Help with determining dc/dc board issue?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Le’prius, Jan 16, 2025 at 12:43 PM.

  1. Le’prius

    Le’prius New Member

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    [​IMG][/url] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG][/IMG] So I have here the converter board of a 09 prius and I’m trying to find out what could’ve caused this board to short. Code reader shows: P0A08-264.

    Have gone through trouble shooting based on the work up and everything seems in good condition, except with step 12-d where I didn’t get no ohm resistance but did get k-ohms of 129.

    what could possibly be causing this board to short? All wiring seems good no fuses seem blown.

    The only thing I can really think of is if moisture made its way and caused a short with the inverter casing.

    I had replaced the board before due to reverse polarity jump. After that I had a high voltage leak that I traced to same board, after isolating the board and putting it together again. I had no errors until this one appeared. I must say the second time i put it back together I didn’t waterproof seal the cover on the converter like the first time. After that I put the car outside for other reasons and it had been raining a couple days. Either moisture made its way in or the infamous rear passenger leak onto the 12v battery caused this.

    Any suggestions please?
     
  2. pasadena_commut

    pasadena_commut Senior Member

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    Well, the components in the white circle in img5726 look like voltage regulators. If that is what they are, they can get really hot and are often, but not always, bolted to metal heat sinks to keep them from self destructing. That's why there is a hole through them and sometimes a metal pad to make better thermal contact with the heat sink. It would get extra hot if the input voltage was abnormally high or the output voltage was dragged down, for instance by a short. Were there heat sinks on these, and if so, where those two maybe loose?

    There are other components that come in that form factor though, like FETs and some other types of power transistor. Same deal though, they burn up with too much of a load, faulty input voltage (or current), or too small or badly attached heat sink.

    At this point you might want to just change the entire inverter. I mean, you aren't going to repair that board, or at least, shouldn't.
     
  3. Le’prius

    Le’prius New Member

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    I have another fully functional board that i was planning on using but I was afraid of it getting burned again, especially if the inverter is whats really causing this issue
     
  4. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    They're a dime a dozen so why not just take another hole inverter and stick it in the car just because eliminate all of that nonsense and I imagine you've looked back at the battery just because maybe that's what one would do make certain there's no leaks no funny business I see the code in the subcode I get it.
     
  5. Le’prius

    Le’prius New Member

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    Yeah I might just have to do that, and yeah I double check the hybrid battery and no leaks at all or anything!
     
  6. Le’prius

    Le’prius New Member

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    Yeah I might just have to do that, and yeah I double check the hybrid battery and no leaks at all or anything!
     
  7. Danno5060

    Danno5060 Active Member

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    Once a PC board gets toasted that bad, it usually isn't worth the effort to try to repair it. That kind of heat just does too much damage.

    The techs and engineers I used to work with would talk about the boards "carbonizing" and becoming conductive. When a PC board gets burned as bad as that hole in the middle top of the second image it could have also heated up the internal layers to the point where they fused together, cooked otherwise good components, melted the solder for other components - the list is long.

    Even if you could repair that board, I wouldn't trust the reliability. Go with what @Tombukt2 said - replace the inverter.
     
  8. Le’prius

    Le’prius New Member

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    I was actually thinking more about replacing the actual board with a fresh fully functioning one. But like ‘Tombkt2’ said the whole inverter might just be a better idea to be honest.