Sole F63 treadmill LS1 error Repair

[MALE20]

Hi All,

I recently purchased a second hand Sole F63 treadmill (2013 model I believe). The guy who sold it has had an original driver board as he changed it some time ago. Treadmill died after 20 min of use with a most common error LS1. I excluded almost all obvious things such as sensor and motor. I tried a calibration procedure and the same issue occurred as well.

I started looking into the driver board and I discovered a faulty MOSFET driver MC34151PG Vcc and GND were shorted. I replaced this component but no results (visible legs outside socket are not in use). Looks like there is no signal to the MOSFET driver from the microcontroller. Both MOSFETs have been removed and checked all sections of the board have correct voltage as well. I looked into the original board that came with the treadmill and there is the exact same error, however board behavior is different. In this case motor start makes one turn and error comes on. I measured DC voltage after the 680uF capacitor and voltage drops immediately after the motor starts. I put this board to the side and I started looking into potential causes.

I installed a replacement driver board that the treadmill came with and run calibration again. I noticed that LS1 error comes up just after the incline motor went up a little bit. Now I am at the stage where I am thinking that issue could be in the pre start check sequence. Not sure how it works but maybe there is an incline value check and the given value from the incline motor potentiometer is incorrect. I inspected the potentiometer and I could not find an issue. I forced the incline motor to go all the way up (Apply 240V AC on Red wire) I measured the value on both ends of the potentiometer and they looked normal. Repeated the same on the lower position.  I traced the potentiometer wire to the driver board connector and then to the display board. On the picture below you can see a section responsible for delivering signal to the microcontroller. 3 tracks on the left goes directly to the microcontroller MB95110M POT output goes to PIN 12. PIN 11 and 10 are outputs which control upwards and downwards movement.

Components on the pictures

Original Driver Board is marked as AE0007-V1.0 (MOSFET removed for test purposes)
Replacement Driver  Board is YJ-2256H  (Additional cables soldered for test purposes)
Display Board YJ-5960 V 1.1 13/07/20 ( A bit strange sounds like the display was replaced this year, maybe the display board is not compatible. Not sure)

As there are no diagrams and no troubleshooting information I am not sure where to go next, what components I should check. Looking to hear your thoughts, maybe somebody will be able to help.

[nabeel21]

The replaced MC34151PG MOSFET driver in the original board suggests previous attempts to address potential driver problems. Both boards exhibit the LS1 error, indicating the fault might lie beyond the individual drivers.

You suspect a lack of signal to the MOSFET driver from the microcontroller, implying communication issues. Tracing the incline potentiometer to the microcontroller's POT output pin (12) is a good investigative step.

One more troubleshooting step: The incline sensor which is responsible for speed & incline of Sole, is maybe working fine. But I want you to trace this sensor wire which is connecting in controller board. Remove the wire from board, take off the little white piece which helps inserting pin easily, and then insert without this headpiece. You can take help from the picture below, related to piece which you need to remove.

Picture 1: Incline sensor head(in skin colour) , separate this from actual pin by pulling out.
Picture 2: Demonstrating how it separates and showing 2 separate pieces.
Picture 3: Re-insert without the head.