Saturday, February 22, 2014

2008 Dodge Grand Caravan | Chrysler Town & Country

As in many Chrysler/Dodge cars, the back-lite illumination source of instrument clusters is an Electroluminescent foil. This is a plastic foil that when connected to a high AC voltage, it will emit light. This alternative high voltage need to be produced by an electronic inverter.


When your cluster gauges don't light up this means that the electronic inverter have failed. This is a common issue among Chrysler/Dodge instruments clusters that use EL foil for their background light.


The neat part is that the inverter is located inside instrument cluster and the dealer will repair this issue by replacing the whole Instrument Cluster. This repair approach have two major disadvantage:
1. The cost of a new Instrument cluster
2. The new Instrument Cluster will sooner or later have the same fate as this is an electronic design design flaw as we explained in details here.
 

 

Our ELD5 inverter being a proven and reliable solution, used by people all around the world, will fix your 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country dashboard illumination ! ELD5 inverter is a cost effective solution with much higher reliability than OEM inverter.

 

Yet, before ordering please READ ALL THE INFORMATION BELLOW !

 

  The 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country, have also some major problems with their electrical harnesses/looms and soldered socket pins inside instrument cluster. Although this webpage address only the gauges illumination issue we will briefly enumerate other problems that may manifest in the following manner:

 

SYMPTOM 1 : "the dash started doing crazy things, speedo jumping around, warning lights flashing, headlights would flash, wipers would start, windshield cleaning fluid spread, horn on, the remote opening garage door wont work" ... and so on.

CAUSE 1: Your TIPM (Total Integrated Power Module) module which is located under the hood have been affected. There are many literature regarding this issue and it goes from a simple contact issue inside its connectors to the TIPM failure. TIPM is much more than just a fuse box. It contains several circuit boards including microprocessors that control many electrical functions on the van.  

Also the power sliding door wire harness in a cavity in the body next to the bottom of the door could be the culprit. That harness has CAN data bus wiring in it that can effect the cluster and has been known to effect starting. The harness is in an articulating plastic channel that moves as the door moves. That puts a lot of stress on the harness leading to broken/frayed wires shorting to themselves or ground. Try opening and closing the sliding doors to induce the problem.

 

SYMPTOM 2 : "On my dashboard I have the following lights on: Breaks, ABS, Traction Control, Safety Belt, Cruise Control" ... or combinations of them. 

CAUSE 2: This is a issue known as "all warning lights on" of the Instrument Cluster caused by electrical ground missing and it has a simple fix. Just remove your dashboard, disassemble it and and re-solder ALL the pins of the cluster connectors.

 

Caravan cluster ground issue

 

Voyager cluster ground issue

The above problems are not related with EL electronic inverter and the ELD5 inverter will not fix the above issues. ELD5 was designed just for fixing the background illumination issue of instrument cluster.



The ELD5 inverter will repair the Instrument Cluster gauges back-lite ! You should use ELD5 if, and only if, the dashboard illumination is the only problem that you experience with your car.  


Electroluminiscent Inverter Driver - ELD5

The ELD 5 inverter is designed to drive any EL panels up to 200 square inches (~1300 cm2), A2 size, and have digital inputs for controlling output intensity. In this way it seamlessly integrate with instrument cluster, ELD5 talking with dashboard's MC9S12 processor trough digital interface makes dimming function to work exactly as original.

 

  Couple of key futures of ELD5:

-  It drives the large EL Panel  of instrument cluster without any problem

-  Designed to be easy installed and fit inside the Instrument Cluster box

- Retaining the same functionality as original one including dimming capability

- Capable of outputting a whopping 175 Vrms  under load, compared with 114Vrms of original, so the maximum brightness can be higher than original.

- State of the art design with no expenses spare


 

 

 Installing ELD5 inverter into 2008 Chrysler Town & Country

For ELD5 Install Instructions into 2008 Dodge Caravan please contact us using the Contact Form above

1. Remove the Instrument Cluster from the car

 

2. Open the Instrument Cluster. Place the ELD5 into one available gopher of the back plastic cover and secure it in place with a plastic glue gun. Make sure that the position you choose for placing the ELD5 will allow the case to close. 

 

 

3. De-solder and remove the indicated blue component form the board.

 

 

4. Using a sharp razor or fine metal tip tool, cut the four PCB traces. The points where traces must be cut are marked in picture bellow with red tiny "x" signs. Click on the picture for high resolution photo.

Cut each of the four traces in the indicated points. "x" marks the spot

 

5. Connect the ELD 5 card to the main board's PCB by soldering each ends of the six wires to the indicated points.

Main board connection points

 The wire colors are irrelevant, always identify J1,J2,J3,J4,J5,J6 by consulting the pin-out bellow

 

6. Paying attention to the six wires reassemble the dashoard instrument cluster and mount it on the car.

 

If you need any other details please contact me



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