Thursday, January 19, 2023

Liquid Foot LF+ 12+ error/issue - It was the CR2450 battery

I bought an LF+12+ in 2012. Despite the insane learning curve (if you disagree then you're smarter than me) I love the functional possibilities and options and try to use them all. You could launch the a SpaceX Rocket with one of these. Support on the other hand, kinda sketchy at times. The company seems to go away at times and comes back and then leaves again. After not using it for half a year I clicked it on and it started acting weird. It looked like this:


 I tried to update the firmware to 6.32, and it would sometimes throw an error in the software (version 6.31): "FAMC Error (673-52-0) Restart LF+ Editor email FAMC with code". I read in the notes about the one time "Special - Update Internal Data" option under hardware and ran that once, retried the firmware. The unit itself seemed to be working, program changes getting through, but the LCD text and button text and colours were not behaving. I logged onto the FAMC forums and tried to search (man there are 100s of bot accounts spamming all kinds of CRAP) but did not find anything describing my issue. I went to create a ticket and saw my last one from 2020 un-answered and didn't bother. 

A google search however turned up mention of a battery in the unit causing weird characters and colours when it fails. It's a CR2450 3v and these are usually available in any drug store in Canada. 

The owner of FAMC actually responded in the thread, mentioned an 8 year battery life (mine lasted 12 years) and that it was glued in to avoid problems with it coming loose. 

Once you take off the housing screws and remove the four 1/4" jacks (be careful with the washers), the metal housing comes apart. You can see the battery under a metal piece the smaller board is affixed to. 

You need to remove the metal board to flip it over to access the smaller board. 


























I worked the old battery out and swapped in a new one and plopped some hot glue on each corner. Turned the unit back on and it came up normally with LCD text and button colours making sense. Thanks to the forums! It's the only way we can keep these fine units going these days. 



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