Found why MSD TL's go bad

CARBONX2

CARBONX2

Location
South Africa
Had two MSD TL go wonky on me lately. They die while riding and then won't spark again, sometimes will spark hours later but then die again.
Did a search last night, and found a post about baking the computer by D-Roc I think. I decided to put it upside down on the stove solid plate, heat it until the epoxy was 80-celsius, switched heat off and then put rubber grease on the switches and let it melt, moved the switches back and forth a few times to get the air bubbles out. It is now working 100% on my ski. The second one I did the same, but the melted grease ran around a bit more around. It showed air bubbles where the epoxy and aluminuim casing meet even though it looked perfectly sealed.
I think the MSD heats up while working, expelling air through the weak joints/switches(the foam on the backplate doesn't seem to me to be waterproof) and then if it gets cooled off , especially by splashing water a vacuum is caused and air/water gets drawn back in.

On a new unit I would suggest greasing the whole back of the unit before putting the plate on and at all the wire exits. At all joints and connectors, solder, then grease and then shrinkwrap so no moisture is drawn up through the wires.
 

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D-Roc

D-Roc

I forgot!
Location
Dirty River Rider
i got the idea from E-rok. lol. he did it with his enhancers and i figured if it works on those why not the TL brains. glad to see more people taking up cooking.
 
E rok Wilbs

E rok Wilbs

Location
Webster, NY
LOL, that's awesome that it worked for you. I figured what the worse that could happen, it still doesn't work? I would like to say that after many years of loyal service, my msd officialy died this year at Daytona. I'm going to bake it one of these days and see if that will fix it once more.
 
CARBONX2

CARBONX2

Location
South Africa
Tested the 2nd box on the bench today, seems good.
The led works when the sensor wires are joined( it wasn't the last time this box was working) and there is a big spark when hooking up the wires to the battery, so looks good, going to try it on ski tomorrow.
 
GIL

GIL

Power In The Hands Of Few
Location
Cullman AL
Allright guys, I am about to cook a multi channel digital brain in the oven, what temp and how long.

From all that I just read, I am assuming low/125f for 24 hours?
 
keefer

keefer

T1
Location
Tennessee
Prolly 150-175 for a few hours would not hurt it. I like the idea someone had on the DRoc thread about using a vacume chamber to pull the moisture out. Be sure and put some nice icing and sprinkles on it after baking and serve it with ice cream.:clown:
 
CARBONX2

CARBONX2

Location
South Africa
I did mine on the plate of the stove, put it on lowest setting, bring the epoxy temp up to to about 90C/195F, you don't want to get to boiling point as that could blow chips off the board. Try keep the temp for 1hr, switch off and leave it on the plate to cool slowly, when the temp drops to about 50C/120F you can grease it up so that it can drawn in a bit at any gaps
 
GIL

GIL

Power In The Hands Of Few
Location
Cullman AL
I left it in the oven for 2.5 hours and saw virtually no water come out. There was a couple of droplets at the switches, but they were VERY small.
 
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