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Trials & Tribulations of Chip Repairs & Upgrades

64975 Views 347 Replies 51 Participants Last post by  Ade
An F1 DPR chip arrived on my doorstep to be fixed. It looked perfectly OK but would not run when connected to a chassis and tested on a powerbase. After a check of the components, I found that three of the four diodes were not working at all so I replaced them with 1A Schottkys .........

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All still looking OK ....... time to test my handy work .......
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Reassembled back onto the testbed, I pulled the throttle back and woomph!
ohmy.gif
... very bright flames & tons of acrid smoke.

As you can see, the dual MOSFETs, top left, has decided to expire. It is a dual MOSFET bereft of any magical smoke, it is an ex-MOSFET.
I wonder if Farnell can help me out in the morning? ......
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stock yellow can in the slot it. my fault on that one, had both the leads touching. the others all stock 1800rpm scaly motors. no smoke just a little stutter if that and nothing.
The Scalextric chips should be reasonably easy to fix as there was no fire & brimstone going on; the SP15 will depend on what and how many bits have been melted.
Now that you are sitting comfortably gentle readers, I shall continue showing more photos of damaged chips .....



Obvious signs here ... destroyed NO2, stress blue wires on the right side and missing wires below the large yellow capacitor is and
directly above it, both on the outer edges of the PCB. The mark across the top diode is just a streak of glue.




Same chip, NO2 & PO3 both replaced, wires removed and added including the red & black ones. However another fault was picked up
in testing .... the blown resistor for the infra-red LED. Looking back at the previous picture shows that I missed it which is why you
should always check the functionality of the chip after repairs even in areas away from the ones you had worked in. Good job too as
this one was off The Netherlands.


Now a series of C7005s



The NO2 MOSFET (top right) had a miniscule, easy to miss pinprick hole found using a 20x microscope.




A more obviously blown NO2.



This one has a blown PO3 MOSFET. Look at the darkening around the top of the microprocessor legs. The large black blob on the bottom
right of the PO3 was the charred remains of the corner and the copper pad that it was soldered to.
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This chip has a displaced FB2 (Ferrite Bead). It is unlikely that heat played a part in it's southern orientation but I would have thought
that the solder might have been a bit more "manned-up".
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Greg , a picture showing the tools you use would enable us poor sighted folks to see how the **** you see some of these little blighters and and the size of the soldering iron etc
Hi Mike, I'll see what I can do for you .........
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Tricky one next, something that I have only done in practice. So tonight I went for the real thing ........




The chip remains unresponsive despite my best efforts so the only thing left is to transplant the microprocessor chip; the one with
the white stripes and 14 legs ....




the old chip has now been removed and the area cleaned up ready for the donor ........



It just needs aligning to the tracks on the PCB and soldering can commence ......




The operation was a complete success and the chip has made a full recover and is now settled into the ICP ward for further treatment .....

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Wow.
Just... wow.

wow.

Well done, sir. Well done.

But I have to wonder... where did the microprocessor come from? Was it not from an existing SSD chip? If so, what befell the other chip to make it irreparable?
Hi
Excellent work Greg
another c7006 lives to fight another day
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I think that's my chip.
Thanks Greg for resurrecting it! I fried it in one of my attempts at upgrading it to ICP as I thought it didn't take. Doh!

Heath
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It is indeed your chip .......
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Hats off the sir GregK!

Had a few of my chips restored to there former glory! Lol how you manage to solder neat and tidy on the tiny pins and tracks is a god given skill in my opinion!
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In preparation for the forthcoming plethora of the F1 cars from the 60s, I wanted some chips that could be squeezed into tighter spaces ..

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So I replaced them with much thinner, fast action Schottky diodes. The large silver capacitor looks so much bigger now but that
will be removed and attached to fly-leads make the board much thinner .......
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Next up is not quite a repair as much as a refurbishment of a Saloon Chip - C7006 .........#



When I get a chip like this, I would usually remove the white plug entirely and just solder the wires directly to the PCB.



A digital module plate sitting on my desk gave me a inspiration so I removed the plug from the plate and found a DPR wiring loom
in one of my spares boxes.



After a little bit of cleaning up, the iron was switched on and quickly heating up .....



Those with sharp eyes will notice that the wires on the PCB do not quite match that of the wiring loom. Here I have switched the
Green and the Yellow wires over as it was the neatest way to add the plug. The chip's internal bridging diodes will always ensure
that the correct polarity of from the track is presented to the chip correctly, so the switching of pickup wires does not matter.



The finished article. You may ask why not just add extra wire to the existing bits? The wires were just a bit too short to make the
job as easy as doing it this way .....


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neat! Was it you who posted a link to an ebay seller for the 4-pin socket/plug?
Thanks ........ quite likely, I think that was for the C8186 F1 DPR chip. Do you need it re-posted?
Hi
Just looked at that modded F1 chip,it's superb,makes the capacitor look like a gas holding tank
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That is going into your Lola ...........
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Hi Greg
Yes please. I am putting together the pieces (thanks to the contribution of DistantKiwi) and the courage for doing my first ICP chip (or two). I might use two of those plug/socket: one of the power and the other for the lights...Also do you have a link for a 2-pin socket/plug seller for the comm LED?

thanks
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