Heated Car Seat Teardown and Repair

Solarbotics Ltd
January 11, 2017

Here's a little makeover of an inexpensive aftermarket heated car seat heating pad that stopped working.

Designed to activate and warm up when sat upon, the electronics face a fair amount of abuse: since the seat is a soft frame, the wires inside constantly move and flex with the body. They are also subject to harsh temperature changes with frequent (very) cold weather heating and cooling cycles, adding to a situation ripe for a malfunction, which happened to one of our staff when he couldn't warm up his tush one cold Canadian morning...

Dragging it into the lab, we peeled back the covers to discover the usual and not-so-usual suspects.

Broken wires:

The old wires had a PVC jacket that had dried out and cracked.

“heated

“heated

The wires would then flex at these cracks and break:

“wires

We replaced those wires with our GroovyNoodle silicone wire, which is able to resist flexing and temperature fluctuations very well.

“Groovy

“Image

Sketchy Safety?

Here's a picture of the sketchy activation switch we found inside the bottom part of the seat. It's designed to close when under "bum load", and directly pass power to the heating coils. We're not experts at auto-grade accessory manufacturing, but we were surprised that it wasn't a logic "bum-detected" switch that triggered a suitable relay or FET elsewhere. And the lack of a thermal reset fuse surprised us.

“cheap

“cheap

Repaired

All broken wires replaced! Almost all the PVC jacket wire had cracked and disintegrated, so we replaced it with our better-quality GroovyNoodle silicone wire. This wire is extremely flexible, high strand count, and a temperature-ignoring silicon jacket. Perfect for inside this car seat heater.

“broken

All necessary repairs and upgrades were done just in time for the next stretch of (very much) cold Canadian winter.

“A

MORE POSTS

March 14, 2006
Happy Pi Day!

March 14th - 03.14 So it stands to reason that at 3:09pm this afternoon (15:09), you should take a break, have a piece of pie, and remember how to associate the circumference of a circle with its area! Read More...

November 21, 2016
Expo Holiday Market snapshot

Although Calgary Expo Holiday Market that took place over this weekend was not exactly costume-abundant, it was nice to see the finished costume Solarbotics helped to bling up with our SuperFlex LED strings: Analeigh Cosplay's Who of Whoville!

June 5, 2013
Wednesday Cool Links: Stryfe Gun Mod, In...

Hey, we survived MakerFaire, now we got new challenges. Good weather is one of them. But the internet can help. Stay put, there's nothing to see out there. The outdoor reality doesn't blink, pan or murmur, or at least not as often as those links below: Stryfe Motor Replacement! A wicked nerf gun mod - […]

April 20, 2012
Seeeeeed Stuff

HELLO EVERYONE, AND WELCOME TO THIS WEEK'S EDITION OF STUFF THAT'S NEW. But before we get started, how about some light-hearted entertainment, yes? Chances are you've heard of the Toronto International Film Festival. It has something to do with those fancy moving pictures that seem to be all the rage these days.  You might recognize […]

1 16 17 18 19 20 254
Solarbotics Ltd Logo
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!

Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.

cart