal, and the display is perfect!
Since those pins are now affixed to each other instead of just pressed together, there's no chance of the cable coming loose again.
I'll post pictures in just a little bit