Speedset will not adjust

[Timmy!]

Those 2 sheets do separate. I was able to get mine to work for one more time out and then it stopped working again. I tried pulling the snap dome out and it didn't work for whatever reason. I still need to ship mine to WA and see if he can fix it for me. Was going to do that over the winter but the dealer shrink wrapped my boat before notifying me so I wasn't able to get it pulled out in time.

[chpthril]

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!

[ATTACH]39608[/ATTACH]

Traqvis,

I do remember and I think we fixed you up with some LEDs IIR.

I do not have any experience with repairing those tough pads, sorry no help there.

off topic though, if you want to demo some new Tiges, come join us Sat. April 18

http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/show...t-Water-Sports

[travis5550]

Well I may have done it now haha. I did figure out how to separate the layers with a razor blade, but I guess I was not quite careful enough as it tore quite easily. I went with it and just got all of the buttons out of there. I'm heading out to test it here shortly. Not sure how I'll ever get it back together since the old top layer is pretty much toast. Hopefully Tige will accept this back for the core charge in case it doesn't work out. Thanks for all the pointers guys!

IMG_20150325_180438.jpg

[Timmy!]

Ummmm....yeah, you weren't supposed to go quite that far!

[IDBoating]

Don't panic just yet. Looks like the layer you removed was just assembly/protective; I don't see active traces on it. Bet you can replace it with adhesive-backed mylar and trim to fit.

[travis5550]

Yep - it's just the top protective layer...I was at least careful enough to not kill any traces (hopefully) .

So I reconnected the panel with no buttons after cleaning them all off and just tried one at a time...no dice . Using the multimeter, I was able to confirm that there was no current between the +/- leads for every button. I was then able to confirm that depressing a button completed the circuit. See attached image. At this point I'm at a loss for what to try next. Any ideas or am I SOL?

IMG_20150325_193146.jpg

[travis5550]

@WA - any thoughts on what to try next?

If the likely situation is that I'll need a replacement - couple of questions. From what my local dealer tells me, if I were to pay $1000 (-$300 for core), the new part would have NO warranty and could NOT be returned - even if it does not fix the issue. He also confirmed that they are still manufactured the same way that they were originally, meaning it will likely fail again in a few years. I can't bring myself to blow that kind of cash on something that may not even solve the problem and will almost definitely break again. I can't imagine that this is the only option. I spoke with Perfect Pass about just getting a whole new system, and the guy I talked to said they have had very limited success getting their system to work with older Marine Power engines like mine (ECM incompatibility I think). Are there other folks in this situation? If so, what is the best option here? Is this an issue that needs to be addressed directly with Tige on a larger scale?

Thanks again fellas...my apologies for the rant

[IDBoating]

Seems to me that the company that made those panels for Tige was in WA State and out of business. If so, Tige could only ship you a "new" one from stock on hand.

The big unknown here is what signals are on those wires. If it's just simple make-break connections from the snap domes - IOW the other wires and the discrete components we see in the potted module are associated with the LED's - then you have several options for repair or a home-engineered replacement. But I have no idea what is going on there, and don't know anyone who does that is also willing to talk openly about it.

I presume that panel interfaces directly to the Medallion black box under the dash. It might be encoding what those snap domes are doing, or it may just be simple contact data. The problem is, that panel controls everything on the module... you're not just losing cruise control, you'd lose the ability to navigate the menu system and all of the associated functions.

Idea: You could call Medallion directly and outright ask them. I'd have the model number and serial to give them. They may not be willing to talk directly to an end user, but then again they might... you're in a bit of a pickle here and will lose all functionality if it can't be resurrected. Worth a phone call.

[travis5550]

Thanks again for all the suggestions folks. It is looking more and more like my only option is to suck it up and try buying a replacement Touch Pad for the SpeedSet. Not knowing if the keypad is the problem in my case, there is definitely a risk that it will still not work even with the new part.

With that in mind, is there anyone else in need of one of these things? If it doesn't fix the issue, it's worthless to me, and I'll eventually try replacing with another system. I'd be happy to sell the new keypad (with a receipt) to someone on TO at a loss for say $400ish. Worst case you could always get the $350 core fee for it. Anyone potentially interested?

[Timmy!]

Did you try calling Medallion yet? Are we sure that they are the manufacturer?

[IDBoating]

Did you try calling Medallion yet? Are we sure that they are the manufacturer?

To be clear, I believe I heard somewhere/somehow that Medallion does not make the touchpad itself. I think those were made by a now-defunct company up here in Washington State. Again, I can't remember where I heard this and have not confirmed that it is true.

On my boat, which also has one of those touchpads, I have Medallion electronics under the helm. No matter who made the touchpad, it has to interface with the Medallion electronics. That's why I suggested calling Medallion: 1) I know they are still in business, and 2) whether they built that touchpad or not, they have to know what signals are on those wires. If we can learn that, we can figure out options for you and others who have dead/dying touchpads.

[Timmy!]

I wasn't sure if the 2007/2008 had Medallion hardware or not.

[IDBoating]

I wasn't sure if the 2007/2008 had Medallion hardware or not.

I'm not sure either, but I'd say the odds are pretty good. Once they got that touchpad working with the under-dash stuff they likely remained as a "group". Not a guarantee, but usually how such things go.

A photo from under his dash would help answer that, eh? {Travis, that's a hint }

[IDBoating]

OK, I couldn't stand it. I had to do some research. It's tough without one of these to dig into, but reviewing this thread there's several hints in this photo:

The label says "Valberg LLC". That was a company in Monroe WA that made stuff like this. Rumor has it they're out of business, and even if they're around they won't be making these units anymore because Tige doesn't consume them.

Also, take a look at the PCB. The device to the right of connector JP1 is likely either a voltage regulator or a pass transistor, given its big tab. No problem there. But at the extreme left and right there are two eight pin IC's (U1 and U2). That's a grim sign, because simple switch closure data over the wires wouldn't require multiple IC's. I'm really overreaching in my analysis based on a single photo, but I'm guessing those IC's are indeed encoding the switch data in some way. I know Medallion has at least one patent on a sort of "Medallion-Net" interconnection scheme to wire up multiple components on a Medallion-based helm, and these IC's may be encoding the switch data in conformance with that. Again, this is just a guess based on extremely limited data.

Travis: That touchpad plugs into a wiring harness, right? Not straight into a black box? If so, Tige provided that wiring harness and they will have drawings for it. I'd contact Harvey at Tige and ask for a copy of that wiring harness drawing. It will likely have signals identified on the various wires, which would go a LONG way toward helping us figure this out. This is old enough in their product line that they won't be revealing anything that hurts their current lineup by sharing that data.

Just trying to help out in the absence of hard data on the subject in question....

[Timmy!]

Very good information. I believe that I have the wiring diagrams as part of my owner's manual set. Unfortunately, that is still in the boat that is shrink wrapped at the moment.

Did Tige go to a new system for the R20's this year? If not, they are still consuming this piece as it is part of the R20's cruise control system.