Intellabeam Issues

I have two Intellabeams with issues. I'm hoping somebody can help me out.

The first unit is an early '90s unit. All fuses, switch, and power cord are good. When the unit is plugged in, is in self test mode, and the switch is on, nothing happens. None of the LEDs light up. There is power going into the power board but nothing coming out. I'm guessing either a bad board or bad transformer/ballast. I've switched out the capacitor with a good unit and thats not the issue. I would switch the power board, too, but my other unit is a year younger and has different connectors on the board. Ideas?

The second unit was purchased on Ebay to replace the above. The guy that sold it knows nothing about them but advertised it as fully working. It was packed horribly so I'm hoping something just came loose in shipping and will be an easy fix. The lamp is in, but I'm pretty sure it's spent, but I don't think that should result in what's happening. When the unit is plugged in, is in self test mode, and switched on, the motor LED lights and nothing else happens. Then the third or fourth time I switched the switch on and off the motor LED stopped lighting. Power stopped going through the switch, and I ran out of time to keep trouble shooting. The unit smells horribly of animal urine and appears to have been stored in an uncontrolled climate as the screws are slightly rusty and terminals on the plug are corroded. I'm trying to get my money back, and may end up having to send it back, but I'd like to try to fix it if I can. I have a feeling that the animal urine got all over the control and power boards and probably destroyed them. What should I look at to find the issue?

Thanks,
Adam Curtis
Parents
  • 0
    Glad you found it! That really is the most common failure in I-Beams, and one I used to chase fairly regularly, before taking out all the plug on headers and putting on screw down headers. Almost as fast to take the board out, and nothing to burn . . . .

    Oh, and no, the coating on the back of the board is not really important, just so the copper is intact. It is mainly a solder mask to allow machine soldering of the board when initially loaded, as well as potentially an anti-oxidation coating, but under normal conditions, does very little after build. If it bugs you, you can shoot the back of the PCB with a conformal coating, but frankly, automated lights are not typically in environments that cause much PCB damage to begin with, and the heat of use tends to drive moisture out.

    But, since you found bad connectors, you *CAN* get heat damage to the PCB near the failed pins. Nothing that can't be repaired, but look closely, lest you have a secondary failure of the PCB after replacing the bad connector.

    - Tim
Reply
  • 0
    Glad you found it! That really is the most common failure in I-Beams, and one I used to chase fairly regularly, before taking out all the plug on headers and putting on screw down headers. Almost as fast to take the board out, and nothing to burn . . . .

    Oh, and no, the coating on the back of the board is not really important, just so the copper is intact. It is mainly a solder mask to allow machine soldering of the board when initially loaded, as well as potentially an anti-oxidation coating, but under normal conditions, does very little after build. If it bugs you, you can shoot the back of the PCB with a conformal coating, but frankly, automated lights are not typically in environments that cause much PCB damage to begin with, and the heat of use tends to drive moisture out.

    But, since you found bad connectors, you *CAN* get heat damage to the PCB near the failed pins. Nothing that can't be repaired, but look closely, lest you have a secondary failure of the PCB after replacing the bad connector.

    - Tim
Children
No Data
Related

www.etcconnect.com