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T3 Pilot
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Joined: January 10, 2011
Posts: 1509
Location: Deep South of the Great White North
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 Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2016 3:39 pm Post subject: Hall Sensor/Sender Failure |
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Hall Sensor Failure Mode
The Vanagon hall sensor in the 2.1 Distributor is commonly damaged externally at the connector and is an obvious sign of failure. Not as common but mine just failed internally. Nothing visual but I gather that there is some circuitry molded into the pickup head that is the point of failure.
No warning signs, just a sudden engine shut down at speed. No hiccups, bumps, hard starting evident before.
Back at the workshop we were able to quickly diagnose the failure at the hall sensor and swap in a spare distibutor.
Seen several damaged sensors at the connector, but this is my first internal failure, don't know much about the inner workings, always figured that it was a sealed unit but I guess they do wear out. What are the inner workings of a hall sender/sensor ? Just curious.
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1988 Vanagon
The most important part in every vehicle is the nut behind the wheel...... |
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djkeev
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Joined: September 30, 2007
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Location: Reading Pennsylvania
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Merian
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Joined: January 04, 2014
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Location: Orygun
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| Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2016 4:15 pm Post subject: Re: Hall Sensor/Sender Failure |
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got a good macro lens for your camera?
surgery would be fun & you can help educate us all
these sensors are called that b/c they use the Hall Effect to determine rotation
when you stick a conductor in a magnetic field the voltage is changed - the magnetic field comes from 1 or more magnets stuck onto a rotating disc; the conductor is usually a semiconductor
I think the voltage delta is pretty small, so I'd bet an op amp is involved in there somewhere |
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T3 Pilot
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Joined: January 10, 2011
Posts: 1509
Location: Deep South of the Great White North
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| Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 1:04 pm Post subject: Re: Hall Sensor/Sender Failure |
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Following up on the original post of this thread...
The spare distributor and it’s associated Hall sender just failed after a life cycle of 238,000 km. It was an original Bosch from 1989.
Failure mode this time was a simple crank/no start. A zero miles fully rebuilt distributor was installed. Noticed that the little silicone seal inside the hall connector at the side of the distributor was missing. Replaced with good used part.
Here is a link to that helped me to better understand the inner workings of a hall sender. I did not do an autopsy, just ruled out wiring and ECU as the culprit and new hall sender did the job. It is a solid state sensor, so it can just fail after 1/4 million Km’s I reasoned.
http://www.wellsve.com/sft503/Counterpoint3_1.pdf
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1988 Vanagon
The most important part in every vehicle is the nut behind the wheel...... |
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DanHoug
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Location: Bemidji, MN
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