Fixing my Stratus

[N201MKTurbo]

My faithful Stratus became unreliable. The charging port would only work if you held it just right. I could no longer charge it in flight. I heard that Appareo was not repairing them any more, so I had to do it myself.

The first part was determining the part number for the charging port. This involved looking at all DigiKey's mini USB3 right angle surface mount connectors until I found one that looked right. I then downloaded the drawing for the connector to verify it was the right one.

To open the Stratus remove the 4 T8 screws. Two of them are under the label. After separating the battery from the electronics side, remove two more screws from circuit boards and pop the top board off. There is a connector between the two boards.

To remove the connector I cut it into pieces so I could remove them individually. I first cut the top off the connector with a Dremel cut off wheel. After removing the top you will have access to the connector pins. Cut the plastic holding the connector pins in half with the Dremel. Unsolder the connector pins by putting a blob of solder on all the pins at once with a soldering iron and lifting the pins off the board with tweezers. This will leave the bottom frame of the connector soldered to the board. The frame has a through hole pin at each end along with a surface mount pin. The connector also has 4 surface mount pads under the frame. I didn't know this and damaged the ground plane a bit trying to remove the bottom frame. In the future I would cut the frame in half with the Dremel at the rise in the center of the frame, then put a big blob of solder on each half with your soldering iron, melting the solder holding them down and lift the individual halves off with a tweezer. Use a solder sucker to remove the solder from the through holes.

Once the connector parts are off, clean the board with solvent and inspect the pads. Tin the signal pins by putting a drop of solder on the tip of your iron and dragging it across the pads until they are all tinned. The original solder paste they used does not solder well and you need to put fresh solder on the pads before installing the new connector. The pads must not be lumpy there needs to be a thin even layer of solder so the new pins lay flat.

Clean the circuit board again before placing the new connector. Clamp the new connector in place with an alligator clip or clamp then solder the ends to the circuit board with your iron. Now comes the hard part, soldering the pins. They are extremely difficult to get to. Soldering them with an iron is difficult because of the surface tension of the solder. It will make a drip larger then the space in there. I went in with the iron and essentially soldered all the pins together (two sets of pins) and then went in with solder wick and cleaned them off. This leaves a perfect little meniscus of solder on each pin.

I cleaned the board again with IPA and inspected it with a microscope. the pins were all soldered and there were no bridges. I reassembled it and plugged it in and IT WORKS! Solid as a rock!

 

Edited December 8, 2018 by N201MKTurbo

[amillet]

I would break it beyond repair trying step two.  I’m impressed with your skills.

[Cruiser]

I would break it beyond repair also, but not for your reasons.

What a piece of junk.

[MIm20c]

1 hour ago, Cruiser said:

I would break it beyond repair also, but not for your reasons.

What a piece of junk.

As a stratus 2 owner I agree that the connector used on the unit was a poor choice. However, the unit has performed amazingly well otherwise. I’d contend it has a superior ADAHRS to the $5k 345, integrates flawlessly with FF, and has the input capability for an external adsb antenna. Even without the reception is solid and provides a wealth of information. 

Mine started to have this problem right after I purchased it used. I ended up buying a new right angle usb cord and the problem went away. I’d suggest a similar cord for the OP. 

The unit is a bargain at the current used prices.  I’ve been putting together computers since the time of customizing config.sys and dos but I appreciate products I can buy and use. 

[N201MKTurbo]

The connector didn't appear to have any failure. I believe that the root cause of the failure is in the soldering. I tried to re-solder the pins before I changed the connector and I couldn't get any solder to flow onto the pins. In retrospect I would have tried harder. The space where the pins are is tiny and obstructed by the connector. The connector pins are solid pieces of (copper or brass or magic metal) and are relatively stout for their size. They were all in tact when I removed them. After I cut the top of the connector off the plastic piece holding the pins actually fell off indicating all the solder joints were fractured. 

[Piloto]

 is easier to remove multipin devices by applying hot air with a heat gun to avoid breaking the pads/tracks. This is what I use.

 

Edited December 8, 2018 by Piloto

[N201MKTurbo]

Just now, Piloto said:

 is easier to remove multipin devices by applying hot air

 

If I had access to a complete SMT rework station I would have used it. My experience with just using a heat gun is it overheats the board and may remove more parts then you intend. Ideally I would have put it on a hot plate and heated it up to just below the reflow temperature and then hit the connector with a heat gun. The ones on the rework stations blow a lot hotter and with less flow then the one you show (I love that gun by the way) and let you direct it at a single part.

[Piloto]

14 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

If I had access to a complete SMT rework station I would have used it. My experience with just using a heat gun is it overheats the board and may remove more parts then you intend. Ideally I would have put it on a hot plate and heated it up to just below the reflow temperature and then hit the connector with a heat gun. The ones on the rework stations blow a lot hotter and with less flow then the one you show (I love that gun by the way) and let you direct it at a single part.

You can install accessory nozzles that narrow the hot air stream. Very useful for finding thermal component failures.

José

Edited December 8, 2018 by Piloto

[steingar]

It really sux that they STILL have this failure mode.  You’d think they’d have learned after the Stratu one, for which the power point was made out of cheese, or so,etching with similar consistency,  with luck I can avoid this particular problem by just keeping the cool thing on all the time. It gets power from the transponder.

[Yetti]

How mad would you have been if you opened it up and found a Raspberry PI

[EricJ]

4 hours ago, Yetti said:

How mad would you have been if you opened it up and found a Raspberry PI

Coulda replaced the whole thing for $35!

 

[Yetti]

47 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Coulda replaced the whole thing for $35!

 

Speaking of which I've never had a power plug issue with a Stratux.   I did have the undtermined issue, but just replaced with a new $35 one, which fixed the dongle issue since the 3 has the wifi included on the board.

[LANCECASPER]

This thread is exactly why I would never buy anything from Appareo. Problems can happen with any product but the way they stuck it to their customers by not owning up to it being a poor design says everything about the company. Foreflight works great with the portable Garmin GDL's and they are built much better.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Yetti said:

Speaking of which I've never had a power plug issue with a Stratux.   I did have the undtermined issue, but just replaced with a new $35 one, which fixed the dongle issue since the 3 has the wifi included on the board.

The only trouble with mine has been the occasional boot failure due to corrupted flash, because I shut it down just by pulling power rather than going to the page.   I keep a spare pre-loaded microSD in my flight bag and it just takes a second to swap it out when it fails.   It's also how I keep it upgraded, because when I reflash the corrupted microSD I use the latest load, so the next time it fails the update gets swapped in.

I feel naked flying without it.   ADS-B-in helps a ton.

[BDPetersen]

When my Stratus 2 power plug failed it made a trip back to Appareo via Sportys. There was a fee which Sporty reduced to half ( I’m thinking it came to $75). In a couple weeks I received a new 2a. Much better power port and unit. I was happy. 

[N201MKTurbo]

9 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

This thread is exactly why I would never buy anything from Appareo. Problems can happen with any product but the way they stuck it to their customers by not owning up to it being a poor design says everything about the company. Foreflight works great with the portable Garmin GDL's and they are built much better.

It actually seems to be built quite well. It doesn’t have cheap parts or poor workmanship. The power port is made by Hirose, which has always been known to make quality parts. 

The failure seems to be with the soldering, which I assume was done by their PCB assembler. They probably know this and have improved the process by now. With the relativly small volumes involved, they probably only did a few runs of these. that doesnt give a lot of opertunity for process improvement. 

[LANCECASPER]

On 12/14/2018 at 6:24 AM, N201MKTurbo said:

It actually seems to be built quite well. It doesn’t have cheap parts or poor workmanship. The power port is made by Hirose, which has always been known to make quality parts. 

The failure seems to be with the soldering, which I assume was done by their PCB assembler. They probably know this and have improved the process by now. With the relativly small volumes involved, they probably only did a few runs of these. that doesnt give a lot of opertunity for process improvement. 

It may be built like a tank but the failure rate is atrocious on that power connector. All of my friends who own the Stratus 2 have had it fail. If I owned Appareo I would be embarrassed to see a customer go to the lengths you did to repair a known issue. If they plan on staying in the general aviation device business they need to reach out to owners and offer a very reasonable upgrade path to a Stratus 3 to compensate for all of the defective units rather than acting like there is no issue when people call in.

[Soldering pilot]

This is a 5 minute fix.  A #7 Torx bit to remove the two bottom screws and then the two under the STRATUS label.  Two screws inside to remove the two boards.  Separate the two panels look at the rear of the USB connector.  Thanks to non-lead solder you will most likely find that the connector has separated from the pcb at the solder joint.  A little CHIPQUIK and a trace of leaded solder on the finest tip you have will fix the problem promptly.  

[carusoam]

Welcome aboard Sp!

Great first post.

Best regards,

-a-

[LANCECASPER]

11 hours ago, Soldering pilot said:

This is a 5 minute fix.  A #7 Torx bit to remove the two bottom screws and then the two under the STRATUS label.  Two screws inside to remove the two boards.  Separate the two panels look at the rear of the USB connector.  Thanks to non-lead solder you will most likely find that the connector has separated from the pcb at the solder joint.  A little CHIPQUIK and a trace of leaded solder on the finest tip you have will fix the problem promptly.  

Which proves that Appareo could have fixed these if they wanted to rather that first deny that there's a problem until the affected units are out of warranty.