Speedset will not adjust

[IDBoating]

Another example of why boat owners should own a multimeter!

Presuming you have a multimeter, switch it to the lowest ohms (resistance) setting and start testing. You should be able to follow the traces and see which ones service which sets of snap domes. Obviously the snap domes complete a circuit, so when the unit is partially assembled the meter should tell you when a dome is pressed - and when it is not.

Sorry I can't give more detailed help, it's really tough to troubleshoot something by remote control!

[travis5550]

Anyone figure out a definitive solution to this? I've got it disassembled and am determined to figure this out. The wife refuses to let me drop $700 on a new part...priorities she says.

[IDBoating]

Just helped someone else with this earlier today. What is your question? It's a simple case of the snap domes completing a circuit. They either work or they don't. I'm happy to help, but what is the specific question?

[travis5550]

Awesome...glad to hear there's hope! So all of the snap domes appear to still be springy/clickable. In my case, the up/down buttons stopped working first and then the set button went, so currently none of them work.

I do own a multimeter and was going to try to start testing it. I've taken pics of the wiring harness so I can remember which pins have wires going to them. Is it safe to assume the red/black wires in the middle are voltage/ground respectively? That leaves 3 other colored wires on the bottom and then a blue wire on the top left. (I'll attach a pic here shortly for reference). I guess my question is how do I go about testing it with the multimeter? Do I need to peel the white/opaque layer off of the button pad to get to the contacts and then just check to see if I can get a tone when the circuit between two of them is completed? Once the offending snap domes are found, how do you fix them?

My apologies for the ambiguity on how to approach this...I'm relatively new to this kind of stuff. Thanks so much for your help. I'll be happy to document the hell out of this and post a definitive guide on here so others can benefit as well.

IMG_20150323_182025.jpg

[IDBoating]

Lacking direct access myself, I'd start by confirming that you get reliable continuity for each snap dome. Put the probes on the traces on either side of the switch, confirm open circuit, then depress the switch and confirm closure. If you have an ohmmeter (and not just a continuity tester) you could confirm near-zero resistance. If necessary, clean the undersides of the domes and the tops of the PCB contact areas with a standard pencil eraser, brushing away the leftover pieces of eraser before retesting.

[travis5550]

Cool, so to be sure - am I supposed to somehow peel back the top layer of this pad to access the underside of the domes? It's rather stubborn to remove, and I'm not quite sure how it would be reattached afterwards... Thanks again!
IMG_20150324_192209.jpg

[IDBoating]

That's just a protective sheet, right? It doesn't have any active traces on it?

I sure wish I had one of these lying around so I could offer better advice.

[travis5550]

So turns out it was not a protective sheet. It's actually got the buttons and wiring inside of it. As I peeled it back, I heard the buttons pop. Now they are no longer springy when I try to reapply it. Guess at least I can troubleshoot a bit more from the back.

Also - does anyone know if this thing is supposed to be backlit? I saw what could be some leds on the surface. When I reconnected it and turned on my lights, it did not light up. Not sure if that means there's other issues...

IMG_20150324_205008.jpg

[IDBoating]

OK, so you have flexible PCB's there. No problem. As long as you're careful with them they should be fine.

Yes, I believe those are LED's and they are supposed to light up when you turn on the interior lights on the boat. That likely means they have a separate power lead for the LED's. It's probably literally as simple as that - a separate power lead that is connected to the light switch, perhaps with some series resistors to drop the voltage accordingly (though they may have put them in series to let them handle the voltage drop inherently). I wouldn't worry about the LED's right now, focus on getting the panel to work.

I'd clean the snap domes and their contact surfaces, reassemble loosely, and confirm low resistance for each one.

[travis5550]

I must not have been careful enough while removing the backing originally, as two of the snap domes refuse to behave as they did before. I can pop them out from behind, but once depressed they remain that way until I push the them back out again.

Also everything seems to be laminated inside of this coating...I cannot contact a conductive surface from the front or back. I'll have to do some sort of surgery to get access to the snap domes...any thoughts?

[IDBoating]

two of the snap domes refuse to behave as they did before. I can pop them out from behind, but once depressed they remain that way until I push the them back out again.

Not the first time that's been reported. In the last case I heard, I recommended pulling two of the domes out and getting by with two out of the original three on the two side switch areas. You'll have to be a bit picky about where you push to activate the button, but at least it will be working.

Also everything seems to be laminated inside of this coating...I cannot contact a conductive surface from the front or back. I'll have to do some sort of surgery to get access to the snap domes...any thoughts?

Not without personally seeing it. One thing's for sure, you'll be able to contact a conductive surface wherever the snap domes touch, because they MUST reach a conductive surface to work!

[chpthril]

So turns out it was not a protective sheet. It's actually got the buttons and wiring inside of it. As I peeled it back, I heard the buttons pop. Now they are no longer springy when I try to reapply it. Guess at least I can troubleshoot a bit more from the back.

Also - does anyone know if this thing is supposed to be backlit? I saw what could be some leds on the surface. When I reconnected it and turned on my lights, it did not light up. Not sure if that means there's other issues...

[ATTACH]39607[/ATTACH]

The 06 "Accue-Set" did have some red LEDs, but the 07 "Speed-Set" had no LEDs

[travis5550]

Thanks guys! Mike - we actually met a few years back at the boat show in Charlotte. I live up on LKN. Any chance you have experience fixing these things as well? Would be great to have a local guy to bring it to.

Either way - I'm thinking about taking a step back and just replacing this button panel with my own. Looking at the wiring harness, there are only 6 wires (blue, green, black/red, red/pink, gray/black, and purple) - how hard could it be? In looking at the board, although Mike says there are not LED's, there definitely appears to be a separate circuit wired around the outside edge that runs to what looks like little lights (and resistors on the board). If that is the case, perhaps 2 of the wires are voltage/ground for the LED's (even if not used), and the other 4 are voltage x 3 and a common ground (or the other way around) for the 3 buttons. Otherwise, perhaps it's just 3 separate pairs of voltage/ground (1 per button)? Any ideas which is the more likely scenario and which wires are for what? I'm still kind of new to this type of thing, so my apologies if that is totally off-base.

I'm tempted to disconnect the wires from the wiring harness and just create my own button panel using the same template so I can still cover it back up with the rubber button pad and metallic/plastic frame. It's certainly easy enough to find some cheap weather-proof buttons online. Making it backlight would be super easy too. My only hesitation is that there seems to be a bit more happening on the circuit board. As you can see in the attached image, there are 2 resistors (for what I thought were LED's) and several little chips. Any idea what the chips are for? In theory, would it be safe for me to just try touching 2 of the wires together to complete a circuit (simulating a button press)? I don't want to fry anything of course. Do you all know if we can get schematics/wiring diagrams for any of this stuff?

If it's as easy as just wiring in some of my own buttons, we could easily come up with a DIY example so others can stop blowing $700 on buying replacement parts. I'd love to take it a step further and even hook up some Arduino/RPi stuff to integrate a touch-screen LCD for adjusting the speed, adding rider prefs, and maybe even wire in a GPS to fine tune the speed as needed or even a camera. I'm a software engineer by day and becoming somewhat of a budding hardware enthusiast by night. Taking it back a step, let's start simple - should it be easy enough to create my own button panel and wire it in? Any thoughts you guys have would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

IMG_20150325_055503.jpg

[jmhatchett]

The two sheets of film in your last picture actually do separate, I am the one WA is talking about we just had this talk on monday and I got mine all fixed up and ready to boat test once I get to the lake and back to the boat. If you get a razor blade and very very carefully separate the two yellowish films then you can access the Metal domes and either remove or move around...

[Ewok]

I would be careful about making your own panel. I've heard from a good source that the "brains" for the speed control are built into that control pad, and that's why they are so expensive to replace.