Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE BASE.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

Heimidal said:

Has anyone else with a headlight out been able to confirm that the base is the same problem with their Falcon? It would be great to see at least 2 or 3 Falcons with the headlight out all be able to light again with a 9V battery hookup. I know we should have enough people here with headlights out to be able to rigorously test this.

Click to expand...

Here is all you need to test your Falcon without the base... a male mono phono jack, resistor, wires and a 9 volt battery.



Configured like this:



Come on guys... it will cost a couple of bucks and if enough people see theirs work. it can help dispell THIS myth...

"However, rare oversights on a very small percentage of select items have occurred, this is an unfortunate reality with hand made custom prop replicas. We heavily document any issue to ensure it does not happen again."

Can't publish the entire response because of the MR email confidentiality disclaimer, however I'm getting the impression this isn't going to be addressed or corrected. Meanwhile they are getting a lot of complaints on the defective studio scale Enterprise nacelles which they still have a license for and claiming that's a minority problem as well for those whose warranties have expired.

Considering a lot of Falcon buyers may not have known about boards like ours to report these defects, it really burns me up that MR thinks this is not a widespread problem, as if a "small percentage" on an item that costs $2,500 for a signature edition is acceptable...

JV

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

vaderdarth said:

JV, I sure do appreciate you sending that letter on our behalf. If they do offer replacement bases, I'd be all over it. It's just a shame that the electronics from bow to stern are faulty. Even a half way decent company would bend over backwards to fix this issue.

Dave

Click to expand...

You'd think, huh? Especially since I think I've confirmed that the defect is not in the Falcon, but the base, the manufacturing costs of which are microscopic compared to the Falcon... I know, I've had stuff made in China on some of my short run stuff and these bases would not be expensive to replace by them since their factory probably has the tooling to roll some more out.

Here's the crappy switch that I COULD replace with one that works right and stays in position to keep the power consistant...





However here's the final hurdle, of which I have no solution... any slack from the wires in the pylon so that I can solder the phono jack back onto. No wire slack... no way to pull them out to reconnect the power jack even with a durable, functional switch.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

All lights in my Falcon are working and I hope it stays that way.

But if a mandible light does fail I can't see how it could be from faulty wiring or a bad connection in the base.

Before you started dismantling the switch and phono jack in the base you removed the mandible light, then resoldered it to test it with a 9V battery. I suspect resoldering the LED (or the heatgun you used to melt the hot glue) is what "fixed" the LED.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

If there are any experts out there in the PA/NJ area, that are intrested in troubleshooting mine..

I had one front light go out on mine. then later, both went out..
Personally, I dont think its the base.. I have a feeling it the LEDs and or the wiring near the LEDs, but thats just me.

I would be wiling to pay for the services of a modeling & wireing expert.:thumbsup

Ashame you dont live near me JV. I would bring my falcon over to your house in a hearbeat.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

b26354 said:

All lights in my Falcon are working and I hope it stays that way.

But if a mandible light does fail I can't see how it could be from faulty wiring or a bad connection in the base.

Before you started dismantling the switch and phono jack in the base you removed the mandible light, then resoldered it to test it with a 9V battery. I suspect resoldering the LED (or the heatgun you used to melt the hot glue) is what "fixed" the LED.

Click to expand...

No, it's not, because the LED was connected and secure before I removed and tested it seperately, and after resoldering it and putting it back on the phono jack before I started taking apart the base, it did not light.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

Boshek said:

If there are any experts out there in the PA/NJ area, that are intrested in troubleshooting mine..

I had one front light go out on mine. then later, both went out..
Personally, I dont think its the base.. I have a feeling it the LEDs and or the wiring near the LEDs, but thats just me.

I would be wiling to pay for the services of a modeling & wiring expert.:thumbsup

Ashame you dont live near me JV. I would bring my falcon over to your house in a hearbeat.

Click to expand...

Why don't you just go get the supplies I posted upthread from a Radio Shack and attach a 9 volt to check yours? It's not that hard and you don't need to be an expert to do it. I wasn't. As long as I had a resistor to protect the Falcon lghts and I saw on the AC converter the output was 9 volts it was easy to see that a 9 volt battery would provide enough juice to test without the base if I had the phono plug to attach the 9 volt to.

Does the switch on your base "click" into position solidly or was it loose whenever you tried to power up your base?

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

jvasilatos said:

Why don't you just go get the supplies I posted upthread from a Radio Shack and attach a 9 volt to check yours? It's not that hard and you don't need to be an expert to do it. I wasn't. As long as I had a resistor to protect the Falcon lghts and I saw on the AC converter the output was 9 volts it was easy to see that a 9 volt battery would provide enough juice to test without the base if I had the phono plug to attach the 9 volt to.

Does the switch on your base "click" into position solidly or was it loose whenever you tried to power up your base?

Click to expand...

My switch is and was very solid.. Nothing wrong there..
I will try and find some time this weekend to start troubleshooting this baby like you suggest.. Are all the parts listed that I need? Do I need a voltemeter?.. (I actually think I have one somewhere.) What gauge wire?

Im all for teaming up on this..Im willing to try just about anything, including opening the front of the mandibles up. It bothers the hell out of me.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

Boshek said:

My switch is and was very solid.. Nothing wrong there..
I will try and find some time this weekend to start troubleshooting this baby like you suggest.. Are all the parts listed that I need? Do I need a voltemeter?.. (I actually think I have one somewhere.) What gauge wire?

Im all for teaming up on this..Im willing to try just about anything, including opening the front of the mandibles up. It bothers the hell out of me.

Click to expand...

You don't need to open up the mandible. The LED was soldered in tight when I opened mine, it was a solid connection. I wish I had known to try the phono plug powered by battery trick before I removed the LED to see it light up, there's no reason a well soldered LED would be tempermental like that but I only tested it as an afterthought with the battery AFTER removing it to see it worked and when I saw it did, and resoldered it into the front again, THEN tried the battery trick, the entire Falcon lit up properly on all fronts. Even when I shifted the wires to the phono plug jack around to see if it would cause a disruption, it didn't... there was no flickering. So backtrack from that and you realize the issue has to be somewhere in the base, if not the switch that was causing the wonky flickering, then the wire running up the frosted pole into the phono power plug. Also... I figured out how to reassemble the switch and have a nice, tight on/off click... it was as simple as bending the brass "V" clip so it had more outward resistance to provide a solid lock in either the on or off position. I tested the switch with the 9 volt and an extra LED, and when i fixed the switch, it lit the test LED I had perfectly, with no evidence of a bad connection.

So eliminate the issue in the Falcon testing it with a battery, and the switch which I had to fiddle with before re-assembly so it was not loose, and all that's left is the wire in the base connecting the switch to the phono plug. But without the ability to get the mirror panel off without cracking it, or having any slack from the wires in the frosted pole, I'm at a dead stop, and I do not want to start cutting up the underside of the base without knowing where things are inside, even though the underside would be hidden, it irks me to have to mar it in that way. Trying to graft extra electrical wire to what's in the pole is a very slim possibility, because I don't think there's any room to get the tip of the soldering iron in there. I'm back to the only possibility to effect repairs to the base is getting a replacement mirror panel I can put on it if I knew I had a replacement before tearing this one off.

I did not use a voltometer. I don't know the resistor type, I had a pack of them from way back when I was lighting the LEDs on my studio scale TIEs and I think it was just a generic pack from Radio Shack, I don't think that the resistors came in different types but if you look at the pattern on them in the above pic and print it out you should find a match at Radio Shack.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

They used the same switch on the TOS E. And mine is funky you have to mess with it sometimes to get it to work.

If you have followed the TOS E threads, dealing with the base is an easy issue. The E's have some very serious defects. It shows flawed customer service on the part of MR. And something even worse they were using their customers deal with quality control. As it looks they did the same thing with the MF(I don't have one, I'm glad I don't the E is enough frustration).

I'm not going to buy anything from them again, nor am I going to waste the money buying another high dollar product from China(I don't care who makes it).

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

John said he can do me up a mirror panel replacement.

Although I have heard some people's Falcon bases differ in size, here are the measurements for my mirror panel, if others want to use it to compare against theirs or change the measurements to match theirs if they want to consider breaking open their bases to get to the wiring after confirming if their Falcon LEDs work with the battery test, just change the numbers in Photoshop.



When I get the mirror panel replacement and move ahead I will post more pictures and a progress report.

JV

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

JV,

Before you break the mirror, have you tried inserting a pair of twisted wire of the same gauge from the mounting pole opening where the plug used to be and push it with twisting motion down the tube and see if it will reach the area where the switch used to be? You can use a stranded pair of wire first but if it doesn't push through all the way, try a solid pair to give it more resistance when it bumps through the trench. Oh and before you do this, pull out the old existing wire to give clearance to the new longer pair that you will insert. Hope this helps.

Dennis

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

uncannyx said:

JV,

Before you break the mirror, have you tried inserting a pair of twisted wire of the same gauge from the mounting pole opening where the plug used to be and push it with twisting motion down the tube and see if it will reach the area where the switch used to be? You can use a stranded pair of wire first but if it doesn't push through all the way, try a solid pair to give it more resistance when it bumps through the trench. Oh and before you do this, pull out the old existing wire to give clearance to the new longer pair that you will insert. Hope this helps.

Dennis

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, but the wire in the mounting pole is different than the wire going to the switch, and requires getting under the mirror and the hatch where all the wiring is to examine and fix.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

I see, well goodluck, we'll be watching your progress. :thumbsup

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

Have you tried drilling a hole from the bottom of the stand at the same location as the post? At that point you could run totally new wires underneath the stand, and not touch the mirror at all...

Just a thoguht.


As for checking out the issue on my falcon... What value is the resistor in your circuit? I know there is some color coding stripes etc to identofy it but I have long forgoten what those stripes mean


Jedi Dade

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

If you can get new glass I'm with ya on not wanting to drill into the base. If the switch were the only issue for you, then I'd consider drilling in there and just installing an access plate. However, with the jack problem you have and the fact that the wiring is glued down all the way through, the only way is to break the mirror, which is actually a very thin plastic. It's a real pain to remove, it just crumbles.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

Has anyone confirmed that the base is actual mirror or is it mirrored acrylic?

-Gary

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

it's mirrored acrylic.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

But if you locate the post on the bottom of the base then drill up to where the wires enter the bottom of the post it should be pretty simple to solder up a connection to give you plenty of slack. you'd never have to touch the mirror glass/plastic part at all... Or am I missing some subtlety?

Jedi Dade

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

Jedi Dade said:

But if you locate the post on the bottom of the base then drill up to where the wires enter the bottom of the post it should be pretty simple to solder up a connection to give you plenty of slack. you'd never have to touch the mirror glass/plastic part at all... Or am I missing some subtlety?

Jedi Dade

Click to expand...

You'd be really scarring the base to get in there and there are four bolts underneath that I unscrewed which release nothing so there's stuff underneath the mirror that need getting to.

Seriously... if there was a way in without ruining the stand I'd do it but the only replaceable piece is the mirror panel.

Re: Cracking Open the MR Falcon to fix front LED. SEE POST #16 AND #17... IT'S THE B

Those 4 screws hold a circular plastic piece that the mounting post is epoxied into. It would probably effect the integrity of the post by drilling under it, since it is epoxied there. I do think in your case, going in through the mirror top is the best bet, especially since you have a good source for a replacement. The acrylic mirror that's on it now scratches easily, mine is all spider-webbed up just from dusting, so maybe your replacement will be even better after you're finished.