Intermittently corrupt screen. Probably loose solder joint. Where?

Posted by: tfabris

Intermittently corrupt screen. Probably loose solder joint. Where? - 05/07/2007 16:31


Sorry this video is hard to see the screen. Mostly what you see is the reflections of my camera and the bus I was passing on the 520 bridge as I took this movie. And it's all bouncy and shakycam and stuff. But there's enough there so you can see what I'm talking about.

Note that this is intermittent, you see it kind of fade in and out as it goes. After the player warms up a bit, it's fine except for a few pixels in the bottom left corner. Also, I can make it come and go by pushing on the fascia. So clearly, it's a loose solder joint somewhere on the display board.

The question is, seeing that behavior, which solder point is likely to be the culprit this time?
Posted by: mlord

Re: Intermittently corrupt screen. Probably loose solder joint. Where? - 05/07/2007 16:50

Look closely at the component side of the big black coil gizmo that sticks out on the back side of the display board -- the coil wires sometimes come loose from the solder leads. Difficult to notice, but resoldering them isn't hard.

Cheers
Posted by: maczrool

Re: Intermittently corrupt screen. Probably loose solder joint. Where? - 05/07/2007 16:54

I can't tell you which one it is, but it may also be due to a bad crimp somewhere in your display cable as was the case in a recent repair. In that case it was all or nothing not a garbled screen. But a garbled screen might be from pins 1,3,5,7, or 9 because these are the signal pins from the CPU. It's unlikely a power issue because these are redundant.

The numbering convention I am using is with pin 2 all the way on the right side of the display header in the row closest to you when facing the Empeg screen towards you and pin 20 all the way on the left.

Hope this helps,
Stu
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Intermittently corrupt screen. Probably loose solder joint. Where? - 09/07/2007 17:13

Thanks for the tips, guys.

I opened the player in an attempt to look for the fault. I was going to wiggle the display board and such, and look for the things you suggested.

After opening the player, I couldn't get the fault to happen. I had pushed on the drive and display connectors just for the heck of it, but they weren't loose, so I don't think that was a factor.

Anyway, cleaned the lens, re-assembled the player, and the problem isn't happening.

*sigh*

:-)
Posted by: gbeer

Re: Intermittently corrupt screen. Probably loose solder joint. Where? - 10/07/2007 00:02

Too bad more problems can't be solved by simply opening the case a letting the bits fall out.