Window control boxes

[Ballsy]

My car is away gettin mot'd and wee bits and bobs fixed but while it was there the windows and doors stopped working, cheked thru previous posts and it looks like my window control box has had it, tried unplugging the box for a while then putting it back in but no luck
Wheres the best place to get a new one(can they be bought??) or is it a case of gettin my one fixed?
Does anybody know what causes them to fail?

Cheers

[kojak]

Breakers yards.

http://www.douglasvalley.co.uk/

http://www.bellhillgarage.com/

[Ballsy]

Oppps forgot to say ive already checked the breakers.......none in stock

[therevday]

I am getting one repaired at the moment.I will let you know how it turns out

[optimax sniffer]

I think that Racing Green do an exchange service, where they send you a box and you then send yours back by return post

[plug]

Good luck finding one, I managed to get a recon one from Clever Trevor a couple of months back, I called loads of dealers and breakers, all said that they are like rocking horse poo, one said he has seen they being sold for upto £500 for a recon unit.

Edited by plug on Monday 28th July 17:28

[TT Tim]

plug said:

Good luck finding one, I managed to get a recon one from Clever Trevor a couple of months back, I called loads of dealers and breakers, all said that they are like rocking horse poo, one said he has seen they being sold for upto £500 for a recon unit.

Edited by plug on Monday 28th July 17:28

FFS, haven't we got any electronics engineers on here?

Tim

[Ballsy]

TT Tim said:

plug said:

Good luck finding one, I managed to get a recon one from Clever Trevor a couple of months back, I called loads of dealers and breakers, all said that they are like rocking horse poo, one said he has seen they being sold for upto £500 for a recon unit.

Edited by plug on Monday 28th July 17:28

FFS, haven't we got any electronics engineers on here?

Tim

Thats what i was thinking!! Was thinking of taking it to a local electrickery bloke.
Tried CT as well but none in stock, said i might get it done thru a local dealer(mines dreadnaught in Calender) but said anybody that deals directly with unipart(i think, mabye europart) should beable to fix it. Said he was in direct competition with them and if i couldnt get one then he'd try to get it done!! Nice bloke

[kojak]

I'm sure I heard some time ago of an ex blackpool technician thats was doing them. I'm pretty sure it was a lady who used to work there. Perhaps I mite be wrong. Can anyone shed any light into this, or was I just dreaming.

[eLSerbera]

Ballsy said:

TT Tim said:

plug said:

Good luck finding one, I managed to get a recon one from Clever Trevor a couple of months back, I called loads of dealers and breakers, all said that they are like rocking horse poo, one said he has seen they being sold for upto £500 for a recon unit.

Edited by plug on Monday 28th July 17:28

FFS, haven't we got any electronics engineers on here?

Tim

Thats what i was thinking!! Was thinking of taking it to a local electrickery bloke.
Tried CT as well but none in stock, said i might get it done thru a local dealer(mines dreadnaught in Calender) but said anybody that deals directly with unipart(i think, mabye europart) should beable to fix it. Said he was in direct competition with them and if i couldnt get one then he'd try to get it done!! Nice bloke

Ummm, funnily enough I do have a piece of paper with a BEng on it and said type of engineer stated on it, however I do product management/marketing so not qualified enough to reverse eng a box in a short period of time, though I am planning on doing it for myself when I have my own car...

Any one know if they have any BGAs on the PCBs?
I wouldn't think so, based on whats been said here, but if there are then theres no point in trying, but if there just TSOPs and individual parts then as its not outside the realms of possibility that you could get a limited prototype run done... Any one got any pics of the iternals of the control box?

[Tanguero]

It isn't even TSOPs - just DILs in sockets.

Edited by Tanguero on Tuesday 29th July 00:09

[TimJM]

TT Tim said:

FFS, haven't we got any electronics engineers on here?

Tim

I did look into this myself (after 6 weeks of hunting hell) and spoke to a few people. The problem is the PIC chips, I don't know if the program exists anymore (although could it be read by a reader?) and the fact that they are no longer produced by Motorola.

But, looking at the function of the box and investigating all the input/outputs, I think it would be much easier to start from scratch. The functions of the box are actually very simple and programing a PIC chip to respond to the various inputs should not be to tricky. However, finding a second hand one or waiting for one to become available seems the cheaper (and faster) option at the moment.

Tim.

[eLSerbera]

Tanguero said:

It isn't even TSOPs - just DILs in sockets.

Edited by Tanguero on Tuesday 29th July 00:09

Cool, I must admit that I've imagined pretty much everything from a wire wrapped monstrosity to some custom logic chip with a set relays next to it...

That doesn't look too complicated at all - are the main external connectors still available do you know?

[Demondad]

kojak said:

I'm sure I heard some time ago of an ex blackpool technician thats was doing them. I'm pretty sure it was a lady who used to work there. Perhaps I mite be wrong. Can anyone shed any light into this, or was I just dreaming.

Anyone who's a TVRCC member turn to page 38. If not here is contact of ex TVR spark

CM Electricals
Cath Mason
01253 595250
[e-mail]

Keep these people employed!

[Tanguero]

eLSerbera said:

That doesn't look too complicated at all - are the main external connectors still available do you know?

The ones covered in hot melt glue? - Which I hasten to add is factory original!!!

I havn't been able to track them down via the usual Farnell/RS route despite a reasonably serious effort to do so.

Edited by Tanguero on Tuesday 29th July 15:28

[Ballsy]

Called up my local TVR dealer and then said they dont fix them or send them away but i should call Austec because they do, called Austec an they dont fix them they send them to the new TVR development place to be fixed by a guy called Paul Smith, only thing is the lead time for something to be done is about a month The guy did suggest opening the box and try cleaning the contacts before i do anything with it so i'll try that whenever i get the car back then try the guy mentioned above!!

[kojak]

Demondad said:

kojak said:

I'm sure I heard some time ago of an ex blackpool technician thats was doing them. I'm pretty sure it was a lady who used to work there. Perhaps I mite be wrong. Can anyone shed any light into this, or was I just dreaming.

Anyone who's a TVRCC member turn to page 38. If not here is contact of ex TVR spark

CM Electricals
Cath Mason
01253 595250
[e-mail]

Keep these people employed!

I'm assuming that Cath does repairs to the control boxes or even new/equivalent ones.

[diycerb]

TimJM said:

TT Tim said:

FFS, haven't we got any electronics engineers on here?

Tim

I did look into this myself (after 6 weeks of hunting hell) and spoke to a few people. The problem is the PIC chips, I don't know if the program exists anymore (although could it be read by a reader?) and the fact that they are no longer produced by Motorola.

But, looking at the function of the box and investigating all the input/outputs, I think it would be much easier to start from scratch. The functions of the box are actually very simple and programing a PIC chip to respond to the various inputs should not be to tricky. However, finding a second hand one or waiting for one to become available seems the cheaper (and faster) option at the moment.

Tim.

I'm going to look into doing this when mines back on the road. I've got a similar PIC eprom programmer, should be simple enough to make up a similar program maybe even get one-touch windows in there. Won't be for a while though.

I was thinking of going through all the modules and re doing them at some point, you could probably incorparate all the electronics into a single box actually.

Rich.