Unused Motec M4 in the closet?

[Ian M]

Just wondering if anyone had an unused Motec M4 that they would be willing to sell.
Our car shut down after 10 minutes of testing after powdercoating. After much troubleshooting, we finally took the Motec apart. Smelled like burnt electronics and finally fount that the pin connection to the circuit board for the common grounding wire was toasted.
I guess we must have gotten power surging through the grounding wires somehow? Has anyone had this problem (or do most of you run a diode to prevent this?)

Anyway, just wondering if anyone has an M4 that we could use for Michigan or buy from you.
I will be calling Motec on Monday to see if their rep. could bring a loaner.

Pretty much sucks though, because this is one thing that we can fix ourselves.

Thanks,

[Ian M]

Just wondering if anyone had an unused Motec M4 that they would be willing to sell.
Our car shut down after 10 minutes of testing after powdercoating. After much troubleshooting, we finally took the Motec apart. Smelled like burnt electronics and finally fount that the pin connection to the circuit board for the common grounding wire was toasted.
I guess we must have gotten power surging through the grounding wires somehow? Has anyone had this problem (or do most of you run a diode to prevent this?)

Anyway, just wondering if anyone has an M4 that we could use for Michigan or buy from you.
I will be calling Motec on Monday to see if their rep. could bring a loaner.

Pretty much sucks though, because this is one thing that we can fix ourselves.

Thanks,

[Ian M]

Thanks to all of the people who have offered to help out during our time of dismay.

Turns out though, that last night we decided to attempt to solder the burnt common ground pin back to the circuit board. To our amazement it is actually working and has held up to a couple of hours of running!!!!

It is really great that so many teams are eager to help each other out, when everyone is extremely busy during these few days before MIS. See everyone there!!

P.S. Please pray for our soldered connection.

[MoTeC]

FYI: burnt traces or components happen for two reasons:

1) Hooking 12 volts onto a 0v line. Don't do this. Most sensors are 5v or 8v for a reason.

2) Reverse battery protection is only good for a certain time and load amount. If the sensors and other items hooked to the ECU aren't reverse battery protected, then it's possible the diode inside the ECU can blow.

Both items can be repaired by Motec and usually run $100-$200. The ECU board is coated and there are other design criteria that must be followed for repair. Therefore we don't recommend attempting repair work by yourself. It would also void the warranty.

[fart can]

There's a warranty?

[Ian M]

Sorry to keep this thread going, but I was wondering how long the warranty was good for? As I understand it is only good for 1 year and our M4 is 4 years old now.
Your first assumption was correct. Some untaped 0V signal wires came into contact with the positive battery terminal, which broke the 0V pin away from the circuit board.

I wouldn't have attempted to fix this myself, but we only had a couple of days before competition and I figured the warrany was up anyway.

If we decide to re-use the M4 next year, we will definitely send it back to have you guys repair it correctly, especially for the $100 - $200 that you quoted.

Thanks for the heads up.

[MoTeC]

The warranty is 2 years, but your unit would not fall under warranty. It's a failure of the reverse battery protection diode. Welding on the car with the electronics plugged in will also cause this exact failure. Sure you can solder across it, but then you are taking the chance of destroying other components on the board of which could rend it impossible to repair. So use it with caution and send it back for repair as soon as possible.