Repairing dead Faria gauges driven by Faria Gateway

[TechBeer]

dy9213, thanks for the post. Yeah, I do a lot of DIY electronics so I'm pretty used to soldering small SMT caps. But I "get" that might not be for everyone. I probably should have filmed that part of the procedure. My general approach is:

1. Heat up one side of the old part and once the solder is melted lift that side of the part up with small screwdriver/tweezers or whatever. Heat up the other side and remove the old part (tweezers, needle nose pliers, etc.).
2. Important - clean up the 2 pads first before installing the new part. I like to use the braided solder wick stuff like - https://www.amazon.com/Lesnow-No-Cle...dDbGljaz10cnVl
3. Then put a blob of solder on ONE of the pads. Cover the entire pad but only about 1mm high. You want that blob to be smooth and uniform and not "pointy". That will make it easier to place the part.
4. Place the new surface mount capacitor and hold the top with tweezers/ice pick, etc. Heat up the side with the solder to "lock it down".
5. Heat up the other side, both pad and capacitor together. Apply solder. You should have a nice arc of solder from the edge of the pad to the top of the capacitor.
6. You may want to heat up and apply solder to the other side just to clean it up.
7. If you have a multimeter make sure you haven't shorted the pads together AND that there is continuity between the capacitor and the trace that it's connected too.

There a many YouTubes on how to solder SMT devices that are way better than anything I could produce.

[TechBeer]

Just a follow up on my voltage gauge. This one died and I attributed it to the gateway. However.....it turned out to the gauge itself. I repaired this one before but used smaller 805 sized capacitors because that's what I had lying around. I think the caps were fine but I might have shorted something out on the first round. I also noticed that if you don't clamp the bezel down pretty tight the connectors on the back might not seat properly.

Anyways....I pulled it back out, swapped the caps and now it works perfectly in the boat. I continue to believe that many many issues that are attributed to the gateway are actually bad gauges.

[CarlitosAir]

Thanks for consistently coming back to this Mr Techbeer. I'm sure many folks appreciate, like myself. My hope is for this coming spring I will complete the repair you have discussed and posted on YouTube. Cheers

[ScooterMcgavin]

It was the gauges and connections on back of gauges on my 06 210. Couple bad gauges and some corrosion in the connector was causing gauge issues.

[TechBeer]

CarlitosAir Private message me if you need any help. I have repaired a few other's boats and am willing to do it if you will remove the bezel. That is the the most time consuming part.

[pwhittle]

TechBeer,

Thx so much for posting your video on fixing the Faria gauges.

I have a Monaco Motorhome and Faria made the gauges. I have had one air pressure gauge that didn’t work when it was cold, and I replaced the caps, per your instructions, and it has come back to life.

I had another non-working gauge that someone sent me and I replaced the caps, then the stepper motor, and it is working now too!

One other motorhome owner posted your video here: https://www.monacoers.org/topic/5666...ges/?_rid=3295 which led to me fixing my gauge.

Some other things we have in common: Back in the 90’s I had a Malibu Skier. I also live in the Atlanta area. Woodstock address, but closer to Alpharetta/Milton.

thx again

Paul

[Karl_SV211]

Hello,

Great Video.. I a currenty restoring a SV-211 Air Nautiaue, 2006. Yesterday I saw that 3 of these guages are not working, Oil, Water temp and fuel guage...Battery, most right guage is working properly. My question is, if the LED lights do not light up and no movement on needle, would you recommend this fix or could something else be an issue. I would assume that the stepper motor would not efffect the LED light up if the probem was only with the stepper motor. Is the capacitor fix related to LED lights?

[MN Ryan]

I'll be paying attention to this--my oil pressure gauge occasionally stops working along with the lighting on that gauge.

[TechBeer]

Hi Karl,

Sorry for the delay. If it was just the stepper motor then the LEDs should in theory come on. But I have seen some weird behavior. I had a dead voltage gauge one time that I attributed to the gateway/Faria bus since the LED would not come on (and the gauge was dead). I reseated the connector a bunch of time with no luck. I finally took the gauge out and did the repair in the video (both stepper motor and caps). Plugged it back into the boat and works perfectly.

One theory might be that the firmware in the gauge detects the bad stepper motor and disables the gauge. Since I have not been able to completely figure out the code that is just a theory. If you are restoring a 2006 boat I would absolutely re-furbish all 4 gauges. The parts are so cheap. I would bet they all come back to life. I'm happy to do it for you, just private message me.

[TechBeer]

Hi Paul,

Sorry, been off the blog for a while. That's a great thread on the Monaco site. Pretty funny that the RVs use the Faria gauges also. Someone was asking about the function of the capacitors and why they fail. There are 2 caps in these gauges. One is simply a bulk capacitor on the 5VDC voltage rail. The other I forget but I think it sets up some sort of RC time constant, like a reset or something. The original caps in these Faria gauges are aluminum electrolytic which are notorious for drying out and failing. There are thousands of threads on the internet about repairing TVs, audio amps, turntables, etc. simply by replacing these AL EL caps. In this case I'm replacing the AL EL caps with much more reliable ceramic caps of the same value and voltage level. These would have been much more expensive in 2006 but they are cheap and readily available in 2023.

BTW, I'm in Johns Creek...

Mark

[briantin]

If you go on Amazon and search for soldering kits, you can find something "decent" for about $20. Add in the stepper motors and capacitors and you're maybe in for $60 including shipping. That is less than a single gauge if you could even find one...... And you can fix them all. And then again in 10 years when they go out again... :-)

This is exactly what I did this week and now my fuel guage works again on my 2006 220. Thanks for the info. Glad I found it.

[Osubucki00]

Thanks for all the info. Does anyone know how to get the gauge out of the bezel?

[briantin]

To get the silver bezel off you have to pry on the back of it because its folder over the gauge housing. You have to bend it up enough to be able to pry it over the lip. After that pull the needle off the stepper motor and the gauge dial will come right out. Hope that is what you were asking.

[Osubucki00]

Yes, figured it out. Thanks!

[tgi100]

Has anyone tried this with the larger gauges such as the Tachometer or Speedo. My large gauges are acting up in the same way that the smaller ones have...