Anyone Repair Falcon Controllers

[ChiefWarrant]

You should be seeing 3.3V and 1.0V on the board. Typically a post regulator after the 5V. My Falcon is installed outside in a box, else I'd take a closer look at it. The parts you note that have no voltage, are SOT23-3 parts and typical type of package for a voltage regulator. But unless you have to correct soldering iron and skill set, you can ruin the board removing and replacing the parts, if indeed thats what went out. The thing is, you typically do not see those just going bad on you, something could be shorted and making them shut down. When you do power up the board, another way to find bad parts is by thermally checking them. Carefully use your finger (unless you happen to thermal gun) and look for parts that are screaming I'm hot and burning up. Warm is OK. Hot that you say oh $%&^ when you touch them isn't. That would be my next step.

I will take a look for "$%&^ hot" components, either when I get out of work today or in the morning.

I will also measure the voltages on my other F16v3 (a higher Rev board) to see if I can identify major differences.

Thank you
-Tony

[ChiefWarrant]

Measured the voltage on the working F16v3 and I have proper reading on all 3 Voltage regulators.

[Utimgr]

There will also be 1.8V and the FPGA core voltage of around 1.0V. Since the ethernet lights aren't working, I might suspect 1.8V may be out. Just be careful measuring, go across the caps because its easy to slip using the meter probes and once the smoke is out of the magic chips, thats it.

[ChiefWarrant]

Bumping this, since I just had a second Falcon fail in the EXACT same way.

-Tony

[1pet2_9]

Since this is the second failure, is it possible you are power injecting into the first pixel using a different power supply, and not disconnecting the VDD lead from the controller? If I was in your shoes, the first thing I would be thinking is, what am I doing wrong? So that I don't get a third?

[ChiefWarrant]

Since this is the second failure, is it possible you are power injecting into the first pixel using a different power supply, and not disconnecting the VDD lead from the controller? If I was in your shoes, the first thing I would be thinking is, what am I doing wrong? So that I don't get a third?

No is is not possible. I was not power injecting anything. The board was powered by a single MeanWell 5VDC 60A Power Supply.

[angus40]

Could you post photos of each side of this controller ?

[ChiefWarrant]

Could you post photos of each side of this controller ?

Falcon-Front2.jpgFalcon-Back.jpg

[angus40]

Is there a sequence of button press to do a POST on these controllers ,or can you access factory reset at initial power up ?

Just a thought .

[ChiefWarrant]

Is there a sequence of button press to do a POST on these controllers ,or can you access factory reset at initial power up ?

Just a thought .

Time to tackle this again.

There is a factory reset function, but the reset results in no change to the status.

Digging through the FalconChristmas forums @SurfWaxAmerica posted:

"It's a bad VR1 voltage regulator. Neither VR1 or VR2 are hot. Confirmed faulty via multimeter reading on VR1 middle pin yielding about 48mv. Sending off to David for repair."

I should mention that I also reached out to David Pitts when the first F16v3 failed (Dec 2020), after a few email exchanges, the conversation stalled because Christmas was on top of us and I got the second controller in the mail.

It looks like the way forward is reaching out to David again to see if PixelController.com still does repairs.

-Tony

----EDIT---
Heard back from David Pitts. So I will be sending this off next week. if he can get it going, I should be good
Thank you everyone for your assistance.

-Tony