# How to fix: Philips Speedpro max leds & brush stops frequently



## Stoffie1974 (May 19, 2021)

Hi all,
I just wanted to post a repair of my Philips Speedpro max, just in case somebody needs it, it's a common failure!
After a while the leds & brush occasionally stops a few seconds, but a few months later, it stops continuously, every x seconds. Sounds like a loose cable, right...?
In my case that was one cause, but there's more (see pics below)

Top cover removed









One of the three cables was crushed in assembly









Conductivity test of the red wire fails when i wiggle it











































After fixing & reassembling the brush, i still had dropouts of the leds & brush! There was another issue, so i had to dig a bit deeper.
Pulling, twisting, bending the long metal tube of the vacuum cleaner didn't help me to locate the problem.
I even bought a new brush... still dropouts!
Now why are there 3 cables to just drive a couple of leds and a motor? 2 Cables should be enough, activated by the main switch, right?
Well at Philips they had another idea about this... why do it the easy way if you can do it the hard way?
They added a data signal to it! The power is always there, even if the switch is off, so the leds & brush are activated by a coded pulse train! (see the pics below)
After some measuring it's easy to find out what's what. As i mentioned before, the power is always there, even in off state, so if you attach the brush, it's powered.









As you can see it is a repetitive coded pulse train, on the led bar there's a decoder chip, this of course is very useful to eliminate non-Philips fakes!
But it has a weakness, and this was my second failure... the slightest bad contact on this data signal disrupts the code causing the leds & brush to stop!
One missing pulse is enough!









One cycle zoomed in. red bar=26V, yellow=5V (TTL) pulse train. The spikes are visible because the vacuum motor turns close to the cables & scope.
I guess it was to simple to use a 5V on signal with a capacitor at the end as a buffer to avoid this failure...









Now i'd like to add one more picture but the limit is 10, so i'll have to explain how i repaired it.
It's very simple, i just used my sharp tweezers to bend the copper contact of the middle (data) hole (on the engine and on the metal tube!).
The outer contacts can't be reached as easily because of the plastic housing, i tried these with a strong needle.
Don't try to remove the connector from the metal tube or engine, you'll definitely end up breaking the fragile plastic clips (unrepairable!).

Now it's working fine without dropouts (and i have a spare brush ).
It's a great vacuum cleaner which i prefer using in the dark (it's true!) because the leds light up the dust & dirt so good that you can perfectly see where you already have cleaned... and where you didn't .
The design is very good, but with some weaknesses.


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## Edo484 (Oct 5, 2021)

any one know if you can order the cable somewhere?


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## ratcash (11 mo ago)

Registered just to report a successful cable swap.
Based on the information i got, it can't be bought separately. But the authorized service i visited was kind enough to toss me 2 dysfunctional suction heads from their 'electric waste bin' I could use as donors for the cable. Be prepared to change the connector on the cables on the side that is attaching to the LED strip in the suction head, as different heads use different connectors, but 3 spare contact pins (Contact pin for H2320 T2320-TBJ | GM electronic COM) made the replacement easy.


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