Shadeyman said:

When I removed the board from its plastic case I noticed one corner of the board was warm/hot so I just took a really close look at it and this is what I found.

Looks like 2 of the chips have over heated?

Any electronic wizz kids want to give me their verdict?

The heat seems to have melted some see though brown stuff around the pins of the chips?

Edit.
Just cleaned the brown stuf off incase it was causing a short.

Click to expand...

Could be the chips. What are you looking at are solid state relays. I haven't researched enough but you should be able to order them somehwere if that turns out to be the problem. Here are some links I came across: http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/stmicroelectronics/7392.pdf
http://www.st.com/internet/com/TECHNICAL_RESOURCES/TECHNICAL_LITERATURE/DATASHEET/CD00002417.pdf
I really thought the ECU was more protected, never thought it would be a simple exposed PCB bolted onto the engine where temperatures easily reach 100 degrees centigrade

Shadeyman said:

The body computer is a very simple computer so you'd expect a price similar to this:
http://www.shop.bt.com/products/asu...le&utm_medium=product+search&utm_content=RR00

But no, Fiat charge £455 for it, so its worth repairing if its possible.

Click to expand...

Shadey I totally agree with you, PC motherboards can be cheap, the example you showed, nice price for a avarage PC user but the BIOS can be updated. With the Fiat part, they rip you off and that is that.

I will send an email to my brother in law, he is in Essex and ask him his opinion, I know he is out of the country right now but he may give a response. He is an uber expert.
Will do it now, will update if he can respond

Stealth123 said:

Shadey I totally agree with you, PC motherboards can be cheap, the example you showed, nice price for a avarage PC user but the BIOS can be updated. With the Fiat part, they rip you off and that is that.

I will send an email to my brother in law, he is in Essex and ask him his opinion, I know he is out of the country right now but he may give a response. He is an uber expert.
Will do it now, will update if he can respond

Click to expand...

So those 2 chips are deffinately solid state relays?
In other words if they were kaput they could be permanently closed causing the lights to stay on even when the key is removed?

Might be worth trying to replace them then.

Shadeyman said:

So those 2 chips are deffinately solid state relays?
In other words if they were kaput they could be permanently closed causing the lights to stay on even when the key is removed?

Might be worth trying to replace them then.

Click to expand...

Well they do represent switches but they are not totally fried, just on the way to there, so it may be that they malfunction .

Give me 24 hours to get an answer for you, someone else may come up with it but I will do it anyway.

I was wondering how/why these relay chips would over heat and cause problems so I checked the bulbs in the rear lights. They're Osram. Could they have drawn more current and caused the chips to over heat and fail?

Found a spec sheet on the chips and attached it to this post, thought it might help someone help me. (Decks )

Osrams are good bulbs from experience. I doubt they'd have drawn too much current, unless moisture has been present in the light units

Most Easterly Pandas said:

Osrams are good bulbs from experience. I doubt they'd have drawn too much current, unless moisture has been present in the light units

Click to expand...

I have Osrams in my Multiwagon, agreed they are good.
Water marks on the PCB and in the near side rear cluster. Add that to Osrams and maybe it did draw too much.

Now where I can get 2 more chips from? :chin:

Morning Shady

1. Lights permanently on:
Rear left brake light.
Rear left fog light.
Rear right indicator.
Front left indicator.
Suspect its Body computer related, bad earth perhaps?

Yes that's body computer type faults but could be bad connections (you've been there before) Check for battery. /alternator supply voltage and earth there. See what system voltage FES is reporting and monitor it when the engine dies if you can as the lost connection error might be crank sensor or it might be loss of BC to ECU comms.

What are the fault codes bringing up?

Deckchair5 said:

Morning Shady

1. Lights permanently on:
Rear left brake light.
Rear left fog light.
Rear right indicator.
Front left indicator.
Suspect its Body computer related, bad earth perhaps?

Yes that's body computer type faults but could be bad connections (you've been there before) Check for battery. /alternator supply voltage and earth there. See what system voltage FES is reporting and monitor it when the engine dies if you can

Click to expand...

Morning Decks, am I glad to see you. Think "this is right up your street", as they say.

Its deffinately the Body computer, swopped it and got the same faults on another car so it confirms its the body computer.

Think it could be related to 2 solid state relay chips on the top right of the PCB. You have any ideas how I could test them, replace them? I uploaded a PDF spec sheet of the VNQ830M chips in an earlier post, but it makes very little sense to me?

Very handy having a similar car to swop bits for fault finding

I don't think there's much you can do with testing or replacing those chips as that's a specialist job. It's normally a new/ replacement board

Deckchair5 said:

Very handy having a similar car to swop bits for fault finding

I don't think there's much you can do with testing or replacing those chips as that's a specialist job. It's normally a new/ replacement board

Click to expand...

Yes, being able to swop suspect parts really helps.

Are they really that difficult to replace?

Where or who could I contact to get them replaced as I'd like to know if it is them causing the faults, plus it might save me a few quid?

Well you can just chop the old chip legs and remove it no problems but clearing the way and soldering in the new one is very fine soldering work. As for testing the installation afterwards then that's the hard part, you can test each chip leg is making circuit contact but short circuits - are they designed to be connected or is that poor soldering? That's where the problems occur

BBA Reman are one of the largest UK automotive electronic remanufacturing specialists but even they'd need to be set up for testing the whole board. It's very time consuming and that's what costs

I'm not bothered about testing, I can do that myself by plugging it into the car ...

Just need someone to replace the chips. :chin:

So its not as easy as getting my hands on another BC and removing the 2 chips then soldering them on as a replacement?

Pity as I managed to source another BC yesterday but its from a 3 door petrol so I hoped to use it for spares not as a direct replacement. I guess the hardware would be the same but the software would be different for each body type, plus the key transponder codes are stored in the BC so repairing the original would be preferable.

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant by
as I'd like to know if it is them causing the faults
as I thought you wanted the circuit or chips tested

Well there's nothing to stop you trying to solder in new chips but getting the old and good ones out of a working board intact and undamaged would be difficult. A heat gun on all the pins would do it but the chip could easily be damaged

If I had the gear I'd attempt it myself but my soldering equipment cost £4.99 .

Not exactly the top of the range but sufficient for me untill now.

Think I need to find someone to replace these chips for me.

Any idea's?

Edit.
Think I found some to supply the chips.
http://www.littlediode.com/components/search.php?mode=search&simple_search=Y&posted_data%5Bby_title%5D=Y&posted_data%5Bby_shortdescr%5D=Y&posted_data%5Bby_fulldescr%5D=Y&posted_data%5Bby_sku%5D=Y&posted_data%5Bincluding%5D=all&substring=VNQ830M&search_redirect=Y

Well if you're going to ask someone to replace the chips then don't do anything to them yourself. Taking snapshots like you've done and emailing enquiries might be the best plan

Edit.
Think I found some to supply the chips.

Well that's a better plan, installing new chips is a much easier prospect

PM sent.

Sure, looks fairly bread and butter
Should be able to do a quick turnaround for you, let me know when you have the new chips in your hand

In a former life I used this on a daily basis for chip removal with consistent success Shadey :- http://www.wiresandstuff.com/tools/servisol-soldamop-no-clean-desolder-braid-wick-sucker.html

Re-soldering is made much easier with an electric soldering iron with a fine tip, just be sure to get the heat into the PC board & let the solder melt into that, it will migrate on to the chip legs like magic if you use a fine solder that contains its own flux.

Shadey do you have the part number for the body computer?