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PLX SM-AFR users, a precautionary tale.

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Old Aug 5, 2022 | 05:51 PM
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Default PLX SM-AFR users, a precautionary tale.

First off I've had these PLX devices for 8-10 years now and I absolutely love them. Especially coming from the innovate LM-1 and LC-1. With that said I ran into what I'd consider a bit of a design "flaw" if you will. Mine stopped reading and after doing some diagnostics I determined the heater circuit wasn't working. Checked output of the 6 pin connector from the SM-AFR and I was only seeing 6Vdc. Reverse engineered the circuit to determine a FET had blown the *** end out of itself. As a test i bypassed the FET and all was well. Of course these things usually don't just self destruct unless you have some short to ground somewhere. When looking at the aluminum housing and the clearance (or lack thereof) between the housing and the 12V solder lugs for the jack they were pretty much touching the housing. Why this would not blow a fuse is beyond me but I'm guessing current draw from the short was enough to do so. I know there are slots to change the height but doing so does not allow the holes to line up to bolt the faceplate back on. This is how it was designed!! Good news is only one MOSFET **** the bed, it's the 12V feed for the heater of course (NDT452AP). Figured I'd let others know fi theirs died you probably had the same issue and it's a 30 cent fix.

I sent PLX an email about and details on which o2 sensor I needed (I am replacing it also due to this design issue) and included these same pics and detail and they completely ignored the issue that caused this and just gave me the PN of the o2. No "Thanks for letting us know about this severe design issue", no we'll look into it, not even a "you must have caused that". A bit disappointed them completely overlooked that half of my email.

In my email asking him to at least acknowledge the issue I had all i got was this.

We have not come across that issue you are mentioning. [/QUOTE]

Not only am I mentioning it, I am showing him pics of it but he doesn't seem too bothered by that. Pretty scary really.[QUOTE]Hi Dave,









Dave
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