Xenon Ballast Repair

Teardown Lab - Xenon Ballast Repair
Expensive ballast? Open it up and see what you can swap out!

ballast disassembly:

soldering gotchas:

headlamp teardown:

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Thanks you lovely people, and keep on tinkering!

[Acky]

Mine had the current measuring smd resistor blown up (the green one in the corner 500mOhm / 3W). Sadly, I couldn't find any of those in stock, so I had to improvise and solder two 1Ohm resistors in the same 2010 package back to back in parallel config.

[immorion]

So much fun to watch! Thanks for putting in the time to share your work!

[littlegoobie]

you work on things a lot like I do, nothing delicate about my style. The only difference is my project often ends with me saying "oh well, it was broken anyways"

[maxtorque]

The "trick" for working on anything like this, were the pcb is heavy copper or tightly heat sunk to the case (ie most power electronics) is either buying a cheap hot plate (set to 100 degC to pre warm the unit) or, if you're willing to exchange some cost for some more risk, is to use a hot air gun (paint stripper type) to VERY CAREFULLY warm the entire unit to around the same temp! (keep the hot air gun well away (12" or so) keep it moving, don''t rush the heating!

Do that, and you'll find your normal iron pops components off no probs at all!

(BTW, the capacitance of a capacitor is always very different as the tolerance is usually -10% + 20%. Far more important is the ESR of the capacitor, particularly, as here, when it is being used as a voltage snubber (ie it is absorbing a lot of ripple current)

[dancars]

Hello, can you telk from where you buy this components?

[boriskovacic]

Molim da mi netko kaže, gdje se nalazi balast fatova na golf 4. Hvala

[romen_romen]

Hello.
Thanks for the video.
We are trying to repair similar device. After i have changed transistors and diode was were broken, the lamp start to light for 3 second and than stop. Do you have any idea what to check additionally. Thanks in advance.

[adrianTNT]

@backofficeshow 33:51 is that FLIR camera fixed/modded to use a cable instead of the short connector ? I have a similar one that I broke the connector :/

[MrNetworx]

Good job! My first attempt at xenon ballast repair had killed my oscilloscope. Memories... :)

[planeguy-]

can someone explain why does this thing need two rather large microchips? all it has to do is literally start the lamp and limit its current

[PatanGPuluh]

hello sir, i want to ask what is the code for the mosfet, happened in my ballast the mosfet is very hot, what is the code for the mosfet sir?

[Sorcli]

Excellent video. How did you open the ballast? The Valeo one on my car seems to be riveted closed.

[tutorialeautodiverse]

what are the parts called?
Is the transistor unipolar or bipolar?
can you give me more details about the small black transistor because i need to change it and i don't know anything about it? thanks !

[xiufengu]

The capacitor which was warming up is on the low voltage supply. It heats up due to high ripple current from the inverter. Even ballasts with no faults show this capacitor heating up. What was the conclusion in this case? The tutorial was highjacked by adverts that bypassed my adblock and I could not see the end.

[davidnanan]

Excellent ballast repair bro! I just swapped out my ballast with an Amazon one and I'm interested in opening it up and seeing if the capacitor is bulging or burned and needs to be swapped! 😊

[electronash]

11:45

This is a good example of the difference between a soldering station's max temperature and it's thermal capacity.

It may be able to heat the tip to 480 C normally, but the temp will rapidly drop on a heatsink like that, and the station / iron can't keep up.

I would strongly recommend you switching to a less pointy "chisel" tip of around 2-3mm width.

It honestly makes a massive difference to getting good heat transfer, and might even help in heatsink situations like this one. ;)

With the slightly wider / shorter chisel tip, you don't really need to get the iron side-on to the components either, just end-on.

But, the chisel tip can still be used to solder very small SMD stuff, by using the corner of the tip.

Seriously, try a decent chisel - it will change your life. :p

[blaisemohai]

Hi! I need some informations from changed parts (or i need a link) ✌️

[blackmanops]

What kind of insane device is this!? There's an 80-pin microcomputer chip to run a light bulb!? Please, someone get those German engineers laid! I remember when a light bulb was a few bucks and only required connection to a 12 volt dc power source. People have lost their damn minds.

[DsmGT]

I love this! Thank you for you informative video it was quite entertaining 😂😅. Good day Sir!

[ChupoCro]

Soldering would be much easier after removing the PCB from the case which works as a heatsink.