Englander Control boards

[sam08861]

Been reading though the threads and see a lot of talk about control board failure.

Hard to believe the company hasn't been able to isolate the root cause of the failures and rectify this. One can only assume they're quite happy making a few bucks on post warranty sales vs. their outlay for a small number of in warranty claims.

Anyone happen to know if/what specific component on the board fails? Assuming it must be a proprietary IC?

Can't imagine this would be too hard to reverse engineer and improve, whatever the failing component is.

Anyway, seems crazy to me, but I'm new to this.

 

[Ssyko]

Believe it or not 90% of the boards i deal with, have blown Triacs or opto’s. They get smoked by a return spike from unplugged components and a wire hits the framE and shorts out. I see an occasional trace burnt. Pic’s and logic/microcontrollers are protected a bit better being further in the circuit, but can still be corrupted.

 

[sam08861]

In a way, that's good news, as Triacs/Optos are fairly low cost and readily available part and easy to replace if one has soldering experience and burnt traces not too much of a problem.

Would think that if inexpensive cell phone chargers, toaster ovens, vent hoods, etc. can build in protection circuitry, it shouldn't be too hard for Englander, without killing the price point.

I see the big IC is socketed, which is nice, but I am assuming that chip is proprietary and contains the logic to run the unit. Too bad it's not readily available separately to consumers. (or perhaps even servicers?), but if it's not the weak link/ failing component, maybe no biggie.

The other items appear to be perhaps standard microcontrollers? If mine ever goes, I'll have to examine the part numbers to at least give component replacement a shot. Can't seem to find a large, detailed photo online or board schematic to examine further and mine's running, so leaving it alone!

If the replacement boards were $99 instead of $299, I wouldn't have been so harsh in my 1st post, however I understand there's a need to sell a plug and play unit with less work/risk for laypersons.

From a perspective of being prepared, I'd love to see a schematic or service manual.

 

[Ssyko]

Englander used to sell the proms seperately but no longer. The pic is is a pic18f2420-17sp and is locked at the time of programming completion with a watchdog circuit in it for security. i have had this one kicking my ass for a while now.