Mildly entertaining SID tale

Some may remember how I asked, about 6 months ago, about missing pixels on a SID display (pardon the redundacy, since the acronym stands for system information display, I guess). Shortly thereafter, on a scheduled service, the SID unit was replaced entirely under warranty. Just making some conversation, I said I was someehat worried about the SID's reputed tendency to fail, and thus even questioned the need to replace it because a few pixels are randomly missing. I was however told that this was a 2005 SID unit, a new and much improved model, with all deficiencies ironed out.

Since I own a '02 9-3 SE convertible (w/ every package available, and love it) and the warranty was about to run out soon, before pikcing up my car from the service I went over to the sales room and got myself a decent deal on a complete extended warranty package, which covers even more than the origina warranty. Thus, I can take whatever happens in the next couple of years with some humor, and worry later depending on how long I really end up keeping the car (which I hope is very long, that's why I bought a Saab).

Yesterday, upon starting up the car, I noticed the SID had gone totally dead. All in all, I don't think the information it displays is vital to operate the car, so it's amusing how little it bothered me *none* of the pixels were working - at least it doesn't look broken, it just looks like one chose to turn it off (which should be an option Saab ought to consider given the device's reliability or entertainingly ridiculous lack thereof). However, what seems silly is that the SID seems to incorporate odd pieces of lgic for other components of the car that get seemingly randomly routed through it. Witness the fact that, while the blinkers work, the audible blinker clicking noise will only work randomly now that the SID broke. Also, if the music is playing and one tries to turn the volume up with the steering wheel mounted controls, the volume will rapidly crank up all the way to max volume upon touching the "up" button, which is rather alarming with the premium stereo watts available in the '02 SE (adolescent drivers might love that feature, though).

Odd, from an electronics design point of view, what functions Saab somehow decided to partially route through the SID for what seems to be no reason whatsoever. The function of the SID just seemed to be the one of an integrated calculator for some functions - the fact such an unreliable device seemingly implements some *functional* stuff seems to be a poor engineering decision.

I'll get this thing replaced as often as required, I mean, come on, there is no excuse for this device being as unreliable as it is, and Saab ought to perhaps simply open the specifications to some aftermarket people that do a more competent job.

...pablo

Reply to
pablo
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You'll probably find that the horn is now intermittent too, and that the dashboard dimming doesn't work properly either.

In Saab's defence, this isn't a failure mode I've heard of before on SIDs. The very common fault is in the way the main board connects to the glass display panel so it only affects some of the pixels, not any of the other functions. You seem to have a much rarer fault - consider yourself privileged ;o)

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

Yikes, how did you know?? :-) I hadn't even noticed that until you pointed it out. Car's going in next week.

...pablo

Reply to
pablo

I ran my car for a bit without the SID whilst I had it in the shed trying (and failing) to work out ways of fixing the dead pixels...

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

Hey - I've got dead pixels too... So can you tear these apart and work on that connection? I've seen this "zebra rubber" connections to LCD's before that if you wiggle it around you can get it back working. Of course I've also seen stuff bonded together so that you can never take it apart at least not in a state were you can get it back together.

Maybe more importantly - how do you reset this thing once you take it out. Sorry - that's probably been discussed a lot.

I think my pixels have been out for ~2 years... Luckily it's every other row so I can still read it. I had a friend who wasn't familar in there and his incredulous "What does THAT mean" was really pretty funny. I said it's "Klingon" 8-)

-MELD

Col> >

Reply to
meld_b

It's a bonded-on flexible cable I'm afraid. From what I read, sometimes the bonding fails and sometimes the conductors in the cable fail. A lot of people with failed bonds have been able to get it going by using rubber strips to increase the pressure on the cable. Mine was down to the conductors, so nothing worked. I farted about for hours trying to completely replace the cable with wirewrap wire glued to the glass with conductive epoxy. Unfortunately, the cable pitch is really fine, and it was a bit of a frustrating job. Eventually this resulted in the whole unit becoming broken into a thousand pieces - My foot must have slipped, repeatedly.

There's no need to reset it. It just works when you plug it back in. If you buy a new unit though, you have to take it to someone with a Tech 2 to tell it what car it's going into.

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

from what I've been able to see, it's not held on with conductive glue but hot bar soldered. I looked at mine under a microscope at work. It's convenient to have electronics techs working with you!

The real pisser is that I finally broke down and bought a new one, $500 installed and it's been just over a year, and just out of warranty, and it's started all over again.

Reply to
Bill Jackson

That might be the case at the PCB end, but they'd have awful trouble soldering anything to glass!

Now that's *really* annoying. You have my sympathy.

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

oh yea, you're right.

The issue (at least with mine) was not the glass end but the PCB end. There is WAY too much strain on the flex and it causes delamination of the conductors, which then break.

sorry for the confusion

Reply to
Bill Jackson

Yep. I think mine failed the same way. I had it powered up on the bench and pushing on the contacts didn't bring the pixels back, but flexing the cable did. I just couldn't find a cable position that allowed it to work reliably with the case on. Other's have said they've had good results just by increasing the pressure on the contacts though, so either there's another failure mode, or the cable disturbance is randomly sorting some units out.

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

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