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POWER PACK OPINION

Skatpak

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Looking for opinions as to what a repaired Power pack is worth vs a completely rebuilt with all new parts is worth?
 
Check the Gauge Doc prices.
Mark called me last night actually, he has seen my work on my Fb page he is a member of. I'm restoring clusters now, see my posts. I also rebuild power packs and HL motors; he has as you know sold the business to Dean who I have talked to a couple of times. I Know what he wants. I want other opinions. I know who to ask for what thanks. I just wanted More opinions from car owners. I know what it costs me to rebuild a power pack. My cost and going rate are two different things. any opinions would be appreciated. Thanks
 
I guess I missed the point. I thought you were asking the going rates.
Sorry, I know the going rates, but that does not mean people can afford that. I just want to know what owners think a fair price is. I know how much it costs me to completely restore one, and it's not that much. I have a few I have restored and keep getting asked how much? I want to be fair and I dont mind helping someone out. People including yourself have helped me along the way. Paying it forward is never a bad thing.
 
Sorry, I know the going rates, but that does not mean people can afford that. I just want to know what owners think a fair price is. I know how much it costs me to completely restore one, and it's not that much. I have a few I have restored and keep getting asked how much? I want to be fair and I dont mind helping someone out. People including yourself have helped me along the way. Paying it forward is never a bad thing.
Very commendable of you sir
 
Not that much to a stock power pack. Passive parts is maybe $ 10.00. As long as transformer is not defective, power packs can be repaired.
Going cost is whatever some is willing to pay if then don't have the skills to fix it themselves.
 
For what it's worth, I bought one on E-bay earlier in the year for $125.
Installed it and it was noisy turned the intensity up and down maybe twice and it got louder and blew the fuse.
I did get a refund right away but I re-installed my original power pack.
Kind of a waste of time.
But I'm still interested in a new one.
 
Not that much to a stock power pack. Passive parts is maybe $ 10.00. As long as transformer is not defective, power packs can be repaired.
Going cost is whatever some is willing to pay if then don't have the skills to fix it themselves.
Yeah, easy to fix but just need to be "set up" for doing the repair and testing.
 
What's a power pack?
 
The design of the stock power pack is quite good. They are about as rugged and simple as can be. A dead short on the HV output, it just shuts down and ceases to oscillate.
I learned this early on when I bought my 66 Charger. At that time, knew nothing about EL lighting. I had to quickly learn as my car had no working EL when I bought it. As I was
learning how everything worked, having a good electronics background helped. Before I tore into everything, I had bought one of those E bay solid state power pack's with the bad assumption
my power pack was defective. Well that was a waste of $$ as first time I hooked up the solid state E bay unit up to a gauge with shorted needle, it failed and was useless. So, pulled the power
pack from the car and Hooked up the stock power pack on the bench with no load to test, and it worked perfectly, so I was able to continue testing my gauge cluster. Turned out to be two shorted
gauge needles that I eventually figured out how to fix. Best advice is stay with a stock power pack. There are 3 resistors, 1 transistor and 1 capacitor. Probably $ 10 worth of passive parts.
With EL lighting, check the power pack first ! Test it with the white wire NOT connected to anything, chances are it's not the problem. If you hearing is good enough, you can hear it making a
high pitched whine, that's a good sign it's working.
 
What's a power pack?
Simply a power converter behind the glove box area that supplies the needed "power" to the EL system.
1662045304498.png
 
Simply a power converter behind the glove box area that supplies the needed "power" to the EL system.
View attachment 1336212
That is one area of my car that I have not yet explored. I need to get back there and address a couple of things, like the temperature gauge and the flasher, as well as the speedometer cable. Thank you for the info.
 
I read or heard that most of the time it’s a bad capacitor when they fail. I found one of the same rating on the internet….less than ten dollars….soldered it in….and what the hell , damn thing worked
 
I rebuild the power packs as well as the clusters, and or individual gauges ect. If you need help with the diag feel free to reach out to me and I can go over the steps and what to look for and what not to look for to get it figured out.
 
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