Furuno 1621 - My fair weather friend!

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oldfatgit

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Have a Furuno 1621 radar on board. It only turns on when it is warm, usually when visibility is good. Have taken it apart a couple of times in search of dry soldiered joints, however, noting found. I can get it going if along side by warming it with a fan heater or at sea by putting it into a warmed oven. Then reconnect and it furns on, however, I'd prefer not to have to. Anybody got any ideas on how to get it going when cold?
 
Wouldn't something like this be wave soldered so the components will not get so hot that they are damaged. Putting the whole thing in the oven seems very dangerous to me, not that I know much about this stuff. But you seem to be assuming on a warm day a dry solder joint is making a connection. Therefore is it possible to power it up with the case opened up on a cold day and use a hot air gun to carefully warm parts of the circuit board to start with so that you might at least locate the area the dry joint is in? In the early days when I started making circuit boards and especially boards with microprocessors on the 0V side of things was always my first point of call, then things such as clocks. Other parts might still let it work but without all of the functions. My furuno radar required me to go up the mast every other year and work the connector in the dome to get a good connection,; the screen started up but no picture.

Good luck with it.
 
stav said:
Wouldn't something like this be wave soldered so the components will not get so hot that they are damaged. Putting the whole thing in the oven seems very dangerous to me, not that I know much about this stuff. But you seem to be assuming on a warm day a dry solder joint is making a connection. Therefore is it possible to power it up with the case opened up on a cold day and use a hot air gun to carefully warm parts of the circuit board to start with so that you might at least locate the area the dry joint is in? In the early days when I started making circuit boards and especially boards with microprocessors on the 0V side of things was always my first point of call, then things such as clocks. Other parts might still let it work but without all of the functions. My furuno radar required me to go up the mast every other year and work the connector in the dome to get a good connection,; the screen started up but no picture.

Good luck with it.
Click to expand...

Thank you. You gather my problem, it appears, from checking the Web that this happens now and again and that Furuno no longer support the model. Pity as it meets my needs. Anyway, I reckon that your approach may work, I should be able to open it up, separate many of the boards and try and heat one and see if it powers up. I have never built a circuit board and so wouldn't know where to start; all I do know is that it is not the dome, as it will power up when both warm and disconnected. The thing is that it is sufficiently broken for me to get radical as it is not going to get better on its own.
 
Hope the suggestion does help and don't mind me saying worth googling dry joint as several good links came up. Personally I would resolder any dull looking joint that I am not likely to solder the next one to it as well (bridge). Also I use a x10 lub to look at the joints.

Power connections? Fuse?

Happy hunting.
 
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