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]

:confused: 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

Edited 23 August, 2008 by DGW
Font size reduced from 5 to 3.

[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!:thumbdwn: 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

:confused: 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

Edited 23 August, 2008 by DGW
Redundant quote deleted.

[aubrey]

You can get the relay from Farnell :

TYCO ELECTRONICS | V23026-A1001-B201 | Relays & Solenoids | Electrical & Circuit Protection | Farnell UK

[Unconventional]

Guys I have some interesting info to share !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Fabia 1.4, year 2000 instrument panel suddenly went dead overnight. I took it out driving to see if it made any difference, but to no avail ..... it was completely dead. Intestingly the only lights then could come on on it were the headlight main beam and low beam warning lights. Nothing else worked.

I an anxious state I wound down the front passenger door electric window for a breath of fresh air. When I came to wind the window up again... nothing. Window would not wind up. Tried to wind it down again... no problem. Window by now was fully wound down, and would not wind up. In desperation I took it home and parked it in the garage.

I phoned skoda and ordered a electric window control unit for the passenger door.

[sparky2]

:confused: With an intermittant fault like this it could be a bad joint in the wiring loom or a 'dry' joint on the PCB or even could be something dragging down the CAN bus,the CAN bus would possably control the relay on the dashboard PCB and if that feeds the instruments, it could even be a dirty contact inside the relay.I did read somewhere that you can have water entering the control boxes behind the dash ? might give people something to go on. cheers - Stuart.