Silicon ChipFixing feline follies - October 2022 SILICON CHIP
  1. Outer Front Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Publisher's Letter: I3C: Coming soon to an IC near you
  4. Feature: Display Technologies, Part 2 by Dr David Maddison
  5. Project: 30V 2A Bench Supply, Part 1 by John Clarke
  6. Feature: New PICs & AVRs from Microchip by Tim Blythman
  7. Project: PIC & AVR Breakout Boards by Tim Blythman
  8. Subscriptions
  9. Feature: Buck/Boost Battery Charging by Tim Blythman
  10. Project: Multi-Stage Buck/Boost Charger by Tim Blythman
  11. Project: Automatic Train Controller by Les Kerr
  12. Serviceman's Log: Fixing feline follies by Dave Thompson
  13. Feature: Mouser Q & A by Nicholas Vinen & Mark Burr-Lonnon
  14. Project: WiFi Programmable DC Load, Part 2 by Richard Palmer
  15. PartShop
  16. Vintage Radio: STC model 510 portable by Associate Professor Graham Parslow
  17. Market Centre
  18. Advertising Index
  19. Notes & Errata: History of Op Amps, August 2021; AVO Valve Testers, August 2022; iSoundbar, August 2022
  20. Outer Back Cover

This is only a preview of the October 2022 issue of Silicon Chip.

You can view 44 of the 112 pages in the full issue, including the advertisments.

For full access, purchase the issue for $10.00 or subscribe for access to the latest issues.

Articles in this series:
  • Display Technologies, Part 1 (September 2022)
  • Display Technologies, Part 1 (September 2022)
  • Display Technologies, Part 2 (October 2022)
  • Display Technologies, Part 2 (October 2022)
Items relevant to "30V 2A Bench Supply, Part 1":
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply front panel control PCB [04105222] (AUD $2.50)
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply main PCB [04105221] (AUD $5.00)
  • INA282AIDR shunt monitor IC and 20mΩ 1W shunt resistor for 30V 2A Bench Supply (Component, AUD $10.00)
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply PCB patterns (PDF download) [04105221/2] (Free)
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply front panel artwork (PDF download) (Free)
Articles in this series:
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply, Part 1 (October 2022)
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply, Part 1 (October 2022)
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply, Part 2 (November 2022)
  • 30V 2A Bench Supply, Part 2 (November 2022)
Items relevant to "PIC & AVR Breakout Boards":
  • PIC16F18xxx DIP Breakout PCB [24110222] (AUD $2.50)
  • PIC16F18xxx SOIC Breakout PCB [24110225] (AUD $2.50)
  • AVRxxDD32 TQFP Breakout PCB [24110223] (AUD $2.50)
  • PIC & AVR Breakout Board PCB patterns (PDF download) [24110222,3,5] (Free)
Items relevant to "Buck/Boost Battery Charging":
  • Complete kit for the High Power Buck-Boost LED Driver (Component, AUD $80.00)
Items relevant to "Multi-Stage Buck/Boost Charger":
  • Buck/Boost Charger Adaptor PCB [14108221] (AUD $5.00)
  • PIC16F1459-I/SO programmed for the Buck/Boost Battery Charger Adaptor (1410822A.HEX) (Programmed Microcontroller, AUD $15.00)
  • 1.3-inch blue OLED with 4-pin I²C interface (Component, AUD $15.00)
  • 1.3-inch white OLED with 4-pin I²C interface (Component, AUD $15.00)
  • Complete kit for the Buck/Boost Charger Adaptor (Component, AUD $40.00)
  • Complete kit for the High Power Buck-Boost LED Driver (Component, AUD $80.00)
  • Laser-cut clear acrylic front panel for Buck/Boost Charge Adaptor (PCB, AUD $2.50)
  • Buck/Boost Charger Adaptor software & laser cutting files (1410822A.HEX) (Free)
  • Buck/Boost Charger Adaptor PCB pattern (PDF download) (14108221) (Free)
Items relevant to "Automatic Train Controller":
  • Automatic Train Control PCB [09109221] (AUD $2.50)
  • Chuff Sound PCB [09109222] (AUD $2.50)
  • PIC16F1455-I/P programmed for the Automatic Train Controller (0910922A.HEX) (Programmed Microcontroller, AUD $10.00)
  • PIC12F675-I/P programmed for the Chuff Sound module (0910922C.HEX) (Programmed Microcontroller, AUD $10.00)
  • ISD1820-based voice recording and playback module (Component, AUD $7.50)
  • Firmware for the Automatic Train Controller (0910922A/C.HEX) (Software, Free)
  • Auto Train Control and Chuff Sound Generator PCB patterns (PDF download) [09109221/2] (Free)
Items relevant to "WiFi Programmable DC Load, Part 2":
  • WiFi-Controlled DC Electronic Load main PCB [04108221] (AUD $7.50)
  • WiFi-Controlled DC Electronic Load daughter PCB [04108222] (AUD $5.00)
  • WiFi-Controlled DC Electronic Load control PCB [18104212] (AUD $10.00)
  • 3.5-inch TFT Touchscreen LCD module with SD card socket (Component, AUD $35.00)
  • Laser-cut acrylic fan mounting-side panel for the WiFi DC Electronic Load (PCB, AUD $7.50)
  • WiFi-Controlled DC Electronic Load laser-cut front panel (2mm matte black acrylic) (PCB, AUD $10.00)
  • Software and laser-cutting files for the WiFi DC Electronic Load (Free)
  • WiFi-Controlled DC Electronic Load PCB patterns (PDF download) [04108221/2, 18104212] (Free)
  • Front panel decal and cutting diagrams for the WiFi DC Electronic Load (Panel Artwork, Free)
Articles in this series:
  • WiFi Programmable DC Load, Part 1 (September 2022)
  • WiFi Programmable DC Load, Part 1 (September 2022)
  • WiFi Programmable DC Load, Part 2 (October 2022)
  • WiFi Programmable DC Load, Part 2 (October 2022)

Purchase a printed copy of this issue for $11.50.

SERVICEMAN’S LOG Fixing feline follies Dave Thompson Some people spend a lot of money on their pets. The pet industry is massive, with people in the USA alone dropping approximately $110 billion on their fur babies in the last 12 months. My wife and I probably spent about that on our cats here in New Zealand. One way to save a little cash is to fix the pet-related gear rather than replace it... Those in the pet trade know owners will spend whatever it takes to keep pets safe, entertained and healthy; it seems nothing is off-limits as far as marketing goes. Now there is pet insurance, pet funerals, special diets and much more, all designed to emotionally engage owners. We are not immune because we want our cats to be ‘happy’ in their lives with us. We think they are (especially when they want food), but that doesn’t stop us from buying them treats, toys and other seemingly useless accessories. The old gag is that cats will typically ignore whatever came in the box and spend hours playing in that carton instead. It is, of course, totally accurate. Cats love boxes and will happily sit in one for hours. They also love sitting on any papers you might spread out in front of you, such as a newspaper or a circuit diagram. I can put a paper kitchen towel on the floor and, within a minute, a cat will be sitting on it. If only pet-owning life were always that simple. Over the years, we’ve purchased many funky ‘toys’ for our cats. Some are passive devices, like a plastic stick with a short string and feather arrangement attached to the end, which we wave about to get their attention (if they are interested). Lately, though, an increasing number of ‘electronic’ toys for pets are showing up at stores around the globe. The first we bought for our cats was a simple enclosed plastic track with gaps in it, with a clear plastic ball with a motion-activated flashing red high-intensity LED inside that can be ‘batted’ around by an intrigued feline. The ball sits idle until tapped, then it flashes (apparently enticingly), 78 Silicon Chip so the cat will maintain interest and swat it until it gets bored, usually in about two minutes tops. The good news is that this ‘toy’ was relatively cheap; the bad news is that once the battery in the ball goes flat, you have to buy new ones – available as an ‘extra’, of course. This is a great marketing ploy from the manufacturer, and as long as the cats remained interested, they could milk money out of us for years to come (much like the printer ink business model). The case of the trapped battery Now, as a serviceman and electronics guy, having something with an onboard battery that goes flat pretty quickly and cannot be replaced rails against my code of ethics. Simply chucking that ‘expired’ ball into the rubbish is neither green nor kosher (even though the ball is actually tinted green), so I did what anyone else would do in my position – I tried to change the battery. I already knew what type of battery the ball took because the ball is made of a green-tinged transparent plastic, which allows the LEDs flashing inside the ball to be seen outside. The balls are the size of a ping-pong ball and two halves are joined together – obviously, once the circuit board and battery-holder assembly are installed – using glue. I can tell because there is a noticeable seam around the ball; theoretically, all I’d have to do is open that up, change the battery and rejoin the two halves together. I say theoretically because they don’t come apart that easily. It appears that plastic-welding glue is used to close it up (the kind that dissolves plastic to join it, rather than just tacking the two bits together), so simply cracking the glue bead won’t help. They’d obviously thought about this a lot and intentionally made these things to be consumable items – another of my pet peeves (pun intended!). Getting them apart was going to be the challenge. Anyone who has tried to cut a ping-pong ball in half will know how incredibly difficult it is to hold something like that while attempting to separate it. I once used a Dremel jigsaw to bifurcate a ping-pong ball and feared for my fingers at every step of the process. I’d likely need to use something like that to crack these flashing balls open. Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way. By this time, many of you are likely eye-rolling and asking your good selves why I don’t just suck it up and buy replacements – which, in all honesty, aren’t that Australia's electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au Items Covered This Month • The irreplaceable cats and their non-replaceable batteries • • • Simpson’s odyssey Outdoor motion sensor repair More playthings for pussy-cats Troubleshooting a cordless lawnmower Dave Thompson runs PC Anytime in Christchurch, NZ. Website: www.pcanytime.co.nz Email: dave<at>pcanytime.co.nz Cartoonist – Louis Decrevel Website: loueee.com expensive. Well, the answer in three words is: The Serviceman’s Curse. I can see the battery inside; therefore, I must be able to replace it! The balls ship with one of those really thin transparent plastic pull-tabs on them, so the battery doesn’t go flat on store shelves. When you get one, you pull the tag out, which connects the battery, and off you go. That means there’s a slot in the seam, and that’s where I started. I tried the usual spudgers and prying tools, hoping that the seam would give way and the ball would just pop open. No such luck. These things were tighter than an All-Black scrum. The only way in was to score the seam deeply with a craft knife – a horrifying task to finger health – followed by carefully using a modified junior hacksaw blade to cut around the edge and through to the inside of the ball. Clearly, I couldn’t just chew through it with a jigsaw like an empty ping-pong ball, as that would also slice the innards in half, defeating the purpose of the exercise. Well, I got it open eventually, but at the expense of about a millimetre of material cut away by the blade kerf. Replacing the battery was easy enough – it had a typical plastic-moulded holder with a spring at one end and a contact at the other. The battery itself comprised just three garden-­variety SR44 cells in series. Once the cells were installed, I had to reconnect the two halves. After smoothing the ragged hacksaw cuts and matching the two halves as best I could, I used a tiny spot of superglue at three points around the circumference to tack it back together. The result was still quite strong, but time would tell if it stood up to the punishment of being batted about by cats, when they could be bothered. Still, I consider it a good result. siliconchip.com.au Theoretically, I can now crack it open easily any time the battery dies, which is how it worked out. I’ve replaced the battery in the two balls that came with the toy several times now, and while we’ll have to replace the balls eventually, at least we’ve gotten some decent use out of these ones before having to discard them. Of course, it depends on the cats still being interested! My wife was buying some items from an online store recently and came across a ‘chirping’ cat toy that was ‘on special’. She ordered it, even though all our cats are getting older now and play with toys less. But, on occasion, especially with a new toy, they will still find that inner kitten and go mental over something. This particular toy is like a large plush housefly, with exaggerated bug eyes and wings. Once again, it came with one of those plastic pull-tabs to activate the battery, and when that was removed, just tapping the toy lightly would result in a chirping sound for a few seconds. Unusually, our cats loved it straight away. It didn’t say so on the packaging, but it was probably soaked in catnip, such was the interest they all showed in it. At all hours of the day, we’d hear the thing going off, indicating one of the cats was having fun with it. Sadly, after a few days, it stopped working altogether. While the cats occasionally swatted it when walking past, they soon lost interest. Being a plush toy, there wasn’t any real way of getting to the module inside. I could feel it in there, but no sound came out. The wife played around with it, and suddenly it started chirping again. So we threw it back to the cats and it worked as expected for the next few days. But it stopped working again and this time, no matter what we did, we couldn’t get it going again. My wife suggested we just buy another one since the cats liked it so much, but the Serviceman’s Curse reared its ugly head again, and I resolved to discover why it had failed. After looking it over carefully to see how they managed to embed the module inside and sew it up without any visible seams, I found a section in the toy’s body with several tiny clear threads holding it together. I guessed this was where they’d inserted the capsule and then sewn it back up. Like the flashing balls above, the only way in was to be a bit destructive. This shouldn’t be as bad, though; snipping a few threads is much easier than cutting a ball in two! And so it proved to be. Once I had removed those clear stitches, I could spread the outer material and push the Dacron packing aside to reveal the electronic module. The circular insert is a well-made plastic unit about the size of a small stack of 10¢ pieces, 25 × 18mm or so. Australia's electronics magazine October 2022  79 A cover on one end was clipped to the rest at each 120° point by a small plastic tab, and a small flat screwdriver bit soon had them loosened. The PCB inside is tiny and has a small chip-on-board (COB) IC plus a few ancillary components. Unlike the balls, which use a very simple arrangement for sensing movement, this device appears to use some kind of accelerometer within the COB to detect when the toy is moved. With the PCB out, I could faintly hear chirping when I tapped the side of the board, indicating that perhaps the battery had once again gone flat, although, after only a few days of play, that seemed unlikely. This device uses even smaller cells than the balls with two SR421 types mounted in a moulded plastic holder. As soon as I touched one to extract it, the thing chirped away merrily, so clearly, the cells were still good. There were no apparent signs of dry joints or anything suspicious on the bottom of the PCB, so perhaps it was just a dodgy connection between the battery and the holder. After giving the module a good going over and quickly buffing the spring and terminal ends of the battery holder with my diamond contact file, it seemed to be working reliably. I reassembled the whole thing and my wife put one broad stitch in the plush body to seal it up. It still seems to be going well. Another toy for the tabbies Finally, our latest (and possibly our last) online purchase of a cat toy resulted in the frustration of intermittent operation. This device is about the size of a tennis ball and clamps via a plastic holder and screw assembly to any windowsill or similar surface. When a button on the case is pressed, a fluffy ball on a length of twine-sized string drops out of the bottom of the unit and randomly rises and lowers using a spindle inside the device. Think of a bucket rising and sinking in a water well, and you have the idea. There is a timer built in that quickly raises and lowers 80 Silicon Chip the ball at short intervals, hopefully enticing the animal. If the cat grabs onto the ball, it plays out the length of the string while the base unit pulls on it with varying strengths after different delays to keep the pet engaged. It’s a clever idea, and quite well-implemented. However, the noise of it working put all our cats off initially – the motor running backwards and forwards is quite loud. After a while, though, they got used to it and were hooking into the fluff ball with gusto. After a few minutes of inactivity, the ball retreats back up into the bottom of the base unit, and the device shuts down. It requires another push of the power button to get it going again. If we want to stop it, another push of that button also resets the ball back ‘home’ and shuts the toy down. This device is powered by two AAA cells, accessible by undoing two screws holding one half of the round case together. I don’t know why they didn’t put a battery cover/door in there, but this is still a lot easier than cutting something open, and they do provide one of those small, mass-produced, plastic-handled Phillips screwdrivers you get with many phone-repair kits in the box. Once again, I couldn’t turn the thing on after a few days. I knew the cells were good, so something else must have happened. The switch itself felt odd and didn’t seem to toggle as well as I thought it should, so there was only one thing for it: break out the tools. Getting in was a breeze because it was all just screwed together. Separating the two halves was as simple as removing the PK screws and cracking it open. Inside was the spindle, with the string wound on it, a PCB mounted in the bottom half – again using a COB chip and a couple of other surface-mounted components – with some flying leads to a DC motor and the battery holder in the top half. The PCB itself was screwed to the bottom half, and the power switch was mounted directly to that, while the switch actuator protruded into a plastic button moulding, allowing it to be toggled from outside the case. I immediately saw a problem: the case moulding the switch toggle mounted into was being impeded by a small piece of plastic ‘flashing’, a product of the injection-­ moulding process. Usually, when plastic items are moulded, any excess material is removed either by machine or hand before the device is assembled. Unsurprisingly, that process is known as ‘deflashing’. It is not unusual for stray bits to be either left in the case or missed in the removal process, only to break away once the unit is built. Whatever happened here, the switch was fouled by this thin shard of plastic, so it could not operate properly. A pair of tweezers soon had it out, and its operation returned to normal. Repairing such things appears folly, but it goes against the grain to buy something that doesn’t work correctly, and for items as cheap as these, especially if they are mail-­ ordered, returns are hardly practical. I think it’s always worth having a look to see what can be done when one of them goes wrong. Simpson’s odyssey B. P., of Dundathu, Qld had such a long saga repairing a Simpson washing machine that it makes Homer’s Odyssey seem like a brief jaunt and Joyce’s Ulysses look like a short story... Australia's electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au We have a boneyard at our place where we store old washing machines. Some are units that we had used previously that had developed unrepairable faults, some are donor machines for parts, and one or two are machines that we had been given but hadn’t used yet. So when our current washing machine stopped working, I took a look to see whether there were any good replacements. I found a Simpson Contessa 425 machine under a cover that looked OK. I noticed that the power cable had been cut off, but there was a spare cable on top of the machine that I could use. I would start by fitting the replacement cable so that I could test it. The cable enters the machine at the back of the control panel at the top and is held in by a cable clamp. I removed the three screws from the back of the panel and lifted the panel clear to access the inside. I could then pull the cut cable through from the inside, remove the cable clamp and fit the replacement cable. The Masonite back panel was missing, but I would worry about that after discovering whether the machine worked. The spin solenoid was burnt out, so I went back to the boneyard and removed the solenoid from a Simpson 728 machine that I’d repaired years ago, that we’d used until it developed an unrepairable fault. With the solenoid fitted, I spun the timer to the spin cycle and pulled the knob up. The solenoid clunked, but the motor did not turn. It looked like the motor was faulty, so I got the one from the 728, as I knew it was good. With the motor fitted, the machine sprang into life, so I gave it a good clean. I looked around to see what I could make a replacement back panel from and found a sheet of painted ribbed metal. I cut that to size, drilled mounting holes and fitted the panel. Then I replaced the two broken feet from another machine in the boneyard and set the machine up for testing. My wife ran a load of washing, and she said it was working well. However, the next day, she said that it was not spinning very well and it would only spin dry half a load. I suspected that the belt was slipping, which proved to be the case. I tried to tighten the belt without success, so I checked my parts box and found two belts of the same size. One belt looked beefier than the other, so I fitted it, but it still slipped. Then I noticed that the pulley was badly worn; it was so thin that it broke off. These pulleys are nearly impossible to remove to replace, so I would have to replace the motor (again). I got one from the shed, fitted it and put the machine back. The next morning, my wife went to use the machine and she reported that it would wash but not spin. I knew the previous motor was good, so I would try to replace the broken pulley with the one from this motor. I tried to remove the broken pulley, but it kept breaking more, and in the end, all that was left was the section attached to the motor shaft. I ended up chopping it off with a chisel. The motor shaft had some rust where the pulley had been, so I cleaned it up, ready to fit the replacement pulley. Now to remove the good pulley from the other motor without breaking it. After removing the Allen head grub screw, I found that the pulley would not budge. I heated the pulley and, prying the pulley up with two screwdrivers and my siliconchip.com.au wife hitting a rod on the motor shaft, we finally got the pulley off. I fitted it to the other motor while it was still hot. I had lunch while the pulley cooled down, then I replaced the grub screw and fitted the motor to the machine. Now the machine would not spin. I wondered if the motor might have been damaged when I’d chopped the broken pulley off it, so I looked for another motor. There was a Simpson Delta in the boneyard that we’d been using until the bowl drive had failed. I plugged it in and confirmed that motor was good, then I removed the motor and fitted it to the 425. Well, it still would not spin. Maybe the capacitor was bad. I used the capacitor from the Delta, but it still would not spin. I was starting to suspect the timer, as I thought that maybe the contacts in it were not making good contact from the machine being stored for so long outside under a cover. However, I found that if I rotated the motor pulley by hand on the spin cycle, the motor would turn slightly. That indicated that the motor was getting power from the timer. So what could be causing the machine to wash correctly but not spin dry? I’d ruled out the motor, the timer and the capacitor, so what was left? The one component left that could cause this was the electronic forward-reverse module. But I could not understand how it could wash correctly and initially spin, then not spin at all. It’s a sealed module, so it is not serviceable. The module in the Delta was definitely sound, so I removed it and compared it with the module in the 425. They looked identical but had slightly different part numbers. One had longer coloured wires, while the other had shorter white wires. Considering that these washing machines were very similar, I wondered if the modules were interchangeable. I checked the codes on the wires, and they were identical, so I decided to take the chance that the Delta module would work in the 425. I took careful note of the wiring and removed the old module. However, one of the plastic retaining clips broke in the process. This is not surprising with plastic that must be well over 20 years old. I fitted the Delta module, plugged the machine in, turned the dial to the spin cycle and pulled up the knob. The machine sprang to life, indicating that the original module was faulty. I was then pretty confident that the ‘suspect’ motors were all actually good. If I needed to replace a motor in the future, I would check then, but I was not going to swap any motors just to test them. Australia's electronics magazine October 2022  81 To repair the broken clip, I glued a piece of bread tag onto its side with superglue. I had to attend to something else, and when I came back, the glue had dried and the clip was solid. I added a blob of hot-melt glue to reinforce it, and I added a blob to the other clip too. I then fully reassembled the machine and set it up, ready to use again. After a few days, my wife said it was not spin-drying or pumping out the water. She’d already bailed out most of the water, so I pulled the machine out, removed the back and checked the pump. It was jammed, so I turned the fan by hand and the pump freed up. These small squirrel cage induction motors have bushes, not bearings, and after years of use, the lubricant can harden, causing the pump to stop. With the pump now free, I pumped out the remaining water and added a few drops of oil to both ends of the shaft where the bushes are. I also unscrewed the cap on the end of the pump to check for debris, but it was clear. After several weeks of use, the machine was still working well, but one morning, my wife told me that the machine would now spin but not wash. I wondered what went wrong with it this time. I looked in the shed and found another electronic forward-reverse module, so I decided to fit that and see what happened. The next day, I got the same report, but this time the machine still had water in it, so I could check it. I spun the timer to the wash cycle and pulled up the knob. I could hear the water solenoid buzzing, so I suspected that the pressure switch wasn’t working for some reason. I removed the front panel and disconnected the pressure switch’s hose from the machine while leaving it connected to the switch. To test the switch, I blew into the hose and heard it make a loud click, indicating that it had been jammed. Now I could repeatedly blow into the switch hose, and it seemed to be working, so I expected the machine to work correctly now. The following day, the machine performed correctly, but the day after that, it would not spin. I checked the motor, and it was blazing hot, so I changed it. I fitted one of the previous motors that I’d swapped out as suspected of being faulty, but I later thought it was likely to be good. Sure enough, it was good, and the machine spun again. The saga continued, with the machine working for a couple of days, but now washing but not spinning. Could the replacement forward-reverse module have failed? I swapped it back to the Delta one with the short white wires, and once again, the machine worked correctly. However, the following day, we were back to the situation of it not washing, but it was spinning. It would seem that the pressure switch was playing up again. I knew the pressure switch in the Delta was good, so I attempted to retrieve it. However, when I tried to remove the knob, it would not budge, and it took some levering with two screwdrivers before I got it off. I unscrewed the pressure switch and took it over to the 425. I noticed that the switch was not turning freely, but some grease on the cam and a couple of drops of oil on the shaft fixed that. I had no problem removing the pressure switch knob on the 425, so I could then remove the switch. I screwed the replacement switch in, then swapped the wires from the old switch to the new switch one by one to ensure that I plugged all the wires into the correct terminals. That done, I refitted the front panel, and the machine was ready for testing again. The next morning, my wife reported that the washing machine was working correctly. After several months, it’s still working well. This has again saved us from having to buy another machine. With new machines costing over $600 and second-hand machines being hit and miss, I was happy that I’d been able to get this old Simpson machine working well again. This is why we keep ‘junk’, to be able to repair other ‘junk’! The photo below shows the inside of the front panel, with the pressure switch on the right and the forward-reverse module on the left. The timer is adjacent to the forward-­ reverse module, and the capacitor is located between the two switches for the water temperature and cycle. When the panel is refitted, the loose hose in the lower right plugs onto the pressure switch. Outdoor motion sensor repair M. L., of Frenchs Forest, NSW says he likes a challenge. But sometimes, a job can be so challenging that it leads to nothing but frustration... I thought I’d share one of my (bitter) experiences that took considerable time for me to solve. I had a Clipsal C-Bus system I installed in my house many years ago. It is still going strong, but there was a problem with one particular motion sensor not working for some time. This Clipsal 5750WPL automation system infrared (IR) motion sensor would not work at night. It wouldn’t sense movement, and the respective lights would not switch on. All the programming was correct, and it was recognised on the C-Bus network, but it just wouldn’t detect movement when the light level sensitivity pot was set to full darkness. Two forward-reverse modules, one from the Simpson washing machine (left) and a Delta machine (right). This photo shows the inside of the washing machine’s front ► panel. On the left is the forward-reverse module and on the right is the pressure switch. 82 Silicon Chip Australia's electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au The original 5750 installed 20 years ago worked without a hitch, never missed a beat until the seals failed and it filled with water, so I had to replace it. I programmed the new unit, walk tested it, then set the pot to full darkness like the previous unit. I walked away and didn’t think another thing of it until one night, I went out to the area where the 5750 should be sensing my movement, and no lights came on. I checked the programming, and it was all good. The PIR Enable function was set to Enable via the touchscreen. So why wasn’t it working? I re-checked the programming and the terminations. I spent a considerable time messing around with no success. It worked fine in daylight mode. I eventually gave up and decided that I should replace the sensor because the sensing level pot was faulty. Eventually I did, and since my house was going through renovations that required scaffolding, I waited for the scaffold to come down to replace the ‘faulty’ unit. I replaced it, programmed it, did the walk test, and life was good, so I set the unit to full darkness. The following night I went out to check if the unit would pick me up. Nope. Lots of expletives were heard by the neighbours. The next day, I checked it again in daylight, and it was working... There is a camera monitoring the area where the sensor is located. The camera is five metres above the sensor, under an eave. This camera has been replaced four times over the years due to failures. The original cameras were day/night types, and I used a Jaycar long-range bullet-type IR illuminator to illuminate the area monitored by the camera at night. The camera didn’t have built-in IR emitters because it was a varifocal type. I removed the Jaycar illuminator when I installed the third new camera because it had a built-in illuminator, as do most recent cameras. The illuminators in the latter two cameras provided more output than the Jaycar unit. The next day, late in the afternoon, as the light levels were dropping, I decided to undertake a little experiment where I adjusted the 5750 light level pot from the daylight setting a small amount towards total darkness. When the light level dropped below the sensor hysteresis point, the light would come on when it sensed my movement. That is until I got to the full darkness setting, and the lights would not come on. More expletives. I knocked the pot back to daylight and bingo! The unit was sensing. I set the pot to full darkness and no more sensing. At that point, the light bulb above my head exploded! It was the !<at>#$^&* camera! The IR emitted by the camera was providing enough reflected (IR) illumination to stop the sensor from activating. I tweaked the pot about 5° back towards daylight, and the 5750 started working again. So, I figure that the problem must have commenced around about the time I installed the third camera. The camera illuminators produced more IR output, but because I don’t spend much time at night in this area, I didn’t notice the problem until I had to replace the 5750 sensor. Also, the electronics in the 5750s were updated to full surface-mount technology in the early 2000s, so Clipsal most likely tweaked the sensitivity of the IR detector when they updated the design, exacerbating the problem. 84 Silicon Chip I have spoken to several electricians who have had similar problems with other systems sporadically switching lights and other equipment on. Having described my findings to them, they are looking at the devices installed in the areas where the problems occur. I bet it’s the IR devices that are the cause. Troubleshooting a cordless mower B. C., is a frequent contributor to Serviceman’s Log; this time, he has had to repair a Gardenline cordless mower... This mower had been working reliably for over three years. However, on this particular day, it went for only about three metres on a light cut, then the motor stopped running. Upon pressing the Charge Check pushbutton, the LED bargraph indicated a fully charged battery. Despite this, I changed the two 20V lithium-ion battery packs over to the spare set. But the mower motor still would not run. So I brought the mower into my workshop and put it on the bench. I removed the plastic top to reveal a brushless motor, a controller module and a wiring harness. Googling the part number on the module nameplate (30070030) came up with an ALM (China) brand mower. There was an exploded view and a complete parts list for this mower. However, this module number was not available through any eBay or AliExpress sellers. It was now time to determine whether the motor or the controller module was faulty. Some further research on the internet came up with this information on how to test a brushless motor: 1. Short the three motor leads together and check for resistance when the shaft is rotated by hand. 2. Connect a voltmeter across each winding in turn and spin up the motor with a cordless drill. It should generate a similar voltage across each phase. 3. Check for a short circuit between the windings and the stator (body of the motor) using an ohmmeter. 4. Check for an equal inductance for each winding using an LC meter. I checked the brushless motor using those steps, and it passed with flying colours on all four! So I decided to take a closer look at the controller module circuitry, as it now seemed likely that there was no output drive to the motor. After removing the module end caps and the sheet metal sleeve, the PCB and heatsink were revealed. I then plugged the PCB/heatsink assembly back into the mower harness. After pressing the handle operate switch, a surface-­ mounted LED near the microprocessor flashed five times, which I assume was a fault code. This was a welcome sign. I unplugged the module and removed it for further testing. Along the back edge of the PCB, I found six HY1707 power Mosfets. Of these, three (V1A, V1B and V1C) tested faulty! I ordered ten HY1707 Mosfets via eBay. Upon their arrival, I replaced them all (including the apparently still functional V0A, V0B and V0C) for long-term reliability. I then refitted the module into its case and plugged it back into the mower harness. After pressing the operate switch, the motor ran again! The mower has now been going properly for over three months since the module repair. Perhaps the failure was due to overloading in the past when trying to cut heavier grass, resulting in incipient damage, which made it finally give up the ghost later. SC Australia's electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au