eCNA-10 low battery fault

[Ken Lackner]

Got an eCNA-10 with a low battery fault. Fault remains after I replace the battery and update firmware to v1.230. All user data is lost at power cycle. Replaced the battery again, no change. I swapped the main CPU board with a spare eCNA-10 and problem solved. So now I'd like to troubleshoot the original board in the spare unit. Resoldered the battery holder, replaced the battery again, forced factory defaults via DIP switch 2-1, and reflashed the firmware again. Still the fault remains and user data is lost after power cycle. Can anything be done to repair this board?

[Marcel Birgelen]

Could be something rather easy, like a blown or simply dried out capacitor, but also something more complicated like a dead voltage regulator. Visually checking for bad caps would be an easy start. Putting an ESR meter to simple reachable caps a second. If nothing obvious comes from that, without proper schematics and some documentation, any component-level repair will probably not be worth it.

[Steve Guttag]

Eprad is still in business (and we use their automations on just about 100% of our installations) so, at the worst, send it to them for repairs. But it might be worth asking them for likely components that would cause it to claim low-battery with a fresh battery.

Certainly, you could try to visually trace the path of the battery to the chip that it is supporting and, with a meter, see where the interruption is coming. You may find a failed solder joint on an SMT part or a crack in a board or the out-of-left-field failed resistor.

I've never had the issue, myself, so I've never gone through having to trace it out. My failure rate on eCNAs are incredibly low (it was one that the Ethernet port stopped working). I, generally, tell people the Eprad automation is the most reliable thing in any booth and will outlast most everything else.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

More often than not, it's just leaky, bad electrolytic capacitor(s). There are still many electrolytic capacitors out there manufactured during the infamous capacitor plague. The manufactured equipment could have been manufactured up to about 2010. I ran into one yesterday in a piece of audio gear that was manufactured in 2009. The bad cap also fried the 7805 regulator. In my case I am replacing all 32 electrolytic caps on the board.