combination meter repair - DIY

Use a heat gun with a fitting that focuses the heat to a narrow area, to heat up both surface mount capacitor connections simultaneously, then use tweezers to remove the cap from the board while the solder is still hot.

 

nope

 

Thanks Ben, C3 is a 6.3mmx7.7mm can. I didn't find anybody that sells 10uF or 22uF caps in that size, it is a common size for the 100 and 220 though. Based on that and the markings I went with this
Panasonic - EEE-HA1C221XP - CT 6.3x7.7 SMT Vol-Rtg 16 VDC Tol 20% Cap 220 uF Alum Electrolytic Capacitor - Allied Electronics
. The 5 ohm ESR limit isn't a factor because they are all well below that. If the minimum rated capacitance is 10uF I can't see the engineers going with that, there's not a lot of tolerance there. I think that if they had used 10uF caps originally there would have been failures in a few years instead of the 8-10 years that we see now.
This is just my guess. I'm not an EE so I may be totally wrong.

Work the caps side to side until they break loose, always being careful not to over do it and damage the pads. Then clean up the pads with a braid and re tin them. Is there another way that would work better? Thanks

 

Texas, you're right, I didn't check to see how big the can was in the picture and a 6.3 x 7mm can is clearly too big to be a 10uF electrolytic. Annoyingly I have some sample kits - and from one manufacturer the "100" caps are 10uF and from another they are 100uF. Consistency!


I found an interesting guide from Infineon on their automotive regulators: (since I can't link, search for "Introduction to Automotive Linear Voltage Regulators")

In that guide, they mention that the TLE4278 is one of those regulators that requires ESR be above a minimum value as well. They don't say what value (the example chart looks like about 1 ohm at light load) and the data sheet doesn't mention it at all.

So the puzzle is still there, for me. I guess the ESR of the 100uF capacitor could have degraded enough to go above 5 ohms, but that doesn't really line up with pEEf's analysis. I wonder what he found?

Swapping those SMD can electrolytics - I have used Texas's method with good success. Since you're putting a n
ew part on, be more careful of the pad rather than the part. Heat one side, get it loose, heat the other side, pull off the part, clean up the pads.

 

That’s why I would ques that he’s talking about increasing the size of C5. Other side of it is at ground? Although he did say that he added a component. Maybe he just paralleled one?

 

Texas, it might be a good idea to use a low ESR capacitor instead of the one you specified, which is a standard ESR part. The 100uF part that Toyota put on their new board looks like a Nichicon UUD series which is low ESR. The other caps are also Nichicon but the markings don't give the series.

The 100uF cap on the old board is harder to identify - it might be United Chemi-con, but again the markings don't give the series so no idea on whether they replaced a standard ESR part with a low ESR part.

valde3, increasing C5 could be done by paralleling another cap, though it would be almost as easy just to change the part for a larger value. Somehow I don't think that's it.

 

I just replaced my combination meter from one from Module Pros on ebay. Now Im getting a double flash pattern on my fuel gauge. I connected my techstream software and saw an C1253 current error but no MIL light. I reset errors but gas gauge continues to flashing. I unsuccessfully tried to calirate my fuel level. I then tried the maintenance interval reset. That worked for about 1 minute, filled up the gas gauge and life was good - no flashing and fuel level went to full. After leaving service station, gauge started flashing and the fuel level dropped back to the original level. I will call module pros tomorrow Hopefully they have a solution

 

Would lowering the reset switching threshold by adding/changing the resistors in the external voltage divider help with Cq degrading?

 

Lowering the reset threshold would mask the problem, and might fix it completely, if you could lower it below the oscillation on Vq. Assuming that there is oscillation. It makes sense though.

If there were resistors already installed it would be easy to change the values. It doesn't look like there are - and that would mean CAREFULLY lifting pin 7 and soldering 2 resistors to it, not easy with such small parts but doable. A 100k resistor from pin 7 to GND and a 165k from pin 7 to Vq would give a reset threshold of ~ 3.6v, high enough to keep the CPU happy but low enough to avoid a lot of noise / oscillation on Vq.

That would fit better with what pEEf was saying, and fit with the fix from the Ebay repair place since the repair would be very fragile and need to be glued/potted in place.

If it weren't so difficult to get the display out of the car, I'd try it on mine... but I'm waiting for mine to fail again before justifying the teardown. Mine has only failed twice and the warranty is long gone.

 

Has somebody repaired his unit himself by replace C3 (C2,TLE4278)?


I’m living in The Netherlands (sorry for my Englisch) and here is no repair shops for this problem.


Thanks

 

My combination meter was repaired by Toyota. However, the display dimming function does not function anymore. Replacing the dimmer itself did not resolved the issue. Just wondering if the Toyota technician may have forgotten to connect some wires to the combination meter or perhaps it is something else.

 

Why don’t you just go back to the place that did the repair? If they broke it during the repair they should fix it for free.

 

Did not notice the issue until at least one year after the repair. I should have checked everything more carefully. Dimmer function is not a function that I use often.

 

Wouldn’t it work if you just tell them what you told above?

 

Actually I can try to talk to them. However, dimmer function is not really important to me. It took the dealer almost a week to swap out the combination meter last time. Do not want to go through that again.

 

Does the dimmer work for the other dash lights?

 

Dimmer function does not work for any of the dash lights, including the combination meter. However, the dimmer wheel does click to the super bright mode.

 

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Matt

 

Lovely, Matt. You come onto a thread that was started in the spirit of finding a way to fix our own combo meters (From post #1: "So here, in this thread, I will detail my experience in trying to fix my own CM, and welcome any input from others that have also tried"), you asked others to share their knowledge, and when they did - and helped you figure it out, you don't share that information? Even worse, you post an advertisement to make money off that shared information... on the SAME thread. Wow.

Please share the information on how to fix our own combo meters for those of us that want to attempt the repair ourselves, unless that was never your intention. And if someone DOESN'T want to DIY, they can use your services.

Doug

 

So you just replace those 3 caps and regulator ic? Maybe re-solder something? This gets them to work perfectly?