Author Topic: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)  (Read 18089 times)

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Offline LateLesley

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #50 on: May 28, 2018, 04:03:54 pm »
 :( Sorry it turned out bad. To be fair, there was always the chance the micro-controller was already toasted, and that was why it wouldn't lift the powerline. And I hate the modern way that it's now technically junk, all because you can't get a new chip with the programming in it.

Anyway, it was a fun investigation at least.
 

Offline trez0rTopic starter

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #51 on: May 28, 2018, 07:19:09 pm »
I wholeheartedly agree.

Before I started hacking this piece I wrote several emails to TM support. The best they could do is paid RMA. That means sending the whole wheel set to France, paying for shipping there and back, paying for the work hours and parts. All in all an unattractive package which certainly does not make sense financially for a used wheel of this caliber.
They absolutely declined selling/sending only the motherboard, which is a shame because there are precedents in other forums where they have agreed on such move after a bugging them enough. And I really tried within staying polite..

Anyway, thank you again Les!
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #52 on: May 29, 2018, 12:17:43 am »
We injected voltage on "purple line" which is the U4 input and observed the voltage on the output after the coil which is the 3.3v line.
Around 10V the output came alive with around 1V on it.

as I said earlier: "if you are super double sure there is no voltage on purple and no short to ground then inject 5V there, either way set current limit to 100-200mA and go from there"
what made you inject >5 V??? "go from there" doesnt mean keep injecting more voltage :o, it means continue diagnosing. There is no situation possible where 3.3 DC-DC converter doesnt work at 5V, but starts working at 10V (other than it being faulty)

Around 20V the output

and you kept on going  |O

At around 24V the output was just under 2V and then something happened and the voltage was brought down while the amperes spiked to around 0.5A.
And that was it. Now the 3.3V line is short to the ground.

just as I wrote: "injecting 5V might go bad without precautions, for example U4 can be bad, pass 5V to microcontroller and fry it"

tldr either:
-you blew U4 and it passed 24V to the MCU
-or there was always short to ground on 3.3V rail

As a last resort we cut off the output trace of U4-to-coil and tried injecting some amperes to 3.3V line directly. All we got in return was CPU getting hotter the higher we went. Not sure why but it appears to be fried now.

That was supposed to be the _first_ thing to try :( At least it was a learning experience for you.
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Offline trez0rTopic starter

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #53 on: May 29, 2018, 08:11:39 am »
Ok, yesterdays post may have been worded too lazy, sorry for that.
We weren't as reckless as it may have sounded from it.

There surely was not a short circuit on purple or 3V lines as it have been measured over and over again.
We started at 0V and near 0A. We incremented volts in small steps, and were especially careful around 3/5/25V bounds. Multimeter was attached to 3V line and constantly measuring the voltage as we were injecting on purple. 3V or 5V on purple didn't yield much on the output; We figured the U4 is most likely is a ~25/3V converter of sorts.
10V was were it crossed the 1V on output. At no point did the voltage on 3V line exceed 2V. We didn't touch amps at all, they were extremely low / not much more than maybe 10mA. At around 24V the voltage suddenly dropped to 0.5V and the amps went to 500mA.

I guess if we really did blow the U4 we wouldn't have noticed the voltage spike on output anyway. I will measure if input of U4 is shorted to output now.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2018, 08:19:45 am by trez0r »
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #54 on: May 30, 2018, 01:19:29 pm »
you wouldnt see the spike on multimeter due to slow update rate :(
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Offline trez0rTopic starter

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #55 on: May 31, 2018, 08:11:32 am »
I measured U4 and in/out on it is indeed now shorted. Rasz's guess of what went down was spot on it seems. :)
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #56 on: June 01, 2018, 06:22:37 am »
well shit, now I feel its my fault for even mentioning to you possibility of injecting anything before U4 :(
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Offline LateLesley

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #57 on: June 01, 2018, 09:24:17 am »
I wouldn't feel bad, It was a valid diagnostic move, there should have been voltage on that purple line.

1) It was faulty to begin with.
2) There's a good chance the Microcontroller was already toasted, and thats why it wouldn't lift the line.
3) It was at a point where it needed voltage injected to see what was going on.

I'd be interested to know the status of the diodes underneath the board. I wanted them removed, cos I had a suspicion they were pulling things down. My last suggestion was to remove them to see how the circuit was configured.

But what is done is done. We can't win them all, but we can learn things from it. The board might be toast, but we have gained knowledge. It's taken me a long time to get used to the idea that you can't fix everything. I think its in our DNA as repairers to try and rescue everything, but it just can't be done. So don't feel bad. Go rescue the next challenge.  :-+
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #58 on: June 02, 2018, 07:19:11 pm »
Keep an eye on ebay, maybe you can find a working unit in poor cosmetic condition from which you can salvage the PCB.
 

Offline trez0rTopic starter

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #59 on: June 05, 2018, 06:32:03 pm »
Rasz, don't be silly, you were 100% spot on with your advice many posts earlier.

I can only blame myself (not that I do so much, as Les well put) for assuming that the u4 was a 10x step-down converter. To be fair it looked/measured much like it until it let out the magic smoke. :)

Some background. Turns out I'm a bit of a car-sim fan and wanted to upgrade from my old logitech driving force gt I've owned for some time. Meanwhile I thought I could save some money and also satisfy my cravings to tinker which I get from time to time. So I did some thrift shopping few months ago on ebay and in fact this wheel is just one out of three which I didn't manage to salvage. The other two were a step higher models - TM T300 with faulty pedals (a dirty pot which was just fine after cleaning) and TM TX with a much more sophisticated problem - the electric brushless motor magnetic core had come loose from the shaft and was messing up the calibration after a short while of usage. This sure was a bit harder to crack.

Anyway thanks everyone for input and opinion. I'll be back soon enough with the next problem to troubleshoot. ;)
 

Offline Czary

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #60 on: February 16, 2019, 06:12:07 am »
Hi, greetings from Poland.
Couple of days ago I've bought TM T150 wheel. Problem with mine is that it doesn't see any input (no wheel turn, no pedal input). The good point is, that it reports itself in Windows and I was able to do a succesful firmware upgrade.

I suspect faulty PSU- there is 4 pin DC output connector but I only got 25VDC on 2 pins while other 2 doesn't report any voltage. Is that correct ?

Best regards, Czarek.
 

Offline LateLesley

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #61 on: February 17, 2019, 02:57:38 am »
Hi Czarek,

This was from a while ago, but if you look at the picture in the first post in this thread, you will see that trez0r helpfully marked voltages on the 4 pin connector. I believe you should have 25V and also 5V, the 5V possibly being derived from the USB connection, so you may have to test with it plugged into USB. I'd also check for a short on that 5V line, obviously with it unplugged and powered off. :)

Best of luck

Kind regards, Lesley
 

Offline Czary

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #62 on: February 17, 2019, 11:34:18 am »
Hi Lesley,
thank you very much for quick reply.
As trez0r posted earlier there is triac/opto switchboard inside the PSU. To switch the triac on we need 5VDC, but my PCB only generates 2.7-1.73VDC  :o

So far I've checked all FB's, voltages and ohms mentioned in the previous posts :

FB26: 2.7V
Q13: 2.7V(M), 5.05V(L), 2.7V(R)
D4: 5.05V(R)

C13,16,17,18: 24.6k
C21,22: 1k

Is that correct for Q13 ?
trez0r measurements was different for this component.

Also I've noticed that USB voltage always shows 5.05VDC while other points (FB26 or Q13(M)) showed 2.7VDC just to drop to 1.73VDC, after about one hour of PCB being powered by USB  :-//
 

Offline LateLesley

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #63 on: February 18, 2019, 03:15:29 am »
Hi Czarek,

To be honest I'm not sure, I dunno if it's maybe an in-line FET for a power rail, or something different. One check might be, does it get hot? If it does, it''s not necessarily dead, but something could be pulling the line down. I'd just try checking all the caps for shorts to start with, it is surprisingly common for them to fail. It took me ages to realise caps fail quite often.
 

Offline infortec

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #64 on: August 23, 2020, 09:48:22 am »

HELLO.
SOMEONE CAN GIVE ME THE REFERENCE OR THE VALUES OF THE XFO1 COMPONENT
 

Offline LateLesley

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #65 on: August 23, 2020, 03:16:41 pm »
I can't, as I've never had a hands on look at this board, but considering it looks like it connects to the USB connector, I'm gonna guess it's possibly a common mode choke for the USB, part of the ESD protection. So I don't know if i'm sending you down a wrong path, but it might be worth having a look at components in this search -

https://www.google.com/search?q=smd+inductor+common+mode+usb+0805&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjEz5PyzbHrAhXKesAKHXg_Bx8Q_AUoAXoECDUQAw&biw=1345&bih=612

Good luck in identifying the part.
 

Offline nonkapo

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #66 on: January 30, 2021, 04:12:14 pm »
  Good evening all,
 Another dead Thrustmaster T150, however with slightly different symptoms. Let me share my experience so far. Tinkering with the device i try a lot of advises with no luck. The wheel gets recognized and i was even able to do firmware update. However, the self centering and buttons do not work at all. Only the led make you think there is some life in it:-). So i was relaxed at least the power supply, processor and interface are ok and finally decide to open it. Thanks to the nice high resolution photo of the pcb on this site i was able to identify one fried chip.Expecting it to be sort of pwm controller/driver but it was so badly burnt you can not get much from the letters identification. So thanks to your photo i get its A4950 pwm driver. However i'm still curious what might be the reason for the chip to fail as fixing it is easy job but burning it again is not my cup of tea;-). Note it has bunch of protections inbuilt so should be not easy victim. Suspecting issue with the motor off cause. Some other ideas will be really appreciated.
  Thanks in advance.
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #67 on: January 31, 2021, 01:12:01 am »
Isnt that the chip driving the motor? Your ff motor might be fried, shorted, tired, etc, or maybe back emf suppression diode died? hmmm looking at the datasheet none of that should be possible, it has
▫   Motor short protection
▫   Motor lead short to ground protection
▫   Motor lead short to battery protection

and build in back emf diodes. Since its whole 60 cents I would just check supply voltage, replace it and see what happens.
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Offline nonkapo

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #68 on: January 31, 2021, 10:52:23 am »
Thanks,yeah that's the plan. However until the part arrive from Farnell i must wait a bit. Cant get it on the local market.
 The chip is visually fried kind of blown. I remove it yesterday. Thinking to try starting the motor with 20A ESC from a RC model and see how it behave. Also curious which way it might affect the buttons so they wont work. Some kind of power supply issue? Any schematics available or only back tracing can be done?
 

Offline nonkapo

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #69 on: February 06, 2021, 11:41:15 am »
  Just curious if the motor brush less or not? There are three cables coming out but I'm still not confident.

Edit: Without chip installed there are 25 volts on the VBB pins. It should be able to withstand 40V so considering it normal. Should i solder the chip what do you think?
 Test points around the processor are measuring 3.3volts.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2021, 11:58:06 am by nonkapo »
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #70 on: February 06, 2021, 04:04:37 pm »
A4950 is meant to control brushed motors, so 2 poles and shield
is the big low value resistor ok? is motor ok? i would just go for it. I assume you bought 2 chips just in case
« Last Edit: February 06, 2021, 04:06:38 pm by Rasz »
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Offline nonkapo

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #71 on: February 06, 2021, 07:23:33 pm »
    Thanks for the answer. Yes i order two but only one arrive;-). Meantime before i read your answer i look at the motor and the brushes are visible. I did not have suitable power supply to check the motor but the low value power resistors have some kind of bulge on them. Both measure 7 Ohm. Its late now so i will look for psu in my shack tomorrow and update the results here.
  Edit: Motor is tested on 12 volts. Spins both directions and no obvious damage. Soldering the chip and making cross sign:-)))
« Last Edit: February 07, 2021, 11:54:52 am by nonkapo »
 

Offline nonkapo

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #72 on: February 07, 2021, 01:51:17 pm »
   After the hard but successful re-soldering the wheel is back in working order. Will post the photo with voltages on all testing points for future reference. Thanks to all involved again.
 

Offline nonkapo

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #73 on: February 13, 2021, 07:28:36 pm »
  Before i manage with the photos, another question comes. I get a bit disappointed to figure out Thrustmaster T80 pedals do not work with T150. Trying to figure the pin out so far failed. I take the t80 pedals apart and noticed the cable have only 4 wires connected, wherever t150 as per what i see in you tube they are 6. So despite both types use rj12 offset connector and are plug compatible, the wiring is different and there might be even potentiometers value difference. Lets see what my future research will show.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2021, 07:30:52 pm by nonkapo »
 

Offline nonkapo

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Re: Thrustmaster T150 racing wheel pcb faulty (no voltage to cpu)
« Reply #74 on: March 06, 2021, 11:35:58 am »
   Here the overview of the problem with photos.
After connecting, the unit is recognized by the computer, but no buttons are working neither self calibration is happening. The power light is on after USB connection as it should be. Firmware update is attempted and completed successfully but no change in the status.
 Follow up disassembling and visual inspection of the PCB which reveal cracked/melted PWM IC A4950. De soldering and soldering of the replacement completed and the wheel is back to life. Some photos of the PCB showing the multi meter measured voltages.
  Note at those points(accept power connector) measurement must be done with oscilloscope to make sense, so I've done multi meter one just for reference.
 Note also the power connector voltages are available only after USB is connected to the PC(both 5V and 25V!!!).

Measurements are done at TP2, TP1, SCLOCK(clock signal?!?), SDATA(data signal?!?!), power connector.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2021, 03:59:53 pm by nonkapo »
 


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