Oops - blown my climate control up

[The Barge Captain]

As two of the illumination lamps in my climate panel had failed, i decided to replace them all seeing as i had the thing dismantled. All was going well, changed the bulb in 4 of the holders ok, the last one was a sod to get out of the holder.  Came eventually only to find that this one was a non replacable bulb type.  I can get round that i thought, straightened the legs on the new lamp, fed them through the bottom of the holder and soldered on.  Test with a battery on the bench, lit up ok, so fitted in the panel.

Right I thought, just make sure they all light before i rebuild it, turned the ignition on.................and very quickly off again!
Nasty electrical crackling, big puff of smoke

Removed all lamps and tried again - panel completly dead   Checked fuses in board - all ok

Unplugged multiplugs and dismantled unit - large section of track blown away!  This apears to feed the illumination lamps, but that shouldn't stop the rest of it working i hope.
Going to go and have another look at it once the kids have gone to sleep.  Fingers crossed.

[RonaldMcBurger]

Not that it will make you feel any better, but i sold a climate control panel last week on ebay for...... wait for it........ £81!

[Phil]

This might make you feel better as i have a spare one that works fine except one of the display LCD is cracked.

Its easy to swap these over as its what i did to repair mine.

If your intrested im sure we can come to a deal  

[jonny2112]

As one door closes....another one opens!
Happy days!
[smiley=grin.gif]

[The Barge Captain]

All is not lost yet.  Soldered a very fine wire link via two of the through holes in the pcb to bypass the blown track, cut away the damaged track so it wont move about and short with anything else, and plugged it in with no lamps in
It lives
Put the 4 proper lamps back in and tried again - still works
I haven't put it totaly back together yet as i still ned to replace 1 lamp & holder, and this was tried with a cold heating system, so not 100% guarenteed fix, but hopeful.

[Elite Pete]

Not that it will make you feel any better, but i sold a climate control panel last week on ebay for...... wait for it........ £81!

I just got one off Ebay for a tenner. I think I might put it back on again and suffer the cold

[TheBoy]

They vary wildly in price - I've paid between £30 and £75 for them...

[theolodian]

They vary wildly in price - I've paid between £30 and £75 for them...

How many have u blown up?  

[Elite Pete]

They vary wildly in price - I've paid between £30 and £75 for them...

How many have u blown up?  

[TheBoy]

They vary wildly in price - I've paid between £30 and £75 for them...

How many have u blown up?  

one must experiment occasionally.....

nah, changed them on a few cars now....

[theolodian]

They vary wildly in price - I've paid between £30 and £75 for them...

How many have u blown up?  

one must experiment occasionally.....

nah, changed them on a few cars now....

Great, another thing to look forward too    Even without that kind of stuff it looks like I am going to spend close to 1K in the first year of owning this car.  :-?  Probably won't get any better after that either.   :-/  I was hoping that this car would cost me 500/yr in service and depreciation doing most of the work myself.  I still like the car, but it is not cheap to run!

[The Barge Captain]

Just re-read the thread "Climate ECU" in general help - so I'm not the first one to blow a board just by changing the bulbs then.

Do we have a common problem?   :-?

[The Barge Captain]

Well - it's all back together and working ok.  Bit scary though.  Thanks for the encouragement.

[bob.dent]

Well - it's all back together and working ok.  Bit scary though.  Thanks for the encouragement.

Nothing like a bit of perseverance - well done Captain