Had to fix OBC SET/RES button

[AussieBob]

The 14 year old plastic tab inside the SET/RES botton of the on-board computer, that gives the button press feel for the button, internally broke resulting in the button not working. I had to dis-assembly the whole OBC electonics and mechanical parts to finally see the problem and the fix that had been done previously on two other buttons.

A small, cut to size, piece of PCB needs to be stuck near where the platic tab was joined to the rest of the plastic to basically act like a pivot point for the tab to swing against when the button is pushed. Pretty interesting mechanical design (if you every pull one apart you'll see for yourself - I didn't have a camera with me), and I guess a suitable design in that the plastic little joins to the tab lasted 14 years, the SET/RES is possibly the most used in the M3.

I'm lucky it broke when I went to turn the Immobiliser ON rather than OFF, I was already in the work carpark.

[AussieBob]

4 years on and more of the most used buttons are breaking, one 2 weeks ago (CONSUM) and another (CODE) yesterday afternoon.

This time around I don't have any PCBs to use so I used the blade part from a plastic disposable knife, cut to size and glued to the broken off moving tab, it works fine and is a permanent fix.

The big arrow below shows the thin plastic joint that breaks between the moving tab and the fixed plastic to the right of it. The smaller arrow shows the fix with the new pivot point added via the white piece from the plastic knife. One by one it appears I'll be fixing the tabs as they break.

Buttonfixw.JPG