Analog control board repairs?

[latexeses]

Geetings.
Is there anyone here who does pc board repairs? I have 2 boards that need some help. Both are from older (1988, 1991) pellets stoves. One is a rotary swith repair and the other from an older stove that has been hurt with voltage. A trace is broken.
The broken switch is a long story.

My wife is sort of funny about having heat in the house. Go figure.

I have been looking around locally and everyone wants me to upgrade ALL of the electronics on the stove or buy a new stove. Yea right.
Everyone I have contacted around here about board repair has had some major ego problems. Guess I decided too early in life to not do business with people who look down their nose at me.

If anyone has had any work done and is satisfied with the work they had done I would appreciate hearing from you.

Here or PM.

MERRY CHRISTMAS
Thank you in advance,
Rodger

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Rodger,

What brand are the Pellet Stoves? I did a quick search and found lots of links for Whitfield brand, parts, etc.!? Info about repairing control board and such as well!!

Perhaps the rotary switch can be purchased and swapped out??? There are several folks on here with electronics background, perhaps some photos showing the damaged boards or such may also be helpful for folks to suggest repair approaches?

T.C.

[cywelchjr]

I'm in the general area and I've got a bit of electronics experience (only a little, I've only worked in the field since high school, which I graduated from in 76), although I've been working primarily working in programming for the last few years. If the switch can be sourced, it shouldn't be too hard to replace, and if it's just a broken trace on the other, I've done more than one trace repair, but generally a broken trace on one that was "hurt" by voltage has some other component damaged that caused the trace problem in the first place. I did fix my boss's sons microwave from a "hurt by voltage" problem twice, with basically the same damage both times, and the turkey put the surge protector we gave him for it on some OTHER device (that as I recall didn't need protecting) and the third time it wasn't able to be repaired. He kept going by the main feed to the mobile home he was in and knocking it part way out. The third time it actually blew a crater in the board where the sacrificial component USED to be , thereby protecting the REST of the board from further harm .

[DiverRay]

Roger, sent you a PM. I am fixing boards now for money(HAM radio company) so I'm able to use the equipment at work for things like this.

[ManagerMike]

I have never heard the term "pellet stove" but I am however open to the idea hat it may be some sort of major home appliance. If so, set your browser to www.repairclinic.com. It is the holy grail for the DIY crowd (as we all seem to be here) when it comes to home appliances.

[latexeses]

I have been reminded that it would have been a good idea to include the make of the stove....
I am sorry for posting without all the information and for that I apologize.

"I have this old motorcycle...Does anyone know how to fix it up?? I still feel like an idiot.

The stove I have is a 1988 Breckwell 24i. Breckwell was located in Oregon until about 3 years ago and moved the operations to Texas and then to Tennessee within the last year or so. So goes the story. I contacted them directly to see if they had any schematics for the older boards so I or someone else could trouble shoot the board.
They have none of the information for the older stoves, which I find incredible.
The rotary switch for the newer 1991 board was manufactured by C&K. From looking at their website I think I have found the exact same switch. That is if they have been making the same switch since 1991. I am in the process of trying to track down someone with that information.

Thanks for the link Mike. I will head there when this is up.

For anyone not familiar with a "pellet stove", it is a self feeding wood burning stove that uses compressed wood shavings generally from lumber mills. Sawdust. It is compressed and extruded into a pellet that is about a quarter inch in dia. and anywhere to 1/4" to 3/4" long. They burn very clean and if adjusted correctly creates no visible smoke. In many areas pellet stoves are exempt from wood burning restrictions because they burn so clean.

Everyone likes pics so here we go.

This is a pic of the front of the older 1988 stove control board



This is the back of the 1988 board. The third trace from the bottom left became a fuse! This damage was inflicted by the owner, who by the way will not repeat the incident unless on vow of secrecy and under the curse of continual carburetor trouble for repeating it to anyone. Good luck.



This is the from of the 1991 control board. The pellet feed switch is now part of the control board instead of mounted separately. The post of the switch is broken off and the gray (top) portion of the switch is broken nearly all the way around the base of the threads. The switch is made in two parts. The base is red and the top portion is grey. The base can be soldered in place and the top portion of the switch can be adjusted for the number of stop and then seated into place. I have been calling parts distributors for C&K but it seems no one wants to talk to someone about "one" switch.



Back of board showing the footprint of the switch. How and why I have a second "broken" Breckwell 24i stove is a story about loosing control of a situation. Best told over good booze.



I did manage to talk a Breckwell dealer and repair man out of an old control board for the 1988 stove. He took it out of a stove because it was bad. Cost was a couple sixpacks of Full Sail Amber Ale. The board will run the stove but there is little control due to some fault on the board.

The best part of that information is that nothing beyond the board in the stove is hurt. All of the temperature switches are working, the fans and the pellet feed are working.

Well, there it is. If anyone out there has had any problems with "Heatus interuptus" related to a pellet stove control board I'd like to hear how you cleared it up.
Thanks again for the help.
Rodger

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Rodger,

I'm definitely no electronics GURU, but looking at the '88 board, the 3rd trace goes to some solid capacitors , but then terminates at what I think is a voltage regulator. There's another one at the opposite end of the board, and there are discolorations at the solder joints for both...which I think is indications of excessive heat....possible failure of the voltage regulators.

I had a couple of old Professional grade Editting VCR's that stopped working, took out the power supplies, and aside from replacing all of the fluid filled capacitors I also needed to replace the voltage regulator. I was able to find replacements by searching numbers on the VR chip, just a few bucks for each one and the capacitors.

You should be able to solder on a jump wire across the broken trace fairly easily, but think the VR's would be the other thing to replace.

I'll find the old thread and post it's link so you can see the photos and such.

As for the newer board, that switch looks fairly complicated in that it looks like it's controlling several circuits at a time. It would take some "figurin' " to map out the switch contacts, which ones are connected/broken at the different locations of the switch. Then it might be possible to get/find an aftermarket switch(s), solder a bunch of wires to the board to connect to a remote located switch(s)...just a thought!?

T.C.

[latexeses]

Thanks T.C.,
I think the C&K Rotary switch number,as far as I can figure, is
A112-05-R-?-C-Q-?

http://www.ck-components.com/a/rotary,10517,en.html

Go to on the right side of the page...

Download A catalog pages

The entire list of things there seems to match what I have and it looks like it is "programable" for any number of "Stops".
Just wish I could wake someone up at the distributor up in Auburn, Ca.
Calling for two days but no one calls back.

The switch increases or decreases the time the auger motor runs.

[b.walker5]

I can buy 4 pole, 12 position rotarys from my local hobby electronic store over here http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView....h&form=KEYWORD so you should be able to get them there from the likes of Radioshack or whatever else you may have close to you.

I'm with TC on the other board. You may need to test the caps and the regulator, if that indeed is what it is (does it have a number on it?). But you may also have a short in the transformer, to cause enough heat to melt a heavy track like that. It's also entirely possible that it simply may have been corroded at that point and finally let go under some load. Is the track on an input or an output. If an output, which one, blower fan, exhaust fan, feed auger or heater element? If its an output then any fault will be donwstream from the board, if an input then any fault will be on the board.

[TopCatGr58]

Sorry for the delay, but after I found my thread, I found that I had deleted the photos from photobucket, so I've re-uploaded them, then editted my post to reflect the new url for the photos.

Here's the link to that thread...mostly to see the photos!
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...ht=electronics

My voltage regulators had 5 prongs IIRC, those black things look to only have 3. It's hard to make out the number on them...looks like 25008 or 2500B, same number on the same part on the newer board as well!

I'll check out the website, but won't be much help...I'm not a GURU, hopefully the others will read and chime in...Cy or Davinci or Geezer or who else?

That catalog and the numbers you provided show that the switch is a
A112 12 position/single pole/30 degrees per throw=position; 05= 0.500" high flatted actuator; Mounting=R=3/8-32 threaded; ? N or S Non-Shorting/Shorting; C=PC thru board mount; Q=Silver; ? No Seal/Sealed

Like you said, controls how long the Auger runs...but it's not "programmable", you just pick the switch that matches the description you posted as I showed above. It's a single pole...so only controlling 1 circuit at a time, just has
12 different circuits/auger speeds to select from.....the way I figure it...but I could be wrong??

PS...I looked farther down the catalog, the switch is marked with the pole numbers on the bottom side facing the PC board. You'll want to take a magic marker and mark 1 pole on the board and on the switch, so you can figure out what # Pole goes at that mark, and be able lign up the new switch to be in the same position for the same control.

Are you any good with a soldering iron, and do you have a solder remover?

Did you PM DiverRay about possibly working with him for fixing one or both of them??
T.C.

[DiverRay]

T.C.,
Yes, I got a PM, and I will probably repair the boards. From my point of view, should be easy!(famous last words!). I have a shop about 45 minutes from me the has ALL KINDS of OLD electronics in stock. I just need to ride over, pick up a few parts and install them. The burned trace is an easy fix, so I'm not worried about working on it.
I've been replacing surface mount and through hole parts on boards for a LONG time, and have the correct tools available to use.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Ray,

That's great, and great of you to offer. I found that other part, it's
T2500B a Motorola Thyristor 3 prong device. Thyristor...isn't that a part that gets HOT as it controls voltage/current flow?? SO..perhaps those discolored solder spots may not necessarily indicate damage???

Here's the Datasheet link: http://smanuals.com/files.html?datas...34/data-T2500B

Hope this helps???

T.C.

[latexeses]

T.C.,
You are correct that the switch is not "programable". That is my lack of "electronese" showing up. I can select the number of stops....
From what I can glean form all the information on the switch, I shouldn't have to desolder the base of the switch if they are still being built. I should be able to remove the top of the switch and set the number of "stops" in the correct place and re-install the new top half of the switch.
That is why I am trying to light a rag under the Northern California distributor for C&K for the information.

Monday I am going to start on the headquarters in Massachusetts!

[cywelchjr]

Have you tried digikey to see if they carry those switches? They are a pretty large scale distributor but will deal all the way down to single quantity, they just give progressive breaks in price as you buy more stuff from them.

If Diverray hadn't offered, I would have offered to give a try at fixing the boards for you, I don't the equipment he does (at least not anymore like I used to (long story and it involves floods almost two decades ago)) but I actually DO have experience fixing exactly the type of damage your dealing with on the board with the trace damage. The switch may be trickier, but worst case IMHO would be to come up with a replacement that is functionally the same, which may be easier than you might think, of course you may be able to just get the correct switch anyways.

[latexeses]

Thanks for that link CY.