Skoda instrument panel possible fix.

[soviet]

On the left of the board there is a blue siemens reed relay, try replacing this as they are very unreliable for having sticky contacts. Having worked for BT in exchanges for years I know all about sticking reed relays on line card PCBs. The contacts get ****ted up after a while, even if gold or platinum coated.

There are six soldered conections on the relay, two for the coil and and two pairs each per switch. maplin will have one of the correct voltage rating. Be careful as there is a printed type board resistor to one of the legs of the relay. Availiable types at Maplin, although may need to order.

Cure not guaranteed for gauges, as there may be different faults to different boards.
It has worked for me, and so far so good, but I am not going to stick my neck out.

Any one trying it, I would be delighted if they come back as a cured case, also, but don't blame me if it not your solution. Ill hum it, you play it.

Soviet (bring back the Gulags)

[sparky2]

What does it control on the pcb ? which car is it for ? and whats the maplin part number ? just so I know for future referance. cheers - Stuart.

[soviet]

Hi Stuart,

My car is a 1600 lxi.

To be fair, not sure as to the function of the relay, as I have no circuit and trying to trace through the print is like looking for a needle in a hay stack. just went on previous knowledge of these reed relays.



I can't supply a part number from Maplin, as I found a suitable replacement at work, but I have seen the relays on visits to the store. Check the voltage, pin lay out, and go for the most reliable type of coated contacts. I seem to remember that mine was 5.0 Volt (coil). Could just about read this on the old siemens one, although very faint.
Suggest looking at pics on the Maplin web site.

No promises, but mine seems OK at the moment, but I can't guarantee that I did not disturb an unknown fault else where, (i.e. print) and have got lucky to date. put it this way, it has worked since,with fuse 15 back in of course.

Regards

Sovietski Soyuz

[soviet]

PLEASE NOTE THE CORRECTION WITH THIS THREAD, THAT I POSTED BEFORE CHRISTMAS
i.e. FUSE 7 SHOULD READ FUSE 15 AS THE FUSE DIAGRAM IN THE HAYNES MANUAL IS PRODUCED AS A MIRROR IMAGE. GET A TORCH AND LOOK AT IT FROM OVER LEAF , FOR THE CORRECT LAYOUT.
REMOVE FUSE 15 (5AMP) TO GET THE SPEEDO, PETROL GAUGE, TEMP. GAUGE, AND REV COUNTER TO WORK, BUT GAUGES WILL NOT RESET TO ZERO UNTIL KEY IS TURNED AGAIN IN THE IGNITION.
ANYONE WITH A PROBLEM UNDERSTANDING THIS CONTACT ME AND I WILL HELP THEM FURTHER.





Hello everybody,

Have had a frustrating Sunday morning, trying to get off the plastic surround from around my instrument panel. According to the Haynes manual on page 12.13 section 10, it is just a question of taking out the two screws from the top of the plastic surround, and pulling it out. No amount of tugging and pulling would free it from the bottom. I knew that I would have been better off going to church, rather than dropping the odd cuss word.
I tried every thing, as it appears that the surround is fixed at the bottom in some sort of way. Went off for a pint after that, as I got disheartened with it all.
I am still trying to fix the intermittant speedo, rev counter, petrol gauge, temperature gauge fault on my Octavia 2002 LX. I have given up trying to get the surround out, and so I would like to hear from any one that has done this operation before.
I have also found a web site called BBA-REMAN.COM who has a photograph on the site of my faulty instrument panel, which is listed as a regular fault.
They do repair these instrument panels with a two year warranty given, at a cost of £150 plus VAT and P&P, if they consider that the unit is repairable.
I am not sure of the cost of a new unit from Skoda dealers, and as to whether or not I may get one that will give trouble again.
Has anyone used this repair service, or had problems with a replacement new Skoda panel, from the dealer?
I have found that if I remove fuse 7 which is one of those for the instrument cluster, (and not for the reversing lights as stated in the Haynes manual), the gauges function OK, with the ignition on and while driving, but do not reset to zero when the ignition is switched off again. But the next time that the ignition key is turned to the 'on' position the gauges all judder back to zero, and then function normally. I suppose that I could always fit a relay across fuse 7 to reset the gauges to zero during switch off, or shell out loads of cash for a repair or replacement unit. I wish that Skoda would label fuse panels as this is not good engineering practice. Incidentally the lights on warning buzzer no longer functions, when the fault is present.
Oh well will soon be Christmas, and perhaps 'er in doors' will put a new top of the range Skoda in my stocking. Not Bl**dy likely.

Regards to all

Soviet (Swindon)

Hello all, (re-edit 22/11/2006)
Since writing the above, I have realised that the fuse panel as shown in the Haynes manual needs to be viewed from the rear by turning over the page, and in fact the fuse that I removed, was in fact fuse 15, one of two that feeds the instrument panel, and not fuse 7 as stated above. But by doing this gave me back operation of the instruments as decribed above, but I will try to do a complete cure when I get the panel out. For some reason Haynes printed the thing in reverse. Fuse 7 is after all for the reversing lights. Confusing or what?
Shine a torch through the rear page to see the correct fuse numbering lay out.

Ah well 'sheeps heads'
Soviet (Swindon)

[colin42]

Following from Soviet's Advice I took my instrument display apart again this evening to photo the Siemens relay so i could obtain a replacement. Upon re assembling I tapped the component a couple of times, put it back together and to my amazement it gauges are all working correctly even with fuse 15 in place! We'll see over the next few days if it continues to work!

[colin42]

It didn't work! This morning the gauges didn't work until i removed fuse 15!

[soviet]

Hi Soviet here,

I am glad that Colin has put a relay picture as in the thread above. My panel still continues to work with no problems since I posted the original e-mail and replaced the relay.

Coincidence, or did I disturb something else? The coil voltage is readable from Colins photograph, as 5 volt, as on mine it was barely readable.
Only way is for some one with the same problem to try it as I did.

Best of luck SOVIET.

[soviet]

I have been searching the web for a relay replacement http://relays.tycoelectronics.com/datasheets/p1.pdf

I don't think that tapping the relay as Colin said that he did will be much use, if it has gone faulty.

As I said previously with out a circuit diagram, and God knows how I have tried to lay my hands on one, it is impossible to trace through the print on the board, but I will give my opinion as to what I believe the circuit function is:-

The 12v battery supply is fed to a 5V voltage regulator IC, and then on to the reed relay, and then to the common 5v supply to the instrument cluster, and serves the speedo, rev counter, petrol gauge, coolant temperature gauge. This may be a much over simplified version of what is happening, and part of the relay could be putting out a high or low to the control CPU, but I don't think what I am saying is all that wide of the mark.

The symptoms were in line with what one one expect with a faulty relay, and I am going on my experience as a technical officer in BT, and problems that we have had with reed relays on line cards in telephony switching. They were a major pain in the *** at one stage, but have improved in later years but do fail from time to time nowadays.

There has been various ideas put forward about bad PCB track on the board, but I am sure that if this was the case one should expect a complete failure, and no recovery of instrument function. The sporadic operation does point to the relay operation being faulty.

If I do get any other info. then I will put it on this site asap. Hope that this is some help to other briskoda members anyway.

Regards Soviet (in serious mood)

[soviet]

Oh I have been so utterly stupid, and have replaced a perfectly good relay possibly, as I was going on the symptoms of a faulty relay, and replaced it purely on this theory.

But my educated guess was wide of the mark, because I have since read the URL link for the relay in my last thread, i.e. the TYCO link, and the following information is given in the technical write up:-

Automotive equipment
CAN bus, immobilizer

http://relays.tycoelectronics.com/datasheets/p1.pdf

This means what it say's that the relay is part of the immobilizer circuit of the Octavia, and is not part of the instrument supply after all. I apologise sincerely to any briskoda members that I may have misled, but I appear to have misled myself over this.

What I said about the 5 volt regulator IC does however remain true.

Some thing more interesting though is that my cluster has been working perfectly since I removed it, and prior to re-installing it after putting a new relay in, I took out my multimeter with a needle probe and took a set of voltage readings for the two instrument cluster sockets.
Even using a sharp needle probe I sometimes had a job to get a voltage reading on various parts of the plug. I had to press the needle probe right in, really firmly,and this makes me wonder if this has cured my problem by cleaning dirty contacts.

Octavia Mk 1 2001 1.6 LX (engine AEE)



The readings that I measured were:-

BLUE PLUG R/H SIDE WHEN VIEWED FROM BACK OF INSTRUMENT PANEL

PIN 1 = 12V
PIN 3 = 11.72V
PIN 21 = 3.37V
PIN 22 = 0.18V
PIN 23 = 12V (THIS IS FUSE BOX SUPPLY 15 THAT ONE REMOVES TO GET THE PANEL TO WORK WITHOUT RESET)
PIN 25 = 11.81V
PIN 30 = 12V

GREEN PLUG L/H SIDE WHEN VIEWED FROM BACK OF INSTRUMENT PANEL
PIN 5 = 11.55V

I will crack this if it kills me

Soviet

[soviet]

Just to update all that may have had the same problem with the instruments as me, mine is still working fine.
I think that because I pushed a needle probe in to each socket really hard sometimes in order to get a voltage reading on the multimeter, it is possible that I have made a better connection in one of the sockets. The fault has not returned
since I posted the relay thread.
I have admitted to getting it totally wrong over the relay. Experience does not always hold true.

Any one with the same problem, try cleaning out the sockets with a sharp probe, but go careful. No guarantees but it could cure it, as mine seems to be fixed.

Soviet

[octaavio]

Hello,

I thought this thread would be the best place to give my own findings on the instrument panel fault.

My panel failed in exactly the same way described earlier. At first the fault is intermittent and then as time goes by the cluster stops working all together. I took my cluster apart looked over the soldering points. As I am quite inexperienced in these matters so I did not see anything drastically wrong. I hooked up the circuit board back to the car. As I was testing the bare cluster I found out that when you slightly twist the circuit board, it comes back to life. So there was a bad or cracked joint somewhere.

Today I took the cluster to repair shop here in my home town specializing in instrument cluster fixing. They soldered 20-30 dodgy looking points and after 45 minutes and 50€ poorer, I had a working cluster in my car.

So far so good... everything seems to be working ok.

[Phillf4j]

Thank you very much it works great . I broke a fuse up & wired a switch to the fuse box so if I want I can retain the memory as well ! I would like to thank all the members on this forum Regards Phill

Originally Posted by soviet

PLEASE NOTE THE CORRECTION WITH THIS THREAD, THAT I POSTED BEFORE CHRISTMAS
i.e. FUSE 7 SHOULD READ FUSE 15 AS THE FUSE DIAGRAM IN THE HAYNES MANUAL IS PRODUCED AS A MIRROR IMAGE. GET A TORCH AND LOOK AT IT FROM OVER LEAF , FOR THE CORRECT LAYOUT.
REMOVE FUSE 15 (5AMP) TO GET THE SPEEDO, PETROL GAUGE, TEMP. GAUGE, AND REV COUNTER TO WORK, BUT GAUGES WILL NOT RESET TO ZERO UNTIL KEY IS TURNED AGAIN IN THE IGNITION.
ANYONE WITH A PROBLEM UNDERSTANDING THIS CONTACT ME AND I WILL HELP THEM FURTHER.





Hello everybody,

Have had a frustrating Sunday morning, trying to get off the plastic surround from around my instrument panel. According to the Haynes manual on page 12.13 section 10, it is just a question of taking out the two screws from the top of the plastic surround, and pulling it out. No amount of tugging and pulling would free it from the bottom. I knew that I would have been better off going to church, rather than dropping the odd cuss word.
I tried every thing, as it appears that the surround is fixed at the bottom in some sort of way. Went off for a pint after that, as I got disheartened with it all.
I am still trying to fix the intermittant speedo, rev counter, petrol gauge, temperature gauge fault on my Octavia 2002 LX. I have given up trying to get the surround out, and so I would like to hear from any one that has done this operation before.
I have also found a web site called BBA-REMAN.COM who has a photograph on the site of my faulty instrument panel, which is listed as a regular fault.
They do repair these instrument panels with a two year warranty given, at a cost of £150 plus VAT and P&P, if they consider that the unit is repairable.
I am not sure of the cost of a new unit from Skoda dealers, and as to whether or not I may get one that will give trouble again.
Has anyone used this repair service, or had problems with a replacement new Skoda panel, from the dealer?
I have found that if I remove fuse 7 which is one of those for the instrument cluster, (and not for the reversing lights as stated in the Haynes manual), the gauges function OK, with the ignition on and while driving, but do not reset to zero when the ignition is switched off again. But the next time that the ignition key is turned to the 'on' position the gauges all judder back to zero, and then function normally. I suppose that I could always fit a relay across fuse 7 to reset the gauges to zero during switch off, or shell out loads of cash for a repair or replacement unit. I wish that Skoda would label fuse panels as this is not good engineering practice. Incidentally the lights on warning buzzer no longer functions, when the fault is present.
Oh well will soon be Christmas, and perhaps 'er in doors' will put a new top of the range Skoda in my stocking. Not Bl**dy likely.

Regards to all

Soviet (Swindon)

Hello all, (re-edit 22/11/2006)
Since writing the above, I have realised that the fuse panel as shown in the Haynes manual needs to be viewed from the rear by turning over the page, and in fact the fuse that I removed, was in fact fuse 15, one of two that feeds the instrument panel, and not fuse 7 as stated above. But by doing this gave me back operation of the instruments as decribed above, but I will try to do a complete cure when I get the panel out. For some reason Haynes printed the thing in reverse. Fuse 7 is after all for the reversing lights. Confusing or what?
Shine a torch through the rear page to see the correct fuse numbering lay out.

Ah well 'sheeps heads'
Soviet (Swindon)

[aubrey]

You can get the relay from Farnell :
TYCO ELECTRONICS | V23026-A1001-B201 | Relays & Solenoids | Electrical & Circuit Protection | Farnell UK