Digital Dash Power Supply issues/diagnostics?

bronzemfp

Senior Member

Posts: 412
#1

Digital Dash Power Supply issues/diagnostics?

03-21-2021, 10:31 PM

My Digital Dash is on the fritz again. I put in a refurbished power supply years ago and it has been working until recently. The dash, if it works at all, comes on for a few min then cuts out again. The power supply gets warm to the touch, but not alarmingly hot or anything, I have re flowed the solder twice on the connector pins and that doesn't seem to be the issue.
What other components go bad in the power supply? None of the capacitors are swelled. Everything looks ok on the inside. Not sure what to check or where to go from here. Replacement units are getting harder to come by, and expensive. There isn't much info on the inner workings of these things. Even in the shop manual.
badq45t

Senior Member

Posts: 300
#2

03-22-2021, 12:56 PM

I have had 3 major issues with the dash, 2 were fixed with a new digital dash controller. The first time (around 1992) the shop took it out and sent to a speedo shop and the guy fixed it and knock on wood that has been solid ever since. Second one was the gas gauge going back, that was fixed with a new dash display, I ended up finding a reconditioned one through same speedo shop who fixed up a junk yard one. I hate throwing parts at these types of problems but seems like your two choices are taking your existing one out and having a shop that can look over the electronics in the box and hopefully find the culprit and fix or buy a new tested one from z31partsforyou.com if Steve has one you can be sure it was tested and will work. I think this is dash controller issue not a display one.
bronzemfp

Senior Member

Posts: 412
#3

03-24-2021, 06:09 AM

Thanks for the info. I think I'll try to find a local electronics repair shop. Hopefully it's cheaper than getting a replacement on zparts, but that's a good backup source if not.
badq45t

Senior Member

Posts: 300
#4

03-24-2021, 12:13 PM

The original build of the digital dash controller was really bad. The shop in LA Z-Expert by early 90's was doing a bunch of them as they were failing left and right. The shop was re-soldering all the connections and fixing some other poorly executed build. Funny how there are little things like this that were poorly built but were a reasonable fix knowing what to do, and yet I have 171k on my original motor that still pulls as hard today as it did in Feb 1984.