Eye repair?

[William the Third]

I seem to recall someone here was doing eye repairs? I've got an Inspire BFG (rebranded Air Challenger TG101) that a customer brought in that needs some eye work. The photosensor side works, but the IR LED appears to be dead. Me and small wires do not get along, as my hands are about as stable as Tweek after a ten cups of coffee. I'm hoping to replace the dead IR LED with a Red LED, since I really do prefer visible light LED in breakbeam eye designs, as it helps in diagnostics. Anybody out there who can help me out with this?

[Trbo323]

While I've never done it before, I might be willing to take it on. I'm pretty good with small wires

Got some photos?

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[William the Third]

I see if I can get one tomorrow, otherwise it will be next week when I have some free time.

[XEMON]

I've done lots of pcba work (got a full set-up at home) so I can do the work if you point in the right direction for the parts ...

I may do similar work on a project of mine so I may have some parts ready in the next few months ...

[DocsMachine]

One thing to keep in mind is that not all detectors will work with a standard "colored light" LED. Typically an IR detector wants to see an IR wavelength, as I recall between 800 and 850 nm.

Doc.

[William the Third]

That was one concern, but I figured it'd be trivial to replace the photosensor at the same time if required. Also that's why I was thinking red, as that should hopefully be close enough to IR to still work.

That said, the stock photosensor is surprisingly sensitive. The LED lights at the field triggered it from ~5 feet away. That light is a cool white (5000~6000K). When testing at home I was using an LED flashlight to trigger it, and that too was a cool white. I also tested with a red LED and was able to trigger it. What I can't rule out however is if these were just due to the light be bright enough to overcome the fact they are outside of the target wavelength

[Seajay]

I've done a few... and once I get my garage in order I might be a bit more helpful. If the eye is suspect you'll need to replace both the sensor and the wire. The Wire is the hard part since you need the same wire, and then not break it

It's not terribly hard once you have the right parts but I've had very little luck "patching" eyes so to speak. In fact most of the problems are the wire itself, and the sensor is often fine.

[punkncat]

The only thing I could find in a quick search is Angel Laser Eyes...but I had a couple of sets made by someone. I keep recalling it as "Docs Eyes", but cannot find any reference to that. They had various options for the size of the eye as well as the wire and connector. I used them both for WDP and Dye parts at one point.

[Cunha]

Good electronics repair places will have soldering equipment that can solder on micro micro tiny stuff that will be beyond the mechanical limits of a typical consumer soldering pen and a strong force of will.

I had an angel circuit board repaired by a REAL tv repair shop and they were able to put a tiny connector on perfectly, and when it turned out I told him to put it on backwards, the second repair was -still- decent and the guy didn't even berate me too much.