cost of motherboard

[lusi]

Does anyone have an idea of how much a motherboard for a GC (thermo Trace GC Ultra) will cost?

Also it is possible to fix parts of the board without replacing the entire board?

[Peter Apps]

The only people who can tell you how much you will have to pay for a motherboard are the pople that you are going to buy it from.

It is possible to exchange some components on most circuit boards, and it can work out a lot cheaper to do so, but I doubt that your local Thermo service engineers will be prepared to go that route. The first step, obviously, is to diagnose which components are damaged. Do you have any electronics experts that you can call on to help ?

Peter

[lusi]

Unfortunately I tend to agree with you on the fact that the Thermo Service personnel are not interested in going that route.

Also I am receiving some conflicting reports from the local company. Initially I thought they were coming to look at the board and run some diagnostics. But last I heard they are just going to replace the board and do any additional troubleshooting.

The cost of the board I hear is very expensive. They are unable to approximate right now and are awaiting quotes. So add their mark-up (which tends to be very high) and installation costs etc. I think I am now understanding why so many Thermo instruments this part of the world just are in a non-functional state.

And I am not sure that we have any electronics experts down here that can be able to isolate the problem.

[Peter Apps]

Board swapping is the standard diagnostic and repair technique for all the instrument companies that I know of, so this is not confined to Thermo.

Peter

[lusi]

Wouldn't it be nice if they had a board they could use before making us buy one.

[Peter Apps]

For sure I would expect them to do a test swap before concluding that the board actually is the cause of the problem.

Just a thought, sometimes complicated problems have simple solutions - check all the fuses.

Peter

[lusi]

You would think that is what they should do right. Well not in these parts of the world. To be quite honest I think our local agent has very limited experience and we have felt the consequences of it in minor ways. And added to the fact that other people in and out of the region just sympathise with you when they hear you have Thermo products does not help, neither does the fact that most of the other major Thermo equipment in the region are non-functional.

Thanks for your suggestion - only problem is I do not have the experience to check the fuses and I have NOOOO support down here. Besides I am hesitant to have that done in case things get further complicated or it is used to cover some other incompetence.

[HbJ]

Well... Chromforum did just eat my last reply.

After dwelling into the manuals (https://www.thermo.com/com/CMA/Services ... ice_id=498) of the GC I found that it has a self-diagnosis:
So switch on the unit and press INFO/DIAG twice to get into the diagnostics menu.

Check the power and probe status to find out what happened.

[lusi]

Thanks HbJ. I was not familarised with that during the introduction to the machine. The Thermo representative never even suggested I looked at the diagnostics either.

Actually which one of the manuals does the interpretation of the information there?

I turned on the equipment and the power is reading : +24, +15, -15, -5 Volts have all failed, only the +5 is ok.
There is no option indicating probe status though.
Also I entered the temperature diagnostics and it just indicated testing on the machine.

[HbJ]

[This is actually good news... the damage is most likely some blown fuse in the power supply.
According to the spare parts list, there are two main fuses within the unit. Sadly I don't know the locations.]

Discard what I wrote. There seems to be one main fuse for the main board.
As one voltage is still operational and the unit boots, you seem to have caused further damage.
So either a connector is faulty or you need an expert to measure the voltages within the unit.

[lusi]

Thanks HbJ. Please clarify some things, it is more than a blown fuse? Do you think the entire motherboard needs changing? Also what do you mean by the connector is faulty? And what does it mean by one volt still working?

[HbJ]

Now let's enter a bit into the mysteries of power supplies:
A transformer converts the mains voltage to values like 7, 12, 26 etc. volts.

Those are then rectified and stabilized (therefore the starting voltages are a bit higher).

As three out of four voltages have failed there can be multiple causes:
Either the ECD electrometer or parts of its circuits were damaged and did cause short-circuits.
In that case switch off the unit, remove the ECD electrometer and disconnect the ECD itself totally and check if there is any change (I doubt it).

Sadly I've never seen an actual Ultra GC so I don't know the power supply of this unit.
Either this is a trivial error like a damaged connector or there was actual damage to the power supply unit itself. You need to get an electrician to measure the voltages within in the unit to determine the problem.
Maybe a radio or TV repairman (those are usually quite competent) might take a look at it.

[lusi]

Thanks so much HbJ. The thermo service person did ask me to disconnect the ECD but nothing changed.

I can ask the Thermo service people about allowing someone to check the voltages. I doubt that I will get approval for that. Also, they seem to want to change the motherboard before doing anything else.
Would this really solve the problem? Or would they will have to look at connectors and power supply?

Lets just say I have had experience whereby they suggested the reason for a problem, sold us the part and it was not that. However, they did fix it.

[HbJ]

Well, most instrument failures have trivial causes. As those are cheap to fix and the service representatives as well as Thermo itself are greedy they sell you some unnecessary positions to stuff the bill a bit.

I have no idea if this GC still has a stand-alone power supply or if it is integrated on the mainboard. I'd suspect they did stuff everything on the mainboard to extort more money from their victims, err... customers.

As I said: Let somebody with an electronics background take a look at it. All power supplies are at least similar in nature and it should at least be possible to check the basic functions.

[DSP007]

One moment-

Before you climb inside, check that the power is off.
Take off your clothes made of synthetic fabrics, wear cotton. Touch the body (electrical ground) to relieve potential. Modern CMOS chip capacity can kill.
Ate you do not know exactly what to do - do not do. Here the principle of the Hippocratic works - do no harm Of course simply replacing the burned fuse does not require this ritual, but I'm afraid one fuse is not limited. The rest of the distinguished German colleague completely agree.

No gods pots fired ...