Great thanks, I thought since I unplugged the sunroof switch and then the other was the lights that they may be together. I think I may go with a different Bluetooth and I didn't want the HFL draining my battery. Although, I haven't tried this baking thing.

 

Well, the wife was cooking lasagna tonight so I said WTH, let's try the baking thing and I'll be danged if it didn't work. Took hooking it up twice tho so give it a few try's.

 

Edit: Worked for 2 days, pooped out again.

 

I ended up replacing my HFL unit and Delray Acura swapped me out since I was given the wrong part. Removing the connector and reinstalling only worked for a few days

 

I actually pulled the board out of the black jacket and stuck it in the oven. 385F for 8 minutes followed by a 25 minute cool down. I then inspected for any damage caused by the baking and found none visible. Threw it all back together and in the car and now it's working again like a brand new. don't wast your $600 at the dealer for a replacement

 

I am an electronic engineer and I live in humid Florida. I took mine out and reinstalled it. But it only worked for a short time. The oven baking does nothing to 'salvage' any electronic part. Yours will soon fail just like everyone here who tried it but good luck.

 

yeah after baking mine it worked for a few months actually but then started to slip out of functionality again.... it comes back once in a while... seems to more often now that it is getting cool out. I may try going through the board again with a heat gun....

 

I've read the baking & heating up fixes. I'm a electronic technician and been repairing equipment for 30yrs. Electronic components don't last forever and break down for different reasons. There is some slight truth of cold solder joints, and baking an circuit board appears to help, but it also may break down the actual electronic components on the board. One main rule for electronic equipment & components it doesn't like constant heat. I found the OEM part for around $200 on amazon about 8 months ago and had no problems. I understand about saving money, but if you get more than a couple of months with the heating fix which some folks has feel lucky.

 

Yea, I dont know how smart it was for Acura to put the Bluetooth in the roof console where it gets hot all the time from the sun baking on the roof!!

 

People are heating in an oven or using a heat gun with an undisclosed temperature. Since solder will only melt above 380F, anything less will do nothing to a cold solder joint. Heating up an entire module to 380F is a risk to plastic connectors and most components, but it's a last resort anyway.

 

Yeah, This wasn't the smartest design IMO, and probably the location of this board may have something to do with its life span. Car manufactures do things like this all the time.
That's why forums are so important to help us consumers with the car manufactures & dealerships.

 

HELLO IM NEW TO THE GROUP I JUST BROUGHT AN 06 TL and the problem im having is that i get nothing when i push the button for my HFL no beep no sound any help

 

With the ignition on, check the HFL status using the MID.
If the MID says the HFL is "Booting up" the HFL is probably dead.

Your choices, in order of increasing cost, are:
1) Disconnect the HFL and live without it,
2) Remove the HFL and send it to Godin Technologies for baking for $45 and reinstall, [Do a search for "Godin" and "HFL" or "Bluetooth" to get the specifics]
3) Buy a new OEM HFL on-line from one of AZ's vendors for $200-$220 and install it yourself (will take 10 minutes or less), [there are a number of threads here on removal and installation] or
4) Have the dealer replace the HFL; the total charge will be between $300 and $650.

Welcome to AZ.

 

Hey guys I have a dead handsfree link and I unplugged it but lost my overhead lights. Is there a way to disable the HFL but still have my lights? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

From reading all the posts, Aside from heating and unplugging/plugging, has everyone that finally got their battery to stop draining because of this issue REPLACED THE BROKEN HFL UNIT with a NEW HFL UNIT???

I unplugged it, removed it, and my HFL still says "booting up" which i assume is still draining my battery.

So do I just fork over the few hundred to get a new unit?

Thanks!

 

Don't waste your time heating up the board. If you are electronically versed, you can inspect the pcb solder joints for cold joints or reflow some that look suspicious. My disconnect / reconnect suggestion only lasted a short time. Just spend the money and buy a new one if you plan on keeping your car. Yes it's expensive but you can rest assured it's fixed.

 

Open open the glove compartment and in between the side and the stereo there should be a sticker with numbers on it. The 6- digit number is your radio code. As for the navigation code idk I had to pay Acura dealership $80 for it..

 

You got highway robbed .. it's available free online https://radio-navicode.acura.com/

 

Thanks for the info...I can't believe it , but at the same time I am getting new front axles (extreme vibration when accelerating), my Bluetooth dies. I also now have the Bluetooth booting message, that just stays, so I am considering option 3 you have listed here, but I have seen someone here fix it for $2.00 , but they seemed to be an electronics expert...

 

I've got my HFL unit out, and am wondering if I should try electronic protector cream or spray, heating the unit, pulling the fuses, or just buy another from oeam acura parts for $200.00 ($50.00 core credit if I send my HFL unit in). I put the lights console back in and both the lights and sunroof work correctly. I guess I could just drive around without the HFL and live without it (option 1 courtesy Will Y.)

 

if you read ANY of this last page, as I did. you'll notice that SEVERAL electronic engineers say that baking the unit does NOTHING, and you shouldnt even try. LIKE DID YOU READ THIS THREAD!!?!?! i just read this page and picked up on several tips THAT YOU MISSED!

just buy a brand new unit if you need the HFL, otherwise you're going to be in the same damn boat as you are in now

 

You gotta be a little easier on us here Moderator, you are a hard nosed Moderator, no compassion for those still learning...

I read on here Sir, that one fella just put dielectric protector connector on when he took it out, and bam, it worked when he put it back in....

 

buy new one! or go without! pretty simple choice.

you can try the grease if you want. but it wont MAGICALLY fix a broken component.
if you read the thread; it's not the solder that goes out..it's most likely the board dies.
Cant add a grease to magically fix a dead board

an electrical technician of 30 years has this to say:
read! it says, Electronic components do not last forever. and BREAK DOWN for various reasons..one reason may be heat.
We do not know the real reason WHY this board goes out. BUT we may have a clue. which is HEAT!

 

Ok man, just lookin for the last chance before spending the $$$$.......to bring the Bluetooth back...

 

save money by not getting a new one

 

Here are my thoughts... I'm an electrical engineer with a lot of experience soldering, assembling, reworking, etc. PCBs. For several of my hobbies, I design and assemble PCBs in a toaster oven that I specifically outfitted for soldering, applying solder paste with stencils that I cut with my CO2 laser cutter.

My 08 TL had the same "booting up" problem, and the previous owner simply disconnected it. After a bit of reading, I saw several posts about the baking method, etc. I pulled my HFL board, inspected it under the microscope, and didn't see any bad solder joints on the joints that I could inspect. Unfortunately, there are 3 BGA chips, which you can't inspect with a microscope, and are typically the ones that have failed solder joints. BGA stands for Ball Grid Array - rather than chip legs, they have a bunch of solder balls underneath. To inspect them, you need to use an x-ray machine, which lets you spot cracks and voids in the solder.

The solder joints on these commonly fail for several reasons... one of them is thermal expansion. Many times it's the chips themselves that get hot and expand (like the common XBOX 360 and PS3 failures), but I believe in this case it's the car that gets hot, and the PCB and chip expand differently, stressing the joints, and causing them to eventually fail. As you'd expect, solder joints on smaller BGAs fail less than those on large BGAs, since there's more expansion and more stress.

To confirm what I expected, I plugged in my HFL, but left it hanging where I could access it. It said "booting up"... so I turned the car off, squeezed the chip large BGA chip, then turned it back on, and it started working. As soon as I stopped squeezing, it seemed to lock up. The two smaller BGA chips seemed to have no effect.

So, I pulled the board, took it inside, and reflowed the solder on the large BGA chip. I squirted a bit of no-clean liquid flux under the chip, which helps the solder to reflow properly, and then used a surface mount preheater, which warms the entire board up, and then a temperature controlled hot air soldering tool to reflow the solder on the BGA chip. Even though I used no-clean flux, I still cleaned what I could off the board (it's really hard to get all the flux out from underneath the chip, and no-clean won't cause problems if it's not 100% cleaned).

I popped the board back in, and it has worked perfectly for the past week. It's certainly possible that it'll fail again in the future, though I have no doubts that it's failed solder joints causing most problems, not failed chips. If I had access to an x-ray machine, I'd inspect the solder joints and see how they look after my rework.

My comments on the oven method - it's not the proper way to fix it, and not likely to work great long-term. Problems:
385F is only 196C. The solder is almost certainly lead-free, which generally has a melting point of around 217C (depending on the exact alloy), so that won't actually melt the solder. Most ovens have really poor temperature control, and may hit the melting point, but not in a controlled manner. For proper reflow, you should actually go quite a bit above the melting point of the solder (peak of around 245C or so), for a short period of time. You should also use flux, since simply melting old solder will create bad solder joints, which will likely fail again shortly.

Simply sticking the entire board into an oven isn't great, without proper care. You definitely need to keep the large and heavy components on the top, otherwise they will fall off, once the solder melts. Small components will hold from the surface tension of the solder. You also need to make sure the solder is no longer molten when you pull the board out, otherwise the parts will fall off. The large plastic connector is also unlikely to survive the heat of a proper reflow. You could desolder the connector, reflow the board, then resolder the connector... if you want to put a little bit extra effort into it.

8 minutes is also too long. A typical reflow is under 5 minutes, including a controlled ramp-up. Unfortunately, you're not likely to get that sort of ramp-up from a standard oven. The chips are fairly resilient to minor temperature stresses, so this isn't a huge deal (will likely shorten the lifespan of the components a bit, but if the board is dead... any extra life is more than it's got now).

Attached is a typical reflow temperature profile for lead-free solder, to give you an idea of what you're trying to mimic with the oven.

Pat

 

what an awesome explanation! thank you, Pat!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks Pat,
Mine HFL is out, and I am either going to live withouth HFL Bluetooth or get a new one for $200.00 from Oem Acura parts. I read all you wrote, but understand very little of it if any. I have a heat gun, but have no idea how to solder anymore than I know how to turn water to wine.

 

Yeah, I guess my point in posting that was to give a more thorough description of the problem and possible solutions... not to say that it's easy to fix, because it really isn't (without the right tools). Unfortunately, the proper fix isn't just to stick it in the oven, though it may work (maybe temporarily) in some cases, and if it's broken anyway, you don't really have a lot to lose (other than the time you spend messing with it).

Even with the right rework tools, you really need to x-ray it to confirm good solder joints, if you want to be sure it'll last. I rework BGAs for my hobbies and prototypes at work, where quality control isn't critical... but for any real product that needs to work, I send boards out to a shop that's has the proper rework AND inspection tools. I've sent several boards to CTC ( BGA Rework and Repair Services ), and they've done a great job and at a reasonable price... but in this case, it's probably not worth the cost of rework, when you can buy a brand new one for $200 or so.

It's also possible that there are several different failures that can cause the same problem... I've read some talk about a connector failure, and another about a capacitor failure. In my case it was the BGA, which I was able to confirm by squeezing the chip.

Pat

 

Awesome analysis Pat!!!

 

lmao JESUS christ.
there are ONLY two options. Buy one from Acuraoemparts.com FOR $250! not $200!!! or go without.

and this last line is EXACTLY what I told you...
there can be MANY MANY DIFFERENT failures for the HFL.

 

Mr. Moderator Sir,
The core (Old HFL that you send in) is $50.00 credit, so you are wrong. I can go without or pay $200.00 and get a new one....

Thanks again Pat for the explanation and write up.

 

okay.

 

thank you for your analysis Pat, that all makes sense! i talked to a few electrical engineers (i'm a mechanical) and i tried to replace all the large capacitors based on a solution that works for some 04-06 HFL boards. I confirmed that just replacing the capacitors does not work for 07-08 HFL boards like it does for the 04-06 boards. so i think this gives a little more credit to your find on the issue (or one of the issues).

 

Yeah, I tested all the electrolytic caps on mine with an ESR meter, and they (somewhat surprisingly) all checked out okay.

Pat