*Distilled* water conducts electricity very poorly. It's when you add impurities that it begins to conduct well.
OK, I will concede that "distilled' water is a poor conductor of electrical current. That being said, most water in its 'natural' state is not distilled, and will conduct electricity, to some extent, depending on the amount and type of materials disolved in it. Any moisture (water) will easily absorb these impurities when it comes in contact with them, and its conductivity may increase, depending on the specific impurity. So, I still feel that a high amount of humidity in the air, might be enough to cause enough of an increase in the conductivity between the signal ribbon and the board contacts and allow enough current to pass to get the pixel to work. But, I also feel that temperature variations, which cause expansion and contraction of the materials is a more likely source of changes in pixel workings.
Water has to be pretty pure to be a good insulator, and it doesn't stay pure for very long.
I do some semiconductor process work in school, which meant lots of time in a clean room. There was a conductivity gauge above the wafer rinsing system. Just reaching into that station would move the needle. Even being super clean, wearing gloves/mask/hat/suit, humans just spray dirt and salt molecules everywhere.
In real life there is no pure water. Most of the molecules that result in conductive ions in the water (e.g. "salt") stay behind when moisture evaporates, ready to become a little conductive the next time there is high humidity. Most ultra low power electronics have a conformal coating on the circuit board to reduce this, otherwise the leakage current might be many times higher than the intended circuit paths are drawing.
Thanks for the write-up. I don't own a BMW but had a coworker with an X5 that had this problem and found your write up very helpful in being able to fix it for him. I ordered my ribbon and t-tip soldering iron from germanaudiotech (http ://stores.ebay.com/German-Audio-Tech). Now I know someone said the specialty soldering iron was unnecessary but I found it useful. The ribbons that this seller sold me have glue on one side (which others have noted in this thread) and that glue is activated particularly well and uniform by that special iron tip. I found that about 15-20 seconds of pressing evenly on each pass was perfect. This not only makes a bond to the board but ensures a good connection between contacts, which could maybe be why some are having trouble getting all their pixels to come back to life (maybe). I used scotch tape to line up my cable but removed it afterwards. I didn't use any shims under the silicone gaskets as the extra pressure as I didn't want to encourage stress on the screw mounts for the LCD. I used rubbing alcohol (95%) and q-tips for the circuit board (took lots of applications and rubbing but it cleaned nicely after about 20min). I also used these on the LCD connection but a clean stiff credit card aided greatly in scraping off the old adhesive material. The pixel fix was perfect the first time on the X5 (although I did have to replace one backlight bulb (don't know if it burned out in the process somehow or not, but worth mentioning).
Then a few days ago I did this fix again on my uncle's 2002 525i (e39). The only thing I did differently this time was use a dremel with a nice grinding bit to make the holes for accessing the torx heads on the LCD. I found the dremel WORLDS easier than trying to use a cordless drill (I know someone used a press which probably is much better, but the dremel made getting right over those torx heads a piece of cake) if you have access to one... The same thing happened with the LCD backlight bulb going out in the process and I had to give the dealer $13 :ouch: for a new one. Aside from that the ribbon fix worked perfectly on the first attempt (I credit a good cleaning of the contacts AND the soldering iron for this success).
Worth noting: The ribbons I bought from germanaudiotech did not have the holes cut out for the metal LCD cover tabs or torx screws and I sliced through the first ribbon it trying to cut them out. I recommend a very sharp xacto or a fresh box cutter blade and something solid to cut on for this. Take your time and you won't make the same $20 mistake I did. In my opinion a manufacturer with the capability to make a ribbon should/would/could easily have added a step to the process and cut out these for us but whatever...
Again thanks to the OP and everyone with valuable info that posted after for this thread, very beneficial.
If anyone in Southern California doesn't want to try this themselves send me an e-mail or PM and we can discuss the possibility of me doing this for you.
Anyone live near Seattle, Washington that is able/confident to do this repair? i have a 1998 e39 540i and i can not read the pixels.... (-_-) but i do not know if i trust myself messing with this..
Does anybody know where I can find a DIY for an E39 Guage Cluster bulbs replacement?
I've got some bulbs out.
Thanks.
Wish I had the cajones to do this, nice work!
Wow, nice writeup! Hope to do this someday on mine.
A caveat about the gaffer's tape (I'm actually a gaffer): the stuff doesn't age well. Heat will break it down and over time it will lose its adhesion. In the making of a movie, everything is temporary, it usually has to hold up for just a few hours, so not a factor for its intended use. I hope that doesn't matter for the way you've used it here. It sounds like you sandwiched into place, so all good.
Also, if you need to read the mileage on a broken LCD (I keep track of mine for tax purposes), I've found that by syncing up the trip odo with the main odo at the thousand mile mark gives me enough pixel info between the 2 of them to figure it out. Of course, the OBC info is hieroglyphics. Before I figured this out it was impossible to tell.
hi there i replaced a window regulater i noticed 1 of the wires touched the door an sparked and wouldnt work i got a 12 volt battery an put the regulater wires on it and was able to get the window up so regulater still works . check the fuses in the car none of them has blown can you help
BMW 540iT and a Porsche 944 Turbo S. I'm a glutton for punishment
hello, great post did this and it worked almost perfectly :Þ i see all pixels, but the problem is that mileage of the car and heat outside is kinda faited, looks like the light doesnt go on there, is really hard to see what stands there. how can i fix that? didnt i attach the cable well enough or what? other than that everything works perfectly i see all pixels and looks shiny and beautiful big thanks.
Hi guys,
Just did my third successful ribbon replacement, this time on an e38. Only problem is when we tested the repaired cluster (on an e39 btw) it showed -40F on the outside air temp side of the LCD. We put it in the car it came out of (e38) and it did the same thing but I know the sensor in the test car (e39) was working before and after my test. Is there anything you can think of on the cluster that I could've done to screw this up during the repair? I did everything by the book and am sure I didn't cut any traces or anything, it was a perfect job...
-H
Last edited by Hovik; 01-09-2013 at 01:13 AM.
WORST. IDEA. EVER.
8+ hours and new flex cable is now broken.
Do this ONLY if you can risk to replace your IC. (And your wife.)
[E39 540i] - with S/C ESS kit (plus some upgrades)
[E34 540iA] - Gone
suscribed
I'm glad lots of people have found this post helpful! I would like to note that I tried to fix mine again but I have concluded that the LCD is bad. I noticed that Dareck posted a picture of his cluster as a before/after picture and I actually HAVE his LCD in my cluster. The before picture when he arrived at my house looks exactly like it does now AFTER I finally fixed it again. So I am now on the hunt for another LCD. I do know that his cluster was repaired once before so I am assuming that they got a little overzealous with cleaning up the traces on the LCD and degraded them significantly. So, be careful when cleaning them off. Don't scrape them with metal objects or sand the residue off. It will just ruin the LCD. Best method is slow and steady so that, in a few years, you can do it again, when they will assuredly fail again. LOL!
I just did this repair and it was a mild success. After getting everything back together, I noticed all of my gauges are working very poorly. The gas gauge is way below E(mpty), the RPM gauge is delayed, and all other gauges are very sluggish. Has anybody else had this problem. BTW, I know I had a quarter tank, but it's telling me I have --- miles until I run out. *bangs head...
Vdorepair.com just did mine it took 10 days to leave my house in nyc and come back from california. Looks like new.
^Check on their website. $279 +shipping.
I repair my own using this write-up, on my old E53 3.0 and newly bought 03 E39 540i MSport.
Thank you, Black540Msport.
2000 Dinan S1 //M5 (my DD) --------------- 06 DINAN E53 4.8iS (wife's) -------------- 90 Straman Z32TT (my pride & joy)
Gone, but not forgotten: 01 E39 M5, 01 E53 3.0i, 01 525i Sport, 03 DINAN 540i MSport and 91 Z32 TwinTurbo
I paid $195 with shipping and everything. They said lifetime warranty, I know it'd be less if id diy but I just didnt have the time. I only did the MID btw, my cluster is 100%.
Is there a fix for dead pixels in the climate control?
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