Overhead Compass/Temp Fix

If I could find some I would. Not sure where I'd find them

 

Easy fix, thanks so much!

 

Ebay. I got like 100 of them for a couple bucks shipped

 

Just fixed mine a few minutes ago . Took all of about 5 minutes start to finish .

 

Did this fix today and it worked! Hot day here in NJ today. When I took the assy down, man the metal was so hot to the touch no wonder solder joint failed.

I found one side of the soldered resistor wasn't making contact with the board and also the one next to it needed to be resoldered also.

I wouldn't have know about it without the help of the great members of Tacoma World that share the great info!

Thank you!

 

Just as a reminder to folks (as I haven't logged in for a while)....*please* follow the repair guide that I wrote up here: http://www.siliconmethod.com/diy-tacoma-display-repair-guide/

Whomever designed the circuit board for our displays made it very easy to cause a board-destroying short when soldering in new resistors.

Make sure you don't have any solder bridges prior to powering on the board. Use a magnifying glass. It bums me...and the customer... out when a board has been shorted and I can't repair it.

 

Hello: I had a 510 chip issue too, soldier back in and works great. My question is the same question that JTICE has. My compass works great but my temp shows three dashes not reading outside temp. Anyone have any idea on how to troubleshoot that error? In short, the board is lighting up but not reading temp.

 

Just did this and it now works! Hardest part was I out of electrical solder and had to run to Home Depot.

 

@Finallyhaveatoyota ....the repair you performed on the resistors is completely independent of the compass reading, *unless you dropped solder somewhere on the circuit board*. So, here is what I would troubleshoot in no particular order:

• Check/clean connectors. This is probably the most likely problem. Make sure no pins are bent or corroded, including on the temp sending unit side under the hood.
• take a good look at your circuit board for dropped solder blobs; use a magnifying glass.
• disconnect/reconnect the display a few times with the truck ignition off

 

Thank you, great advice. I will reinspect again today. I am an IT consultant and have quite a bit of experience with soldering electronics but I could have made a mistake. Compass is working fine, board is powering up but temp sensor reading " - - -". I am thinking it is the temp sending unit too but was having a hard time trying to find any info on where it is located. On discussion I found said it is located by the radiator, near the front lic. plate holder in the bumper. I couldn't find anything in that area. Another discussion I read said it may be tied into the AC Unit, which sounded odd? If that is the case, then I may have an issue because I have a leak in the AC unit that I have yet been able to find. When I fill the AC it runs great for about 3 days (Super cold) but then the coolant vanishes. ugh. Living N. Michigan, not to big of a deal because it seems to be more cold than hot here. Will see if I can find the temp sensor in the hood. Thank you again for the advice, and helping point out where that sensor may be.

 

Thank you again. Found outside temp location, and guess what? There is a cable but no sensor. lol, so I am thinking that might be the culprit. Will order a new sensor right now. Thanks again.

 

Ha, well I guess that explains it! I'm glad it worked out. (or will work out once you plug in a sending unit

 

Going in for my second attempt at this. First time, I just re-soldered the originals back in, and was good for a couple of months. Then slowly, it became hit or miss, then eventually, nothing.

Got some standard 51 ohm resistors this time, hopefully this will do it.

 

Okay, sending out another SOS to the gang here Received new sensor, cleaned existing cable contacts. Plugged in and received "- - -" on the display and then I started receiving temps but here is the crazy part, most of the temp readings are "- negative numbers" and they jump around from -21 degrees to -7 and then I finally received a positive reading of 30 degrees and then back to negative numbers and randomly showing the "- - -" reading again. lol. Any ideas? Is this a circuit board issue?

 

Don't know if you have a multi meter, but if you do, you should be able to isolate the problem to the bad device/wire. On the resistance scale of the meter, you would ohm out the wire (with the sensor still plugged in on the other end). I don't know what type of sensor we have, but the resistance reading should be pretty stable regardless of the type. Some will read 10k (10,000) ohms @ 70 degrees, some 1k @ 70 degrees, and so on. But like I said regardless of the type the sensor, it should be a fairly stable reading. If it isn't, pull the sensor off the wire, and tie the two conductors together at the sensor end, and ohm out the wire at the display end. This will test the wire. On a good wire, it shouldn't read any higher that .5-1 ohm. If it's higher than that, or the reading is fluxuating by a good margin, then the problem is with the wire (maybe insulation is worn, and it's touching chassis ground). If that looks good, check the resistance of the sensor itself (with wire removed). As mentioned before you will have a different resistance range depending on the type of sensor, but should be a fairly stable reading. If those two look good, the display itself has the issue.

It's also possible you aren't using the right type of sensor (if that were the case though, I would expect that it wouldn't read at all). I would guess the wire is your issue.

 

Thank you so much Fitz235 for taking the time to write all that out. Extremely helpful and greatly appreciate the info. Hooking up multi-meter tonight after work and will get on this. I think you are correct, wiring is probably the issue. I did have to fix the 510 chip on the board, last week, re-solder because there was no power. As soon as i fixed that, the display came back on, compass working, etc. So hopefully not a board. The info you provided is outstanding, gives me everything that I need to now troubleshoot this. Can't believe I am doing all of this for an outside temp reading. lol. But, I don't like having things broken, want to get to the bottom of this. Thank you again...

 

No problem. I'd love to see you get that thing going.

Just a heads up on the 510 resistor (not sure what the O, or 0 is at the end of "51", as it is 51 ohm resistor). It's been mentioned in this thread previously, but everyone seems to have better luck using standard 51 ohm resistors (probably more surface area to solder to?). I initially re-soldered my factory resistor, and like many others it worked for a while, then crapped out again. I just this week soldered the standard 51 ohm in place, and I have the display back. Time will tell if it's a permanent fix, but based on comments from others, it should hold.

 

This incredible took me 5 minutes and made me feel like a god damn electrical engineer.

 

You are, Big guy, and doggonnit, people like you!...

 

Hi guys, i have had issues for a while on and off. sometimes if i wack it hard it comes back on and stays on, but eventually it got worse and worse, i dropped it down and brought it in. also got some new photos since the original ones on this thread seem to be not displaying for me.

It looked like there might be a hairline split on the 510 closest to the display on the side facing the middle of the board. it was super hard to see and only obvious in certain light. i dropped a touch of RadioShack lead free solder i had kicking around on each side of both 510's

when it went back in it lit right up but now is displaying 60 deg F when it is definitely 40 deg F outside. hoping maybe it will just get its self figured out by morning?

possible thoughts, did i overheat one of the resisters and cook it?
did i drop some hair or dust in there that could have shorted something? (it was haircut day today)
what should i do if this problem doesnt correct its self?

also in the last photo i tried to get a shot of what looks like a burn brown blob in the right bottom corner of the display, is this what others were seeing?

photos>>>