94 XP, and the VTS Problem, electronic porn...

[Apeman]

The VTS was toast on the 94 XP I recently purchased, and I scoured the web looking for diagnostics, tip and anything I could find. Motor was good, switches good, cable good, everything checked out, except the controller just would not work. One quick pulse, and nothing.

Did a bunch of reading about the various potting material, and found that a heat gun was supposed to do a decent job on the rubber stuff. I used to fix Pinball Machines, and though I'd like to at least take a look inside to see how complicated the controller was. The Heat gun, an exacto knife at first, followed by a dental pic, and about 5 hours got the gunk gone enougt to do some diags. Everything tested fine. You'll see in the pics, a cracked 1N4148 Germanium diode. I thought I did that when removing the potting material, but it turned out to be the original problem. A single 5 cent switching diode. And I already ordered a replacement controller. Well, now I have a backup. Hope y'all like the pics.
-andy-

 

[Apeman]

I should also mention that a DC Motor controller of this type, should cost around $35.00 new. The more expensive items on the circuit board are the relays, and the board itself. The rest of the components, probably add up to around $10 when purchased in quantity. For the most part, they used good, high quality components.
-andy-

 

[kwiktsi]

I'm just here for the porn.

 

[Seadoodoc]

About 20 years ago a guy had done similar diagnostics. His conclussion was there was some sort of glass encased item that broke. General consensus has been breaking VTS occurs when , during operation boat hits hard wave and breaks component. I have actually wired up two relays to make trim work thus bypassing module. Problem was no ability to stop mtr at either end of throw. Occasionally the worm gear would jam up. Linear actuators utilize a small limiter at end of throw to stop actuation at end of throw.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Nice job on getting it fixed...