Hello,
I need help with an unusual dash light problem. I have an 88. I have read a ton of other posts, but see nothing else like it.

My dash lights would periodically go dim on their own. While they were dim, both turn signal lights and the high beam indicator on the dash would come on bright and stay on. I used to be able to give the top of the dash a whack and it would go back to normal. Now it just stays that way all the time.

Does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Jim

 

go to batee.com and do a little research

 

The problem is you have a bad ground......those lights go on and everthing elses goes dark...by default. Check your cluster's connections @ the points where the Batee website indicates. Check your ground connections at the firewall if the other cluster ground check out.....if you do some more reading and you'll see that there is a small component inline (but wrapped and taped to the connector @ the firewall plug) with the cluster's ground wire at the firewall....it may be bad. If you live in an area where the weather isn't sub zero when you drive the car you can remove the component and just solder the wires together to complete the ground circuit. The component is there to prevent damage to the LCD in extreme cold weather contitions....but often it cause more problems than it is worth.

 

in the batee.com website there is an article that explains wiring in an auxiliary ground wire. Do it, it works. I just went through this recently. And while you have the cluster out change the (4) 882 bulbs and their SOCKETS also. you'll be glad you did when you put everything back together.

 

Thanks for the replys. This is the info that appears to pertain to me on the site that you recommended:

http://www.batee.com/corvette/dcrg/badground.shtml

If you look at the website, it says to run three new grounds and that the original ground goes through the firewall. The problem I am having is that there is a maze of wires running through the firewall, and I'm not sure how to find the correct ones and where to splice them.

Any additional helpis greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Jim

 

Sorry for the long post but look at: "8) User tip from Bill Blake." THis is what I did as well as clean up the solders and replacing the bulbs and their sockets. I actually read over his website for a while before i attempted to do anything and it worked.
(The picture didnt display, youre going to have to go to the website again)





batee.com


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Repairing the Digital Cluster

by Bryan A. Thompson

Last Updated 11/25/2001

Page 3/4



Repairing the Digital Cluster:

1) Carefully clean the faces of the glass LCD panels with windex and paper towels. Mine had a ring of silicon around them, courtesy of the former owner.




Figure 3 - Housing with both circuit boards removed. I had to remove the odometer in order to reassemble the Digital Cluster.


2) If you have a segment missing, remove the pink/grey rubber blocks from the LCD panels and thoroughly clean the edges of the blocks and glass with windex. Be careful - in case no one ever told you, the edges of cut glass are sharp. See Fig 3.

3) Clean all parts with compressed air to remove residual dust, bugs, etc. All this crap IS conductive to a certain degree and can potentially cause a short circuit.

4) On the bottom circuit board (the one you took out last) resolder the joints on the connector that connects the two circuit boards. See Figure 4 and 5.

5) (User Tip from John Dernar, jdernar@nordson.com)

Also resolder the joints on the other large components that appear in Figure 4 - The capacitor (big yellow thing), the brown resistor, and the voltage regulator (black thing with three leads) are all susceptible to broken solder joints due to the fact that they support large components or high current carrying ones.



Figure 4 - Board Interconnector (front view)





Figure 5 - Back of Bottom Circuit Board - Board Interconnect is in the lower right corner



Some notes on soldering:

a) When soldering, heat the connector lead and the solder pad on the circuit board, not the solder. Once these two locations are sufficiently heated, solder will flow into the joint. Don't just heat the existing solder, add a small amount of new solder to each joint. The rosin it contains will help to clean the solder joint and help the solder stick.

b) Cold solder joints take on the following forms in this case:

i) dull grey / crystalline appearance: Reheat the joint and add a small amount of solder until the joint is a bright shiny concave pool around the connector lead.

ii) rectangular outline around the connector lead: Reheat the joint and add a small amount of solder until the joint is a bright shiny concave pool around the connector lead.

iii) a convex (water drop look) bead of solder around the joint: Use the solder wick to remove the old solder (there's too much). Place the wick over the solder to be removed and heat the top side of the wick. When it's hot enough, the solder will flow from the connection to the wick. Then resolder the joint.

c) Solder bridge: This is when a drop of solder spans two or more connections. This needs to be removed. Use the solder wick to remove the old solder (there's too much). Place the wick over the solder to be removed and heat the top side of the wick. When it's hot enough, the solder will flow from the connection to the wick. Then resolder the joint(s).

d) User Tip from Bill Blake (bblake@idmail.com):

I used a good quality solder sucker to remove all of the solder on the inter-board connector pins. This cleaned off the old stuff and presented a nice clean spot for the new solder.

6) I didn't find any cold solder joints on the top circuit board connector, but while it's apart, you might as well resolder them too. See Figures 6 and 7.

7) User tip from John Dernar (jdernar@nordson.com):

My display would go dead any old time. I ran a new ground wire and even hot wire to the incoming harness, but it eventually went dead again. I examined all the connectors and solder joints under a microscope and still didn't see a problem. Finally, with the guts under power, sitting on top of my dash board, I was able
to make it die on me. As it turned out, one of the large capacitors on the power supply board had a cold joint (or probably had been shaken loose) and was causing the whole problem. I hit all the solder joints with the iron and haven't had a problem in about a year. How could they expect large components to stay attached under such conditions?

Authors notes: The power supply board is pictured in Figure 6 (the one with the cylindrical orange things). Be careful of that ribbon cable - if yours doesn't have a connector (mine didn't), be careful not to pull it loose from the larger circuit board - it's a really short cable! Remove the board and resolder everything. It's quite a few connections to solder, but it'll be worth it in the long run. You don't want to have to do this again, do you?





Figure 6 - Top Circuit board interconnector with power supply piggybacked (Front View)





Figure 7 - Top Circuit Board Interconnector (Back View)





Figure 8 - Top Circuit Board Full View (Front View) - Power supply board is the board in the top right corner.





Figure 9 - Top Circuit Board Full View (Back View)



8) User tip from Bill Blake (bblake@idmail.com):

Add a wire from the tip of the ground pin for the halogen lamps circuit to the nearest solder point along the same trace. This acts as insurance against a bad solder (cold) joint in the future.

Following photos provided by Bill Blake:



The part Bill added was the black wire




9) Clean the circuit board connectors on the top and bottom circuit boards with electrical contact cleaner.

10) Thoroughly clean the instrument panel housing inside and out.



On to Reassembling the Digital Cluster


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