WORLD WIDE WEB -- G-Wiz Partners has issued a recall on specific electronics units. See the text below from G-Wz regarding how to identify which products are being recalled.

Scope and How to Identify:
All LC and older (>4 months) LC Deluxe 400/800 (physically larger Barometric Pressure sensor) models are unaffected by this recall.

Because of a 'short cut' taken by the Contract Manufacturing Service (CMS) provider (a PCB assembly service), some LC Deluxe 400/800 CPU chips have been thermally damaged. As G-Wiz is unable to identify a damaged versus undamaged CPU chip, were asking our customers to ship us their LC Deluxe 400/800 flight computers as identified below.

The lot of LC Deluxe 400/800 units affected by this recall may be identified as follows:

1. Behind the green terminal block adjacent to the Pyro Channel LED's, red glue 'oozed' through some of the PC Board's via holes.
2. The Barometric Pressure sensor to the right of the green terminal block (the device with a vent hole in the middle of a silver circle, a black epoxy case with gold pins) measures 0.420" +/-0.005" on EACH side (measured edge-to-edge on the epoxy case). When measuring, do NOT measure the gold pins ... just the black epoxy case.

Cause:
Our CMS provider, at assembly time, soldered the terminal block to the PCB by running the boards through a wave solder machine. This should NEVER have been done. All PC Boards using surface mount technology are processed using IR ovens or hot air. The reason ... less thermal stress on electrical components. Because of this 'short cut' taken by the CMS, some of the CPU chips have been thermally damaged.

FYI - We were forced to find another CMS service when a large Silicon Valley networking company purchased all of our primary CMS's manufacturing capacity for Q1 this past year.

Problem/Symptom:
Some of the current lot of LC Deluxe 400/800 units power up and give a single long flash of the Status LED with no subsequent flashes. This is the computer's internal power-on self-test (POST) function indicating failure. Normally, the Status LED should flash continuously while awaiting launch. The built-in POST has caught all problematic units.

NO CRASHES HAVE RESULTED FROM THIS PROBLEM!

If your LC Deluxe 400/800 is currently working, the CPU chip still may have been 'weakened' by heat damage from the improper assembly process.

What G-Wiz Will Do
G-Wiz Partners will replace the CPU chip on you LC Deluxe 400/800. We will retest and return ship the flight computer to you, no charge. Further, G-Wiz Partners will NOT use the CMS that caused this problem in the first place ever again!

Where to Ship Units Qualifying LC Deluxe 400/800 Recall
G-Wiz Partners
P.O. Box 320103
Los Gatos, CA 95032-0101

Please email questions to: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

We're VERY sorry for the trouble and inconvenience this has caused our valued customers!

Robert Briody
Owner/Partner, G-Wiz Partners