Reply To: CDI teardown and repair
I made a start on this today having decided where to make the cuts and the fact that my diagnostics on the pinouts showed the CDI is only part functioning anyway with many high resistances so nothing to lose. The Dremel cut through the plastic case like butter so I had to be careful not to go beyond the 2mm thickness of the case as I didn’t want to damage the board or any traces.
Once I’d cut through on three sides I applied some heat from my hot air station and gently slid a flat head screwdriver under the casing and gently probed and lifted until the lid came off. You can see in the pics the rubberised substance that protects the board components from vibration damage. Applying heat softens the substance and using a plastic tip I was able to slowly remove it to expose the board and conponents on that side. It’s mostly clear of the gunk now but nowhere near enough for reflowing the solder joints. Just as a matter of interest I checked continuity between each of the 16 pins and their solder joints on the board and most of them had high resistance which confirms to me that there is a lot of dry/poor solder joints.
I’ll attach some pics at this point and more as the project continues.
Also attached is the results of the pinout tests I did before deciding to open up the CDI.