[A4] Re: display issues

[Mike Rollins]

VERY good info!!!  I will certainly look into it a little more.  I know from
everything I've read, it was a 'lost cause' so I didn't persue it any
farther.  Sounds like there may be hope of repairing them after all.

Thanks Robert!
Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert A. King" <gt40 at mail.ev1.net>
To: "Mike Rollins" <mlrsrr at charter.net>; "Quincy Chiang" <b5quattro at shaw.ca>
Cc: <a4 at audifans.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: [A4] Re: display issues


> At 10:31 PM 7/2/2004, Mike Rollins wrote:
> >Wow, that sucks.  You'd think Audi would have the IC down by now.  Hmm,
> >maybe if Audi would pay a group of people to fix things like this instead
of
> >paying them to do noise analysis, there'd be even more happy Audi owners
out
> >there. :(
> >
> >On my way home, I could barely make out that it was 73 degrees, and God
only
> >knows what kind of mileage I'm getting.  I certainly couldn't make it
out.
> >
> >Brian, if you can send me the pics via e-mail, I can host them and post a
> >link to them.
>
> About a year ago, I pulled my cluster and disassembled it.  All the
> electronic displays on the cluster (the information display, date/time and
> odometer,) use the same technology.
>
> What's different with the information display is that it's MUCH larger
with
> a larger number of picture elements.  The information display uses a
> rectangular grid of pixels where the other displays used individual
> segments to form the characters -- like a calculator or LCD watch.  This
> means there is many, many more things to control on the information
display.
>
> The displays are driven via ribbon cables that are integral to the display
> and soldered to the cluster's PCB.  Because there's so many picture
> elements in the info display, it's ribbon cable is very, very large.
>
> I SUSPECT that VDO (who made my cluster,) is having problems soldering the
> large ribbon cable to the PCB.  It sure looks like the soldered contacts
> are flaky and thermal expansion is opening and closing the connections
> semi-randomly.  Perhaps someone who's skilled in soldering very small,
> high-density components could repair this.
>
>
>
>