Climate Control/Radio Repair DIY
 

03 sedan, nissan audio part numer: PN-2459, here's the schematic:

http://elektrotanya.com/clarion_pn24.../download.html

I had the dreaded climate control/radio problem, where my climate was stuck and nothing was working, climate buttons, radio, or anything.

The problem was on the power supply. The board had this weird burnt colour, and three resistors were literally sitting up. I wish I had my camera to take pictures. They were surface mount, and I guess from so much heat they got de-soldered, it was soldered on one side, and it was sitting like a good 4mm up on the other, and the other two you could tell there was no connection to the PCB pad, it was R508 (75 Ohm 1/8W), R509, R510 (22 Ohm 1/8w)

If you open it up, these resistors are bigger then all the other resistors. It's only three of them. If you know how to solder it's extremely simple, just clean with acetone, or alcohol, and resolder them, and it works like a charm.

Whatever I suspected that could make a cold joint (these boards are manufactured on a machine, and very little solder is used for the components), I added more solder.

I am about to wait and see if it's gonna continue to work, but I think this is simple, and with little electronics knowledge it can be fixed. This is why they charge 150-300 to fix this very simple problem.

I hope this helps!

Here's the location on the board:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T...o/unleddsd.png

Thanks for the tip. I have been thinking that the problem is from too much heat on the radio.

I now have a Sony after-market radio and whenever I use the heat in the winter blowing at my feet that Sony gets so hot that I will burn my finger touching it.

That area behind the radio must be getting way too hot for the factory radio and eventually it breaks.

I still have the factory radio in my garage, it's in pieces, but maybe I can checked it now and fix it.

Actually is probably something else too. The radios had been known to drain the battery.
If I didn't drive for a couple of days I couldn't start the car because the battery was dead.

As soon as I got rid of the OEM radio, that never happened again even after one month not driving the car.

Thank you! I've had exactly the same problem. The lights and controls on my 2003 G35 sedan would come and go, but it started in the summer so I assumed it was heat related. When it happened in the middle of the winter without signs of improving, I broke. One of the 22 Ohm resistors was disconnected. Re-soldering fixed it, at least for now. CD changer is still inoperable - the typical CD ERR F0.
Those resistors are tiny. One will need a steady hand and a sharp soldering iron.

id like to try this out however im not quite certain how to access the power supply. ive tried the ribbon cutting trick because i have my display/radio buttons intermittently stop working (AC controls work fine). so i know how to remove my dash and separate the stereo from the finisher board, however from that point on, im not sure what to do. any help will be appreciated!

EDIT: also, is this fix applicable to the Bose units or non-Bose?

I encountered the battery drain issue as well.

My AC controls are working perfectly. It appears to be an intermittent battery drain issue for me.

I took apart the dash and took the audio system out. I will be taking it apart tonight.

Updating here: https://g35driver.com/forums/audio-v...ow-what-3.html

Original Poster - @equillibrium - EXCELLENT FIND! This is 99% positively the problem with my '03 G35 coupe, Bose. I have the standard prob where the A/C temp cant be changed, and stereo is dead. I actually found a few months ago if you disconnect the middle ribbon cable going between the tape and CD units, it disables the CD, and everything else works fine.

I came across your post, and being an avid electronics guy and good at soldering, I checked those surface-mount resistors, and BAM, you're dead on: R508, R509, and R510 are loose. very light pressure on them from the side reveals that although they look okay, they're actually desoldered. I'll be doing this repair in the next day or two, and will post back. Here's a picture of the 3 SMR's in question.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/65122009/bose01.jpg

;) glad i could help. Soldier might not hold long tho I had to redo after a few months then just went aftermarket with the ugly metra kit. Everything's perfect since!

Have a look at the video I posted in the other thread. It might shed a bit more light

good work @quanttrom, how has that repair worked for you? I see your YouTube video is from about 3 weeks ago; let us know how your Bose unit has been working.

I went ahead and reflowed those 3 surface-mount resistors in question in my picture earlier, and also went ahead and hit all of the SMR's on that board of that size that I could hit, since there easily could be a cold solder joint in one of them. As @quanttrom suggests in his video on the topic of pick-and-place automated circuit building, they may have had an incorrect heat profile when they originally built these (extremely likely they did, since the DOA rate on these is through the roof), so I figured I would hit all of these in one pass.

So far so good. my CD player is back to normal, I went for a drive this evening, about an hour, and no strange behavior at all.

I'll update in a few days, or sooner if anything goes sideways before then.

@quanttrom, let us know how yours is working? It seems like you're going down a different path with replacing the 5v voltage regulator, I'm wondering how that is coming along.

It has been working like a charm ! No issues whatsoever !
Btw, I didn't replace the 5V regulator, I just replaced the R509 and R510 resistors with a single high wattage resistor. The circuit remains largely unchanged.

On a second though and reviewing the schematic I would say that this issue is largely because of improper corner case design. Specifically high heat dissipation combined with high ambient temperatures and I don't think it's related to improper solder mask/reflow job. It just looks like it is..

TL; DL : Re-flowing is NOT enough to ensure long term reliability and durability and keep the unit working for long. It's more of a temporary band-aid solution.

try swapping out the 2 resistors with this single resistor and this might provide for a longer term fix:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detai...FCT-ND/3029262

The 11 ohm version would be a better fit but it seems to be a non-stock part.

Would it be enough to just add a heatsink to those resistors before the radio fails? or is the flow through them, whether they've failed or not, going to be responsible for other failed parts?

Putting a heatsink on those resistors would be difficult because the pins are exposed on the top side. If you put a conductive heatsink you will short them effectively removing the resistors out of the circuit.
If you find a NON electrically conductive heatsink you have yourself a long-term solution !!

I doubt other parts will be affected by the failure of the resistors. The radio just looses power and fails pretty much. When R509 R510 fail it is possible that it puts extra stress on the 75 ohm resistor (R508) until it cannot handle it and de-solders itself as well !

My understanding of the overall problem is, we are not dealing with a component itself failing, or excessive heat of said component, but rather failure of the solder joint of surface-mount components (albeit that failure may be caused by heat).

That being said, my feeling is a heat sink is not the answer. At this point in the repair discovery process, I am of the opinion that fixing the solder joint itself is the long-term solution. In my case, I opted to re-flow the existing joints and add additional solder to make the joint more robust.