circuit board too old?

[2bit4reale]

I own an old Whites PI 3000 (1993-1995). The last few times I took it to the beach, it took like 30 min for it to balance itself. Do the components of the circuit boards have a shelf life? Even though its an older unit, it has always found me plenty of goodies. I always start with fresh batteries, but seems like I'm wasting them waiting for the machine to kick in. Works fine once I get going. Any Idea's?

 

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[Carl-NC]

The only components that has any significant aging problem are the capacitors, and it's pretty rare for them to fail after even 15 years. But it can happen. If the PI is otherwise in good shape and you like it, I think it's worth sending it to White's for repair. I suspect it's an easy fix, since it does kick in and start working.

- Carl

 

[Ant]

If I had your problem I would carefully open the box so that I could troubleshoot it. Is coil cable loose at the control box or coil, check the obvious first. Sometimes it something simple, like a lose connections, crack solder welds, or contacts and or wires that find their way to a short, and so on. It can take as little as a bump at the right angle to cause something like that.

At this point I would use a magnifying glass to inspect contacts, wires, burned components such as resistors, capacitors, and diodes, soldered joint, and so on. I do that preferably with the machine on.

At this point I would try to balance the machine while using a finger or probe to find any lose connection. If I touch something and notice it affected the balance mode I take note and follow that trail.

I use my fingers or a plastic or wooden probe to isolate a small problem area. This test is essentially a wiggle test, one that any electrician troubleshooting a problem like this would use in this salutation. If you move a wire, component or ground and the machine reacts in the balance mode, take a close look at that area closer.

 

[mikeofaustin]

Electrolytics lose their value very quickly. These can safely be replaced by tantulums (a better quality cap). If I remember correctly, it's something like 20% in the first year (too lazy to look up the specs). I've also seen conductive acid (?) form on a PCB from when a battery was left in something for a long period of time.

Digi-key.com is your friend when it comes to pictures of components.

 

[Born2Dtect]

If you are inclined, capacitors are fairly easy to check. Just get a capacitor close to the value, size and rating of the one you have and jump it across the suspected bad one. If it works a lot better replace it, if not keep looking. When I buy components I do use Digikey but I always check www.mouser.com.

Ed D.

 

[Rob in KS]

I would agree with Carl and Mike about the capacitors. I have the motherboard out of my other computer. It has some bulging and leaking caps. It's not THAT old I'm going to try to fix it because I'm tooooo cheap and to lazy to re-load all that cra...er...I mean software
Waiting on parts from Digikey.

This also causes problems in mid 80's to mid 90's car computers.

If you know what you're doing, it's a pretty easy fix. If you don't, send it in.

 

[nudels]

I'd agree with caps, sometimes there is just a bad run of them. In the mid to late 90's there was a bad run of power supply (on the motherboard) caps for a particular run of main boards, all units were Tangu Uniform within 5 years, the corrosion coming from all the caps was clearly visible. Low end systems from HP, and Abit motherboards were hit IIRC. It happens. But if you are squeamish about board level work, just send it in to Whites where they can fix and then ensure it works properly, hopefully by running it through board level test sets. Or they may just swap with a known good one.

Hope it all works out, if not let us know. Also, there are probably people here that would be interested in it. You could sell as-is and update to a new one too.