Gear/Air/Water/Fuel / Battery / Speedohealer /Digital Speed Gauge all in one - UPDATE

[grommet]

Yes I have some. Send me an email at patcashman@gmail.com and I'll get you the details.

[crankcase]

So... I just had a weird experience with the multigauge. Interested to see if anyone has experienced something similar

It started with a repeat of the below issue

Originally Posted by crankcase

Hi (again)... I'm having the issue where the display shows a bunch of vertical black lines and becomes very difficult to read.

As per the previous advice, I took out the MG to resolder the pins. But when I hooked it up to 12v power at my work desk, the display was flawless.
I went ahead and resoldered it anyway, just to be safe.
This was some time in May/June, I don't remember exactly.

Around the start of August, the LCD display went completely blank. It was working fine when I parked it, and was kaput when I came back an hour or so later. Tried turning the ignition off and on again a few times, but it didn't help. The gauge itself seemed to be working, as there was the telltale flash of the fuel warning light a few seconds after power on. I didn't have time to fix it immediately, and kept riding, with no issues. The fuel light also came on at around the expected time.

I figured the LCD itself had somehow shorted out (as happened to me when I fiddled with it right in the beginning) so I was preparing to swap it out.

In between, I was travelling for a few days, so I disconnected the battery. When I came back and hooked it up, the gauge was fine again!

Have you seen anything like this? Or have any ideas what might cause it?

Of course, I'm not planning on doing anything to it for now, and if it occurs again, I'll try disconnecting the battery for a while before I try anything else. But I just thought this might interest you as well.

[Schlumpf]

That kind of repeating issue is new to me.
I assume your gauge is fairly old? Maybe 10+ or so? Not to excuse anything, just to be clear about what type/version we are talking.

Just a guess. It might be that your LCD is spring loaded, but with one side glued to the LCD. If this glue is not realiable it might cause the issue you observe.

That time I used replacement parts for cellphones. One solution would be to aquire such a phone and take the LCD out.
Some pictures of your unit would help if you decide to go that route. Of courese I can provide more details and support. Maybe via PN or mail to not blow this thread.

[grommet]

He has one of mine, with the newer display.

Crankcase, I may have some more of the LCDs in my box of parts. I'll check. If I do and you're willing to pay for shipping, I'll send it to you for free.

[crankcase]

Many thanks grommet for the generous offer! I'll monitor for a while and get back to you if I'm taking you up on that. I think I too might have an LCD or two spare from when I ordered them previously.

Schlumpf, here's the background story for you:

I ordered the MG off grommet as he said, 3 years ago. Fiddled with it to replace the fuel warning LED with a bigger and brighter one, but ended up with a working gauge but blank display (probably shorted through electrostatic shock).

Grommet was nice enough to give me the benefit of doubt and send me a free replacement. I replaced the fuel LED again, and ... got the same result.

So I ordered a replacement LCD online and swapped it out, this time following grommet's advice to wear gloves and ground myself properly The soldering looks ugly as sin, but it worked.... for a few months, anyway. Then I had the display issue with the black lines, which was fixed (again, as per grommet's advice) by re-soldering the pins. Forward another couple of years, and here we are.

I'd be surprised if any other user has taken up as much of grommet's time in after-sales-support as I have!

Anyway, I'm not looking to fix anything that ain't broken. If this was some kind of one-off issue then I'd rather not go through the hassle of replacing the display. Especially since it came back on after disconnecting the power, so the problem may not even be with the actual LCD itself. And even if it did occur again, but can be fixed the same way, that's still the path of least resistance for me.

I figured perhaps y'all might have some idea what could cause this. Or if you haven't seen it before, it might interest you for its own sake
I'll just keep an eye on it for now, and let you know how it develops.

[crankcase]

It's happened again - I rode in to work and parked, everything's fine... and when I started it up in the evening, the display was blank again.

I loosened the battery terminal and jiggled it, just enough to reset the clocks. But it didn't resuscitate the multigauge.

I've left the battery disconnected overnight, and will see how it looks in the morning.

[grommet]

I don't think the battery connection is the problem. If it was, there would be other problems with your bike charging and running normally.

Much more likely it's a problem on the MG PCB. Which, honestly, could be many things.

That it happens intermittently makes it sound like a solder joint failure. They grow and shrink with temperature variation and can open/close the connection exactly like what you are seeing. This could be on the connections on the display itself - you know there are leads going from the display through the backlight, and connections from those leads to points on the display. I'd look at those under a microscope if you can see them from the sides. May be a bit tricky to do but you might find something.

[crankcase]

Thanks, that's good info. I'll try and take it apart this weekend. If you can point me to specific pins that would result in the display going totally blank (no in-between state), it would help narrow it down further.

Thanks!