Ford radio display is out

[Dom]

I have a Ford Super Duty and the radio display is not working. I've
been told that the high voltage power supply is the problem. I was also
told that this is a very common problem with this radio. Can someone
tell me where to get the part and how to repair it. I am a electronic
technician so I can do the repair myself with a little help from my
friends.

Please RVSP to me at [email protected]

Thanks in advance,
Dom Mauro

 

[GS]

Howdy Dom......Without knowing the vintage or model number of the radio,
and without any initial troubleshooting info from you, there's little
except guessing left! If this happens to be say an early-mid 90's truck,
don't overlook the fact that many of those radios used a backlit LCD
display.....small #74 (if I recall) incandescent bulb (or whatever else you
can come up with .....these were typically a green looking digital display.

Gord

 

[jakdedert]

Howdy Dom......Without knowing the vintage or model number of the
radio,
and without any initial troubleshooting info from you, there's little
except guessing left! If this happens to be say an early-mid 90's
truck, don't overlook the fact that many of those radios used a
backlit LCD display.....small #74 (if I recall) incandescent bulb (or
whatever else you can come up with .....these were typically a
green looking digital display.

Or maybe you have on polarized sunglasses. <G> That will make an lcd
display appear totally black from some angles.

This was actually a post from another newsgroup (today) about a technician
believe a piece of gear to have a bum display, when the only problem was
that had on a pair of the above....

jak

 

[Lawrence]

I've got a '99 F150 that had that same problem. Being a tech myself I
popped the unit open and found an SMT device had "desoldered" itself from
the circuit board. I can't recall what the part number was or exactly where
the SMT was located on the board since it happened about 3 years ago but it
was very easy to find and resolder back on. A year ago or so I came across
somewhere on the web where someone posted the "step-by-step" on how to fix
the problem and that seemed to be exactly the same as what my unit was
doing. Seems the unit tends to run a wee bit on the warm and toasty side of
things so some of the solder joints might be a little weak.

Cheers,
Lawrence

 

[James Sweet]

I've got a '99 F150 that had that same problem. Being a tech myself I
popped the unit open and found an SMT device had "desoldered" itself from
the circuit board. I can't recall what the part number was or exactly where
the SMT was located on the board since it happened about 3 years ago but it
was very easy to find and resolder back on. A year ago or so I came across
somewhere on the web where someone posted the "step-by-step" on how to fix
the problem and that seemed to be exactly the same as what my unit was
doing. Seems the unit tends to run a wee bit on the warm and toasty side of
things so some of the solder joints might be a little weak.

Cheers,
Lawrence

Wow! If it's running *that* hot it wouldn't be a bad idea to glue a little
IC heatsink on it!

 

[Lawrence]

That's what I had thought too. It seems to run pretty hot mainly when using a CD
and having the volume cranked way up. In fact, after a while of doing that
(15-20 minutes) the CD will self-eject and the display will show "CD TOO HOT" or
some such thing. I have heard that the stereos were built with a little fan on
the back end of them a year or so after mine was made. After poking around
inside the radio I did notice that many of the solder joints looked like someone
might have stood in front of the radio and showed it that they had a soldering
iron in their hand and hoped that this would be sufficient to scare the
component into staying soldered to the circuit board. I think that QA person who
checked my radio might have been on a bathroom break when my radio went past his
station.

Cheers,
Lawrence