HELP - Profilux 3EX Hardware Problem

[Raven900]

Hi there, I sent this email to info@ghl-kl.de yesterday but no reply. Could someone help please? My Profilux has failed.

It's P3 Ex, and I've had it for about 3 years.

About 3 months ago the screen started to go very dim. About a month ago it was unreadable - you can sometimes see that's it's on but it's so dim it's unusable.

Today the computer has started to spontaneously shut down. If I remove power for a few minutes then reconnect it, it starts and runs for about 10 minutes then gradually starts to shut down functions - loses network connectivity, stops 1-10V output to lights, loses Comm with the PAB - becomes unresponsive. The screen is then completely blank so I can't try to do anything.

I am hoping it's a problem in the front PCB (with the display that's been slowly failing). I disassembled the unit and unplugged/replugged all the cables. Otherwise it looked to be quite clean inside.

Is it possible to get a new front circuit board? I'm in Australia - how long would it take? I'm basically without a computer now and it's so hard to revert everything back to manual control. Dosing, in particular, will be very intensive without the computer. (My 1200litre tank uses 800ml of supplements per day.)

Would it be possible for you to ship me a new card and me to send you back my old one? Obviously I want to avoid paying hundreds of dollars if possible.

Thanks for your help,
Mathew

[PIWAWT]

Hi Mathew
I think you have 2 problems
1 .The display, you can change it later
2. The power supply. That would get it first. You should make sure that it has a 3-pin AV cable.

greeting Pit

[Raven900]

Thanks for your reply Pit,

Your post prompted me to do more investigating.

Surprise - the display works when the unit is first powered on. I think the dimming display I've been seeing is related to the power issue. So now I think the display is OK, it's just a power problem.

My unit has a 12VDC power supply - not sure what you meant about the 3 pin AV cable? I've tried other 12V power supplies and it's still the same.

I took the lid off and powered it on. One of the ?capacitors (labelled CZ 220 VTZ) near the power supply plug gets really, really hot. Too hot to touch for more than about 3 seconds. I wonder if there is a problem here, I took that rear PCB out but I cant see any problems on any of the PCBs.

Thanks for your help, I really want to try to solve it, GHL support just told me to send it back to them - it'll take weeks to go to Germany and back from Australia, which I really want to try to avoid. I'm out of other ideas though.