Hello,
Once in a while on the French "Leboncoin" selling site, there are NEW original circuit boards offered,
but usually around €100. You can keep then the original connectors.
Yes I know of the new boards as I have bought a number from Simon Auto, and they were good, but they are all gone, and maybe he might have some more made later this year, but they are expensive. And the one main problem still remains - if the terminals in the plugs are broken, so the contact is reduced or lost (and often your get the pads burnt owing to arcing with those poor contacts) these terminals are now almost impossible to get, so what do you do then?
In the French forum "Matrapassion" there is someone who builded a number of "new" circuit boards
with modern components for other members, but there were new type of connectors used....
Guido
I have seen one of these and they are not that good in my opinion, and also cost a similar amount. They put the relays on top of the board so you will not be able to fit the cover. Relays don't need to be on top as they rarely fail, and in fact having them underneath means you can easily test them just by removing the fuse box cover as all their terminals are easily accessible on the top of the board.
This is why I was looking for a simpler and cheaper solution, which I now have. I received some of the pcb terminal blocks I had ordered the other day. I carefully drilled a series of holes in the pcb using a 1.2mm drill bit in my Dremel, and the terminal blocks can be inserted and soldered to the board. These blocks have a screw so you can insert the wire from the loom and secure it. Once you have all the wires attached you put the board back in its holder and mount it back in the bracket in the car. Job done.
Now all the wires are fastened securely to the board, and the circuits are positive and don't have to rely on a spring loaded slide contact which is potentially poor. The result is better connections using the existing board. The cost? Maybe £5 for the terminal blocks and a little work to drill the board and solder the terminals to it. A couple of photos that show 1) the underside of the board with the terminal blocks fitted but before soldering the pins to the pads. (please ignore the wire on the board as this was a board with a burnt out track that had previously had a repair - I was using this board as my trial in case it didn't work) And 2) the top of the board with the two terminal blocks fitted. Another two would be soldered to the other side to replace the four slide on plugs.
One further point about this modification, in case you hadn't thought about it - you only need to change the plug with broken terminals for a terminal block if all the terminals in the other three plugs are still good. So you can do as few as you need or do all four, it's up to you.
Roy
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