Starting this AM, the display on my empeg has a line of dots:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

across the entire display. Its located just above the "timecode" or, when in "clock" display, at the lowest edge of the big clock numbers.

It is one pixel tall, spaced every few pixels.

It seems to appear immediately on boot, and for the most part is always there. (I say that because one boot after restarting the car, it disappeared. But then reappeared a few minutes later)

Any ideas? I think this is probably a display board issue? Fried transistor somewhere? Any help and or advice greatly appreciated.

Jeff

Yes, it sounds like a hardware failure of some kind. Although I haven't heard this particular symptom described before, similar kinds of symptoms were caused by failures in the circuitry embedded within the VFD glass.

There is a chance it might be something you can fix yourself, though. Have a peek at the two troubleshooting guides here and here, and see if the fuses or the display ribbon cable are the culprit. Otherwise, it's probably a Stu or Rob Job.

I'm suspecting that its the display module (VFD) itself. More symptoms:

Dimmer will only go to 50% brightness. The control widget goes higher, but actual display brightness "stops" at 50%.

When fiddling with the dimmer settings, if I dim to 10% the "dots" disappear. Not get too dim, but actually disappear. Sometimes they stay gone at 20% too, sometimes not. Interesting. Not useful, but interesting :-)

I was wondering if PCA or anyone with more hardware experience than I has any thoughts? Is that VFD still available? Any ideas on the cost of the module or ballpark for repair? I'm thinking it might be cheaper or just as cheap to pick up a used empeg at this point. I know two people who have them and no longer have them installed in cars....

Jeff

The likely cause is the driver inside the glass as you pointed out, but it could also be the PIC driver on there or the PEEL. Hard to say without seeing it and measuring it against other displays since I didn't design them.

The VFD is still available. Paul on the board has kindly done several orders for the BBS in the past. The price for them has gone up to $90 or so, so unless you are going to do the work yourself, this can get into thhe $160 range for the repair.

I've got a new full display with glass and all circuitry. Maybe we could do a swap? PM me for details.

Stu

This sounds pretty typical of a VFD failure, unfortunately. It's a new glass.