BioRad ICycler Password or Service Manual

[djwr...@gmail.com]

Does anyone know the service option password for the BioRad ICycler or have a service manual? I have two. One with a lid that won't heat and another with a heat block fault. I am hoping to have one good one by switching the lid. Or two if anyone has any experience or any ideas for replacing the peltiers.

Thanks,

Dan

[Dakota Hamill]

I've sometimes had luck emailing companies about old equipment they no longer service and don't really care about.  I've gotten free old software and service tech passwords to fix em up.  Try giving them a call or an email.

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[Vladimir]

Hi Dan,

I also have problem with iCYCLER. Heat/Cool test fault. Did you manage to find service option password?

Best regards,

Vladimir

[djwr...@gmail.com]

Hi Vladimir,

No one replied with one so I called BioRad. They do not sell or service the ICycler anymore. They refused to give me the password so I could try to fix it myself. How hard would it be to extract the password from the firmware? There are different versions that are still downloadable from their website.

Thanks,

Dan

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[Vladimir]

Hi Dan,

Thank you very much for reply. I contacted Biorad in UK, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. They told me the same as you. Never try to extract the password from the firmware. I will check.

Best regards,

Vladimir

[Nathan McCorkle]

What behavior does erroneous password entry induce?

If you have the time and interest, I bet you can you just brute-force
the code by hooking up an arduino or raspberry pi, connecting to the
keypad pins and maybe the display or an LED that is indicative of the
error (or conversely passing).
The rasPi would enable you to use Python-based openCV image-processing
to extract the error condition visually from a video camera.

Seems like something a person or two could manage to get setup in a
day or few nights.

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-Nathan

[Thomas Fuller]

Extraction from the firmware isn't impossible, but the difficulty depends on the hardware and how the firmware image is built and what kind of micro it's running on. Though, if it's a custom solution or FPGA then it's effectively impossible.

Nathan's idea of brute forcing would likely net results much faster and with less technical effort. There's probably an internal signal line or data bus you could monitor/parse to determine success, as OpenCV has a significant learning curve that might put it out of reach of a project like this.

-Thomas

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[d wright]

I don't believe there is a delay or lockout for multiple password attempts. The heat cool test fault seems to be a common problem with the BioRad Icycler.  Has anyone tried replacing the peltiers?  Our Icycler QPCR failed due to the heat cool test fault error so I bought a non QPCR model to put the QPCR top on. Now they both work.  So the heat test fault my not be the peltier but just a loose connection that I inadvertently re connected when I swapped lower units. Thank you all for the help. Biorad proved worthless.

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 9:12 AM, Thomas Fuller <tho...@mcfuller.com> wrote:

Extraction from the firmware isn't impossible, but the difficulty depends on the hardware and how the firmware image is built and what kind of micro it's running on. Though, if it's a custom solution or FPGA then it's effectively impossible.

Nathan's idea of brute forcing would likely net results much faster and with less technical effort. There's probably an internal signal line or data bus you could monitor/parse to determine success, as OpenCV has a significant learning curve that might put it out of reach of a project like this.

-Thomas

On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 3:27 PM Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:

What behavior does erroneous password entry induce?

If you have the time and interest, I bet you can you just brute-force
the code by hooking up an arduino or raspberry pi, connecting to the
keypad pins and maybe the display or an LED that is indicative of the
error (or conversely passing).
The rasPi would enable you to use Python-based openCV image-processing
to extract the error condition visually from a video camera.

Seems like something a person or two could manage to get setup in a
day or few nights.


On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 1:27 AM,  <djwr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know the service option password for the BioRad ICycler or have a service manual?  I have two. One with a lid that won't heat and another with a heat block fault. I am hoping to have one good one by switching the lid. Or two if anyone has any experience or any ideas for replacing the peltiers.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dan
>
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[Cory Tobin]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 5:44 PM, d wright <djwr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Now they both work.  So the heat test fault my not be the peltier but just a loose connection that I inadvertently re connected when I swapped lower units. Thank you all for the help. Biorad proved worthless.

Hey Dan, I played around with both of those iCyclers and they seem to give the error about 1 in 4 times that they are powered on.  The only solution I've found is to power it off and on.  Kind of annoying but they both work I guess.  As far as I can tell all the cable connections are snug so I don't think its anything you did.

-Cory

[Daniel Westcott]

Reviving this stale post. Did you have any luck? I just grabbed one of these from the surplus cart in our building's basement. It says Edge Fault or something. 

[djwr...@gmail.com]

Sadly no luck.  I haven't tried resetting the bios or using a brute force attack both are good suggestions from really good hackers. One day when I have more time I'll give it a shot. For now we have two working models in our lab in LA. 

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[Gonzalo rok]

Hi!
Did you were able to get the service password?
Thanks
best regards

[djwr...@gmail.com]

No we moved on and have a Roche 480 qpcr machine. It would be nice if Biorad would release the password since they no longer will service the icycler. Instead Biorad was committing crimes.

https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/publications/Bio-Rad-NPA.pdf

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[Lief]

This thread is pretty old, but the first result I found on Google. If your iCycler brings you the error message "Heat/Cool test fault Operation not possible" there should be eight sensor temperatures at the bottom of the display (here is a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO6D1jgCa9c). They should all lie in the same range. So if five of them show 0°C and three of them show 22°C you probably have five faulty temperature sensors or the wire to the temperature sensor is broken. If you have two iCycler, you can try to swap the Well Reaction Module between them and see if the error is still there. If not you can meassure the sensors with a multimeter on the connectors J5 and J19, which lie under the fan (you have to remove the housing for this). There are four sensors on each connector. So you in total you have five pins, one pin for each sensor and all four share one return wire. At room temperature the sensors should be around 12k Ohm. If it has a high-impedance, you found your faulty sensor circuit.

To fix it you probably have to screw open your Well Reaction Module or check your cable connections. Can't help you right now with fixing it, because I'm still wating for the screwdrivers I ordered to open the module...

Best of luck to you!

Lief

[Lief]

So I finally fixed the iCycler. I was wrong with the 8 temperature sensors, the iCycler has only 5 sensors (4 chamber sensors and 1 heatsink sensor). Also the failure wasn't in the Well Reaction Module, for me it was on the Mainboard. You can measure the voltage of the Peltier-element at J8 and J10 on the mainboard. It should be around 17V. I had 0V on J10. D21 (MBR 1060) and Q26 (P55NF06) was shorted on my board, I swapped them with functioning ones and everything works again.

[Scott]

Hello Lief,

Timely post! Yesterday, I was given a Bio-Rad iQ5 RT-PCR machine which has the iCycler base like your machine. When I powered it up I get a "No reaction block detected - Operation not possible" error message. I pulled the top optical unit off and reseated it just in case it was a simple issue but that didn't work. Without the schematics or service manual it is hard to know if the fault is in the iCycler base or the upper optical module. I did pull apart the base to better understand the connectors. My mainboard is a revision F. I don't see any obvious issues like scorch marks or fried components. Googling the error message doesn't help. Do you have any suggestions on how to possibly approach this?

Cheers,

Scott

Open Science Network, Vancouver

[Lief]

Hi Scott,

I only got this error when I started the iCycler without the upper module. So I would think the iCycler checks on boot up if every ohmic value of the upper module is there. There could be three causes for this error:

1. The iCycler meassures a high impedance on the upper module (maybe high impedance sensor or Peltier-element)
2. The connections from the base to the upper module is broken (think of oxidized connectors, loose wire on the connectors and something alike)
3. The circuit on the base module that meassures those values has a fault (could be any part on the mainboard e.g. broken IC, diode, resistor, capacitor, whatever comes to your mind)
   

You can check if the causes applies to your machine like this:

1.

• If you have a second iCycler you can try to swap the upper module and see if the error persists. This would be the easiest
• You can check with an ohmmeter on the upper module if all values are where they should be. (picture)
  

2. Check the connections with an ohmmeter. Check if the connectors are corroded or some pins are bent.

3. You can check the voltages on the connectors of the base module (picture). If some voltages are missing you can trace the wire to the mainboard and check the corresponding circuit for any fried parts (can't help you with that though). You can check out the picture to see what I meassured on my device. Can't give you a guarantee that those values apply to every machine.

I hope that helps, good luck finding that fault.

Cheers

Lief

[Sidnei Santos]

94547 key

Em domingo, 10 de abril de 2016 05:27:52 UTC-3, djwr...@gmail.com escreveu:

Alguém sabe a senha da opção de serviço do BioRad ICycler ou tem um manual de serviço? Eu tenho dois. Um com tampa que não aquece e outro com falha de bloqueio de calor. Espero ter um bom trocando a tampa. Ou dois, se alguém tiver alguma experiência ou ideias para substituir os peltiers.

Obrigado

dan

[Avery louie]

@sidnei brilliant. More than one US-based machine has the zip of the manufacturer as the service password...

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[Sidnei Santos]

Sou técnico terceirizados no Brasil e tenho todos os manuais da Bio-R... alguns que estão descontinuados não tenho. 

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