FORD technical service bulletin : ICC touch screen display

[Jestr75]

Can someone inform if Ford released aTechnical Services Bulletin in regards to the FG mk2 and SZ Territory ICC touch screen display failing after the battery is disconnected with out a back up supply of power. I have searched but these bulletins are kept under wraps and not accessible to the general public.

[FPV414]

Also keen to know about this. Have had many fail and then repaired at exorbitant cost by a monopolistic outfit.

[hellrc5]

I guess is is something simple but it was a lot of effort to figure it out and those guys priced their $2 solution just under the wreckers price... but if anyone has some information what actually fails in those ICC units we could come up with a more competitive repair price

Sent from my Note7 FE - Flames Extinguished edition

[Jestr75]

I would like to know if the dealerships are supposed to guard against this happening when they disconnect the battery to work on the vehicles or do they risk it and hope it still works when the ICC is powered up again?

[FPV414]

Originally Posted by Jestr75

I would like to know if the dealerships are supposed to guard against this happening when they disconnect the battery to work on the vehicles or do they risk it and hope it still works when the ICC is powered up again?

Replaced a battery in a FG2 this weekend. Same car had some work done about 6 months ago and the ICC failed completely and didn't turn back on. I made sure that a power supply was connected so the ICC didn't lose power during the change.

I guess is is something simple but it was a lot of effort to figure it out and those guys priced their $2 solution just under the wreckers price... but if anyone has some information what actually fails in those ICC units we could come up with a more competitive repair price

I'm no electrical engineer / genius but I'm told it's a diode of some kind in the screen assembly. Having said that, a taxi I regularly service has 912000KM on it and is nearing 8 years old and has never had a problem with the screen. It may have something to do with cold start up / shut down or sitting idle for a long time, or maybe even the placement on the dash where it is subjected to or could be subjected to high temps.

[Lunch]

Mine failed while Ford had my car, they covered the $2k+ repair bill. Now I won’t touch the battery, just in case, i’ll Leave that for them

[Jestr75]

At least Ford fixed it for you. Was you car still under warranty?

[Lunch]

No, was out by about 18 months, the thing is, they had my car for about 5 weeks with the head off it prior to the ICC failing, they realised the day I was set to pick it up, I’m guessing the battery was disconnected for majority of that time.
I do recall being told the reason but I can’t remember what it was, what I do remember is the general manager saying it’s a semi common thing and they only expect it to become more regular

Edit: I just went through my recorded info, it happened in November 2017, I was told there’s a chip in the ICC that fries when battery is disconnected for long periods or when the car is jump started.

[Tonz]

so how does one restart a flat battery without jump starting, if this happened to your car could you then charge RNMA or similar with damage

[Jestr75]

Not sure but definitely a good question. Who is responsible? Ford for a "faulty screen" or repairer for jump starting??

[hellrc5]

It did not happened to 2002 to 2011 icc s so i am leaning towards bad design plus jump starting a car is not an out of this world thing

Sent from my Note7 FE - Flames Extinguished edition

[JasonACT]

From reading the "monopolistic outfit's" website, the bad chip is in the LCD screen.

A mate at work who bought his XR6T-LE from the same "batch" that mine came from had his go blank (he couldn't remember what might have caused it - but Ford charged him over a grand to fix it). My battery change 5 years ago went smoothly, but I'm probably due for another one soonish. A real worry.

If anyone has a broken LCD panel, which they have lying around because they "upgraded" to a 3rd party ICC to resolve it, I'd be interested in looking at it if it's near Canberra. It needs to be blank and not stuck on the spash screen. If it's just an underrated power regulator, which works ok with FoMoCo's cr@p batteries that don't charge much over 12v - but with a good new ~14.7v battery blows it, then I'd share a how-to to fix them.

I know the alternator puts out 14.7v but all the caps in the screen are charged by the time the engine is started, so a badly picked regulator might not be stressed as much as connecting up a full battery to a drained ICC unit. Of course it might be some other chip that goes which is hard to source.

[5thFordWA]

Its an interesting discussion to me, does anyone know if it only affects a particular date range, or has a particular cause, or just a random fault? I guess that's why you are looking for a TSB.

Frightens me a little, as I have disconnected the battery on my Jan 2016 SZII for up to 16 weeks while I was away overseas, and several shorter periods, just to save the battery going flat. It has always reconnected perfectly, no problems.

Any more info is appreciated.

Cheers.

[raceteam]

It shouldn't affect SZII - these use a totally different ICC with SYNC2. The bit that fails is the front display module (FDIM - the touchscreen) in the ICC.

[Jestr75]

Originally Posted by raceteam

It shouldn't affect SZII - these use a totally different ICC with SYNC2. The bit that fails is the front display module (FDIM - the touchscreen) in the ICC.

I think you are right as I have not seen or heard of an Sync2 screens going blank. It seems like a common enough problem though that Ford would issue a TSB for the issue. Have seen a few posts and pages mention there is one but no actual proof one does exist.

[raceteam]

I did some reading on these a while back and it was said they were made by Sumitomo.


It would be interesting to know if the entire module dies, or just the actual touch screen itself. If anyone has one with a blank screen, check to see if the FDIM shows up on the MS-CAN bus.

[JasonACT]

Originally Posted by raceteam

I did some reading on these a while back and it was said they were made by Sumitomo.

It would be interesting to know if the entire module dies, or just the actual touch screen itself. If anyone has one with a blank screen, check to see if the FDIM shows up on the MS-CAN bus.

Good point. I had read "they" wanted the TFT LCD part back for exchange, but upon more research, that whole component is the ICC. Looking at the schematics, you can tell if the whole unit is broken by testing the 8 buttons (temp-, temp+, fan-, fan+, air-dist, AC, auto & demist) since they go through the ICC and out the CAN bus. If they don't function, the entire ICC is shot.

I pulled off the cover of my ICC today to take a picture. I'm thinking the +12v wire is a candidate for some big-fat voltage regulator (a few amps?) I can add in to protect it from any spikes (the yellow wire on the end):



I can see in the bench test picture of the "exchange" web-page (with 8 LCDs) they have a plug with 4 pins connected. Those would be the +12v and ground, with CAN-H and CAN-L.

I've made a picture, with the connector and each wire's function:



Here's one of the ACM too (I'm thinking of mucking around and disconnecting and grounding some wires to remove the annoying hiss from the audio unit):



I'm pretty sure the +12v is constant too (not going through a relay, but it does go through a couple of fuses). Which makes sense that simply connecting up a fully charged battery (or a started car for a jump-start) will immediately send through the killer voltage. My thoughts are still with the LCD (or its backlight) drawing more current than can be handled by a voltage regulator, once the caps are fully discharged and power is reapplied.

[raceteam]

That photo is the top of the FDIM. If you pulled the entire ICC out, there's basically 3 parts to it. FDIM at the top, which is the touchscreen, Audio Control Module at the bottom which is radio, CD, amplifier (not sub amp) and then the front panel controls.


I think most of the front panel controls will still operate even with a faulty FDIM as it just passes the CAN signals through.

[JasonACT]

Originally Posted by raceteam

...and then the front panel controls.

I think most of the front panel controls will still operate even with a faulty FDIM as it just passes the CAN signals through.

Do the front panel controls have their own circuit board with IC's and things? I could see down the back there was a ribbon cable from that area going to the ICC (I think) but it was more than 4 wires which is all that's needed for a CAN interface [refer back to the test bench comment], leading me to think the ICC handles those buttons. But I didn't pull the whole thing out (if it ain't broken, leave it alone!).

[Interceptor]

I'm kinda curious as to why people are taking cheap shots at the "monopolistic" company that refurbishes these units.....

[JasonACT]

By all means, please read on...

http://wwww.fordforums.com.au/showth...29#post6317129

It's more of an expensive shot, if you asked me.

[raceteam]

Front panel is a PCB and connected via a multi conductor cable to the FDIM.

[jakka351]

Originally Posted by raceteam

Front panel is a PCB and connected via a multi conductor cable to the FDIM.

And the FDIM is what sends the CAN messages, not the buttons themselves?

[JasonACT]

Thanks raceteam. One day soon I will call it the FDIM (it's just that the schematics seem to call that the ICC and the other parts the ACM).

My other issue with these companies that provide a solution to this problem is this post (Google cache seems to show it better, I think their site is dying):

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=au



Apparently the "We" in "We need to find a solution" isn't the general forum browsing public, but the company. Yet, the request being made there offering to "help" is so he can get information on something someone else has put effort into.

[hellrc5]

Originally Posted by JasonACT

Apparently the "We" in "We need to find a solution" isn't the general forum browsing public, but the company. Yet, the request being made there offering to "help" is so he can get information on something someone else has put effort into.

I think unfortunately you are right about the one way nature of the community support. In return for cheaply engineered solutions the community get ransom like prices

[raceteam]

I suspect it's called the ICC in the wiring diagram as the entire unit (FDIM, ACM, switches) works together, and I think was only available as a single combined unit from Ford. However if you plug in a scan tool the FDIM and ACM show up as individual modules.

[78xcgxl]

Interesting. I have heard of this issue. Happened to my Cousins FG but on my ute I've disconnected the battery many times without any issue. Fingers crossed.

[JasonACT]

So, I might have been busy on eBay looking for cheap things for sale.. I think I'm done though now.

I have an FG (not a MK2 [nor a MK1 according to some, apparently, just an FG]) ICC. $100
I have an FG MK2 ICC. $330
I have an FGX ICC. $600

The FG is just a low level LCD one... I was able to "record" the CAN-BUS from my car and get it to show a lot of stuff on the screen when playing back the raw data into the unit. I'm kind of done with it now though, climate controls showed up nicely, but I didn't get any radio things to display. This was a dirt cheap unit - so no great loss, I may come back to it later.

The FGX was delivered next. It has SAT NAV (and the SD card, SD/USB sockets, loom etc.) but I'm yet to trace the wires to get it to light up on the bench. I don't have the schematics of the plugs for the FGX - I didn't think I'd ever need them when I got hold of the FG schematics. Damn!

The FG MKII ICC came today. It seems to have a newer firmware than mine, so that's good. Played back the CAN-BUS recording from my car and I got shown everything I had done in my car the day I took the recording! Climate and radio, including my tuned ACT stations.. Nice.

The FG & MKII has almost the same buttons circuit boards. It has no IC's! The button's wires go into the unit's screen box and are processed by the CPU in it. The FGX has a completely different circuit board for buttons, and it does have a small CPU on the board - and it would seem, all the wires do not go into the screen's box.

To my surprise, the MKII unit has SAT NAV too! It came from VIC, but the last address searched was 3 streets away from me as well - what are the chances? Seriously, it had my street showing an inch away from centre screen. Anyway...

I have some questions.

Did I read somewhere the MKII screen in the higher models (with SAT NAV) are less likely to break?

Somewhere I think I read the FGX ICC is somehow larger and won't fit in an FG without grinding down something, is this true (ignoring the radio plugs, which I'm considering addressing by keeping my coded radio unit part)? It doesn't seem any different in size?

What does Sync2 on the FGX give me over the high-end FGII units?

I'm yet to decide exactly which direction I'm going to go next with all these bits and pieces, but I don't mind the idea of getting the FGX screen+buttons working with the FGII radio (using a translation CAN-BUS device, which I've already half built).. Might be a way of addressing these broken MKII screens, while at the same time bringing on more features.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by JasonACT

The FGX was delivered next. It has SAT NAV (and the SD card, SD/USB sockets, loom etc.) but I'm yet to trace the wires to get it to light up on the bench. I don't have the schematics of the plugs for the FGX - I didn't think I'd ever need them when I got hold of the FG schematics. Damn!

Did I read somewhere the MKII screen in the higher models (with SAT NAV) are less likely to break? No, they are just as susceptible.

Somewhere I think I read the FGX ICC is somehow larger and won't fit in an FG without grinding down something, is this true (ignoring the radio plugs, which I'm considering addressing by keeping my coded radio unit part)? It doesn't seem any different in size? Not that I am aware of.

Answers in-line above. If you want the pin-outs for the FG-X they are in our tech portal or you can PM me.

Originally Posted by raceteam

It shouldn't affect SZII - these use a totally different ICC with SYNC2. The bit that fails is the front display module (FDIM - the touchscreen) in the ICC.

It does affect FGII and SZII - only the FG-X units (and the corresponding Territory build dates) use the updated unit.

[raceteam]

Originally Posted by russellw

It does affect FGII and SZII - only the FG-X units (and the corresponding Territory build dates) use the updated unit.

SZII is the corresponding build date to FG-X. SZII uses Sync2, not the Sumitomo system.