fisher paykel icon no power

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
zzzin777
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2020 6:06 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by zzzin777 » Fri Aug 21, 2020 6:11 pm

With the help from a user on another board, I was able to fix my unit today by replacing the 47V capacitor nearest the long brown capacitors on the top board with the model number on it and not TLP266J.

If anyone needs help on how to do it yourself, let me know.

Wemic
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2020 4:08 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by Wemic » Mon Sep 07, 2020 4:34 pm

Hi all, just want to thank everyone for contributing to this thread as it really helped me. My F&P Icon Premo has gotten progressively worse over the last year or so with taking a very long time to power up after being plugged in so I just left it plugged in all the time. It would take upwards of an hour to power up before I kept it permanently powered on but after taking it on a trip this past weekend, it did not power up at all even after 8 hours.
After finding this thread, I used a Torx size 20 screwdriver to remove the 7 screws from the bottom of the unit, removed the bottom panel, flipped the unit on in its side, kept the unit plugged in and aimed a hairdryer at the 2 circuit boards at the back of the machine (where the power cable connects to) and blowdried it at medium heat until the display on the unit magically lit up again. I've only had to do it 3 times so far so I'm not really sure how long it's supposed to dry for but the first two times took about 2 mins and my most recent attempt took about 10 minutes.
I've attached a picture of what the blow-drying setup looks like for me.
I will try the 110v to 220v power converter (voltage transformer) as soon as I can order one from Amazon or maybe pick one up at Best Buy if they carry something like this. I imagine the CAA store (Canadian Automobile Association - the equivalent of AAA in the U.S. I think) might carry a travel power adapter like this as well.
If the voltage transformer works then I hopefully won't have to worry about this problem any more but I also had the idea of plugging this unit into a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to prevent it from powering off if I experience a power failure in the middle of the night during use.
Thanks, everyone. I hope this post helps someone out.
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ElectricCircus
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:37 am

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by ElectricCircus » Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:46 am

brownboy wrote:
Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:34 pm
Went to a buddy's place that has a proper lab took apart the icon. Getting the power supply board out was a pain because of the orange wires that go through the plastic. It has a connector but you can't really get it out so we cut the wire to get the board out and then spliced in some short pieces of wire so we could put it back and have more play in the wires. Definitely not made to be user serviceable! The orange wires at the top of the pic are the ones we had to extend.

By using a narrow spread heat gun we heated various components until we found the one that was sensitive and causing the problematic shutdown (i.e. power up when heated). It turned out to the Toshiba TLP161J triac. I pointed to it in the attached image. You can look it up to find the datasheet but we shorted pins 4 and 6 to disable it. Those 2 pins are the top 2 pins (opposite side where the little dimple is on the chip). It is some sort of heat protection circuit (that is now working incorrectly and shutting down the machine when it shouldn't). So bypass this at your own risk. That part is no longer made but there is a replacement that should work that I'm going to try out at https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/ ... P268J.html

My icon is almost exactly 5 years old and failed right as the warranty expired because of a $1 part.

Thanks for telling me the nasal masks are interchangeable. This is my first CPAP and the 2nd one I bought is a travel airmini that uses specialized stuff.

My ICON+ PREMO has been doing this same thing for the last couple months. Wouldn't turn on again last night so I started searching and found this thread. I put a little bit of solder between pins 4 and 6, reassembled, and Presto! Started up right away. Thanks for the great info. I didn't have to lengthen the wires, so thanks for the legwork on finding the correct fix.

Cheers

brownboy
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:28 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by brownboy » Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:06 am

That's great ElectricCircus and thanks for sharing this information! Not having to lengthen the wires makes this fix much easier.

JimmyZ
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 2020 3:49 am

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by JimmyZ » Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:11 am

Hi Guys, I'm glad I found this page as I have the same issue. I have had my Icon for 7 years now and it has been great, travelled a lot, even camped using a invertor from a battery. But lately it has done as stated, not turned on after moving it or even after a power blackout. After reading through the replies I tried the hairdryer but to no avail. I read that some believe that it was a moisture/heat issue. That made sense as I live in tropical Queensland. So I put the unit in the fridge for an hour, I plugged it in and it turned after the second flick of the switch. It hadn't worked in 2 days so I had to try anything. Sounds crazy but it worked, the unit felt warm even though it wasn't on so I figured the overheating was the key.

rabbit5967
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:35 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by rabbit5967 » Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:45 pm

Hey Guys, I am new to the group but wanted to let you know that I did replace the triac and that was NOT the problem. I still had to use a blow dryer to get it to turn on even after replacing the triac. I did not bypass the triac by way of pins 4 to 6 as I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't cause permanent damage at some point. If anyone has bypassed the triac and have been using their Fisher & Paykel Icon for an extended period of time, I would love to know as I may bypass mine if it doesn't damage the unit at some point

rabbit5967
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:35 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by rabbit5967 » Thu Dec 03, 2020 5:53 pm

Hey Guys, I did replace the triac and it did not work. Even after replacing the triac, I still had to use a blow dryer to get the thing to turn on. I have not tried bypassing pins 4 and 6 on the triac yet as I am curious it that has caused any damage to anyone's cpap. If you did bypass the triac, will you please let me know if it worked for the long term.

terroirman
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:07 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by terroirman » Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:43 pm

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the post. I was in the same boat as everyone : hairdryer to get it started after being unplugged. But the problem got even worse : it would shutdown at any random time (even during the night while I was using it). No power outage either could have produced that.

With the information provided by brownboy, I was able to solder a bypass between pins 4 and 6 and now the unit starts right away, even after being unplugged for a while. I won't try to replace the triac, surface mount soldering is beyond my skill...

However, not everything got smooth : I couldn't pull the circuit board (or even cut the orange cables). In order to cut the cables, I had to pry out the inner white plastic structure from the black outer layer. I cracked the lcd screen in the process.

I couple of hints for anyone who wants to try it :
  • Remove all accessories (usb key, pivoting tube connector at the back, inner rubbers inside water chamber, foam padding)
  • Remove the AC power cable
  • For the orange cables, you may be able to disconnect them by applying a bit of pressure to release the connector. The connector pressure point is on the right of the white plastic cover, behind the yellow coil (see picture).
  • If you manage to get the circuit board out, be careful, there is another cable connected to the board, at the bottom of the unit (when unit is upside down like in the picture). I bended its connector, but I easily put it back (had I been unlucky, it could have broke the pins though)
  • If you need to get the white plastic structure out of the black outer shell like I did : I managed to get it out by slowly prying out the white plastic with a screwdriver right aside the speaker (the black round shape) while pulling sideways on both sides of the black platic. This is where I got the LCD cracked. Maybe if I had put pressure up and in the opposite side of the LCD it would have got out without crushing the LCD.
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JJackman
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2021 7:18 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by JJackman » Sun Feb 14, 2021 7:27 pm

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!! This was my problem. Power outage due to ice storm, power came back on several hours later, 2012 F&P Icon+ was dead as a doornail. No display at all. I assumed a power spike had fried it until I saw this thread. Pulled off the bottom, and lo and behold, there was condensation inside -- prob from warm humidifier water and rapidly cooling room. Dried it out with a hair dryer, came back just fine!

Without pulling a card to look at the components, my bet is this isn't a malfunction - the power card probably has a dew sensor on it that shuts off the power if condensation is detected inside the machine.

Snowstorm
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:17 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by Snowstorm » Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:21 pm

zzzin777 wrote:
Fri Aug 21, 2020 6:11 pm
With the help from a user on another board, I was able to fix my unit today by replacing the 47V capacitor nearest the long brown capacitors on the top board with the model number on it and not TLP266J.

If anyone needs help on how to do it yourself, let me know.

Hi zzzin777.
I’d like to know more about this fix. Perhaps you can upload a photo of the board and point out the exact capacitor.
Thanks.

User avatar
zonker
Posts: 11011
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2015 4:36 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by zonker » Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:56 pm

Snowstorm wrote:
Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:21 pm
zzzin777 wrote:
Fri Aug 21, 2020 6:11 pm
With the help from a user on another board, I was able to fix my unit today by replacing the 47V capacitor nearest the long brown capacitors on the top board with the model number on it and not TLP266J.

If anyone needs help on how to do it yourself, let me know.

Hi zzzin777.
I’d like to know more about this fix. Perhaps you can upload a photo of the board and point out the exact capacitor.
Thanks.
you're not likely to get it.

he came on in august 2020 and never came back.
people say i'm self absorbed.
but that's enough about them.
Oscar-Win
https://www.apneaboard.com/OSCAR/OSCAR-1.5.1-Win64.exe
Oscar-Mac
https://www.apneaboard.com/OSCAR/OSCAR-1.5.1.dmg

Snowstorm
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:17 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by Snowstorm » Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:08 pm

zonker wrote:
Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:56 pm
Snowstorm wrote:
Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:21 pm
zzzin777 wrote:
Fri Aug 21, 2020 6:11 pm
With the help from a user on another board, I was able to fix my unit today by replacing the 47V capacitor nearest the long brown capacitors on the top board with the model number on it and not TLP266J.

If anyone needs help on how to do it yourself, let me know.

Hi zzzin777.
I’d like to know more about this fix. Perhaps you can upload a photo of the board and point out the exact capacitor.
Thanks.
you're not likely to get it.

he came on in august 2020 and never came back.

My ICON Auto has a serial number starting with 13…. Which is not part of the F&P recall for this power problem
https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/al ... cpap-units
The first 2 digits of the serial number is the year it was manufactured. The recall list are all starting with 12..

I’ve read so many postings with the exact same problem where their machine is not in the list of serial numbers even though the recall was for a faulty capacitor in the power board.

I did some googling and found the information on replacing the faulty capacitor:
http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread ... ead?page=2

It has a couple of good photos showing which capacitor and it includes the specs for the capacitor “ 47uF 63V electrolytic capacitor”

I had the power problem a few weeks ago. The hairdryer trick worked after about 5 minutes.
Since I rarely unplug my machine, I will rarely have the power on problem. I’ll keep these instructions and photos in case I need them one day.

trimaniac
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:46 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by trimaniac » Wed Jun 22, 2022 1:03 pm

Hello.

I am new to this board and up until very early this morning (1:30 am), my Icon+ Novo has served me well for years. Today, I woke up to it being completely off.

I unplugged it and then plugged it back it but no luck. I suffered through the rest of the night trying not to wake my wife.

This morning, I googled to see if I could find a solution which led me to this forum. Everyone's answers where truly helpful. I am grateful.

I started off with the obvious and easiest: taking the bottom off and using a hair dryer and to my amazement, it worked.

***My question is....why does it work?***

I KEEP the Icon plugged in. I NEVER travel with it and have NEVER filled it with water. So...why would the hair dryer work in my situation?

I have read through all of the posts and I know using a hair dryer has something to do with the water in the container above and moisture.

I also read about changing the capacitor because it can lose it's charge or become defective.

But I didn't come across any post from anyone in my situation (no traveling or no humidifier) so I apologize if this question has already been answered and I just didn't see.

Snowstorm
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:17 pm

Re: fisher paykel icon no power

Post by Snowstorm » Sun Jul 03, 2022 4:31 pm

I don't believe it has anything to do with water.

I believe that the capacitor that is the problem is no longer able to charge up.
I think the heat from the hairdryer is heating up the metal plates or the insulating materials inside the capacitor and perhaps expanding it enough or causing some other sort of reaction in order to make the capacitor work again, temporarily.

The problem seems to occur if you leave your machine unplugged for a few hours.
This happened to me three times as I had to turn off the power to do some electrical wiring. Each time the hairdryer took longer and longer. And finally it took so long that I gave up.

Since in all my googling I only saw people reporting the problem in countries that have 110 volt outlets and the F&P safety recall seems to be only for 110v countries, I suspected that the 220v circuit in the machine (since that machine works on both 110v and 220v) doesn't have the problem. So I ordered a 110v to 220v step up transformer from Amazon (about $30) and my ICON powered on instantly. I've unplugged it numerous times and still have no problems on 220v.

I hope this helps.

I really wish F&P would admit that their recall affected more machines that just the few that they specified.

I actually had the opportunity to have a conference call with the F&P "National Sales Manager -Homecare Canada" and the F&P Quality and Regulatory person. After several back and forth emails, they setup a conference call. After the call I sent them all the evidence that I collected showing that their recall should include many more devices, including mine, they discontinued contact with me immediately. Not a single reply to my emails. I suspect their lawyer advised not to say anymore.