Carrera wireless controller disassembly

[fourshipp]

One of our wireless controllers has a stuck lane change button. Can someone give me a quick tutorial on how to take one apart? I removed the bottom screws but I am missing some step somewhere.

Thanks

Bruce

[32lbking]

Hey Bruce, take a small flat blade screwdriver and pry off the right side panel. It is rubber and easy to remove. Remove the 2 screws underneath, pull the 2 halves apart. All of the electronics are in the left half of the controller, and the bottom panel that has the charging contacts is wired to the circuit board in the left half [it is a separate panel from the 2 halves]. Separate the halves slowly so as not to pull the wires loose. It's pretty easy. This is for the Wireless+ 2.4ghz rechargable controllers. The older infrared controllers are similar, but I haven't had one of those apart recently.
Randy

[fourshipp]

Thanks, Randy. That is the gouge I was looking for.

Bruce

[32lbking]

No problem Bruce.

[Perrotoro]

One of my carrera wireless controllers (the blue cap plunger, in my case) - after two years of reliable service, no longer talks to the cars. The many (bluish colored) cars programmed to this controller do not accelerate when the thumb throttle is depressed, nor will the red trigger button talk to the cars to begin the programming process, ie., the car lights will not begin to blink after two consecutive triggers and lifting the car.

The cars programmed to this blue-plunger controller can be programmed to the other three controllers. The red trigger button on the blue controller does still make the characteristic click when triggered.

Any fix tries I should consider before buying a replacement?

[b.yingling]

Are these the 2.4ghz wireless controllers? If so, take out the single screw on the bottom of the controller. Pull the small battery out and unplug it, then plug it back in.

Bind the now reset controller to the wireless dongle.

See if you can code cars.

[Perrotoro]

Thanks - b.yingling. I'll give that a try.

I can't tell you if they are 2.4ghz wireless controllers - I'm at work until later this evening - :( :mad: I suppose it's written on the bottom cover plate or within the battery cavity - right? They came standard with a two year old digital set. Are there other ghz ratings that Carrera produced standardly for Digital 132's?

I did remove the battery from the faulty blue-cap controller and tried it on a different black-cap controller that never worked from the onset two years ago. After this unsuccessful try with the black-cap controller, I did put the battery back in the blue cap controller and tried to program a car to the blue-cap. It didn't work, but I can't remember if I set it back in/on the dongle first. I'll be more diligent with this try tonight.

[b.yingling]

Yours are 2.4ghz. The older ones were infrared and needed line of sight to a receiver tower.

After disconnecting/reconnecting the battery, you have to bind the controller to the wireless dongle before you attempt to code any cars.

The 'dongle' is the little receiver plugged into your Control Unit, not the charging track. To bind a controller, you press the red button on the dongle. First press should show a '1' on the dongle display. Repeated presses will cycle 1 thorough 6. If you press the little button on top of the controller, the number on the dongle will be replaced by a flashing dashed line and the controller will now have the ID matching the number that was displayed. The LED on top of the controller should flash to reflect the proper ID#.

[Perrotoro]

Dang, you nailed it b.yingling. The controller is talking to the cars now. It's been so long since I had to designate the 1,2,3,4 to the dongle, I had forgotten the process.

However, the cars on this controller are either lurching irregularly or stopping all-together. So maybe a short or bad battery was the lead into my problem. I'll try a good charge. Then maybe a good battery from one of the other three functioning controllers. And then maybe play with the wire coupling pins or solder in another coupling.

[Bluevista]

[quote="fourshipp"]One of our wireless controllers has a stuck lane change button. Can someone give me a quick tutorial on how to take one apart? I removed the bottom screws but I am missing some step somewhere.

Is the lane change button stuck or broken?
I've only had mine a year, rarely even use them for racing and have had nothing but problems with those switches breaking, and from what I gather it's a very common flaw.

I have four and one or two two are always in the shop or in transit to or from, two are in warranty repair limbo right now and I was hoping to race at my "You're lucky to have lived this long" birthday party this week... oh well, lol.

[Perrotoro]

Soooo, think I've isolated the issue. The Blue-cap controller that didn't work was on Channel 1. It will work on all the other channels, and none of the other controllers will work on Channel 1. So would the Channel 1 problem likely be a Carrera Control unit problem or may a dongle problem?

[32lbking]

Make sure that you don't have any other controllers programmed to #1 at the same time. I think this causes a problem.
Randy

[Perrotoro]

That cleared up the problem - thanks Randy!

[32lbking]

Cool! Always great when the fix is free :D
Randy