EATC button illumination challenge | Ford Explorer Forums

  • Register Today It's free!

EATC button illumination challenge

1998Exp

Explorer Addict
Joined
December 5, 2010
Messages
1,356
Reaction score
214
City, State
Seattle WA
Year, Model & Trim Level
98 Limited V8 AWD
Noticed that a pair of buttons on the EATC panel lost their back illumination. Found out that there are five bulbs in the circuit board behind the panel. Here is what they look like:

http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc481/accordknob/Ford EATC/2012-04-0421-38-11854-1-1.jpg

As you can see, there are two pairs of copper contacts on that base, and each is shaped so that it can connect to both sides of the printed circuit board. I believe that this 'button' lamp served different circuit boards, with power delivered on one or the other side of the board. My EATC provides the power only to the 'upper' contacts, and the side of the printed circuit board from which you install the lamp has no electrical connections at all.

Autolumination sells what's called "T4 Neowedge" that look very similar, so I ordered a few of those. When they arrived I found out that their base does not have those copper contacts at all, and just provides the bent pigtails of the bulb for the 'lower' contact. Searching further I discovered that those dual-contact bases are proprietary to Ford, and of course, now obsolete.

The obvious solution appeared to be to pull the new bulbs out of their base (they are not glued, and just held by the pigtails) and solder them directly to the printed circuit board. Tricky business, because if they don't work, you are disassembling that board again. So instead, I carefully pried out the burned bulbs out of the original bases and replaced them with bulbs that I removed from the new ones. Pushed the pigtails through the tiny holes in the base and soldered them to the back of the copper contact there. It's not for the faint of heart: you need a low power soldering iron with a tiny tip, a good magnifier, and steady hands to do that quickly before the plastic base starts melting... Otherwise, there is no choice but to solder whatever small 12V bulb that you can find directly to the circuit board. Hope this helps someone!
 






Going to give this a try, as I have more than a couple of these burnt out. Thanks for the write-up!
 






Featured Content

Back
Top