Spectra FAIL001

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Artee
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2004 1:08 pm

Spectra FAIL001

Post by Artee »

I've read all previous post but didn't find how to resolve my problem.
When I turn on radio shows FAIL001 error. The radio has new RF, VCO, Control boards so there's no problem with leaky caps.
When i heat up (with a hot air or lamp) upper - right corner of RF board (metal shield near 2 IC) radio starts to work. The radio works fine until i switched it off and gets cold. Radio is not progrrammed out of band so there is no problem with out of band frequency. Can anyone help me?? I don't have schematic diagram so i don't even know what parts are under this shield so i could replaced them.
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jackhackett
Posts: 1518
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 8:52 am

Post by jackhackett »

You say the boards are "new", but Spectras have been out of production for a while. Even if they were just put in they're not going to be new, and the caps can go bad without the board ever being used, they may have even used older caps on a newer board.
I believe there is a date code sticker on the RF board, if not, you can get a pretty good idea of how old a board is from the date codes on the ICs.

Look for a number like the 9322 in this picture (from repeater-builder.com)

Image

The 93 is the year, and the 22 is the week it was made. All of the larger chips should have a similar number, the board will have been made sometime shortly after those date codes.

Bad caps don't always show any physical signs of leaking, they can look brand new. If the board is more than a couple of years old I would change the caps.

I tried to get one of those shields off the board once.. never did manage it, takes a lot of heat. Try the caps first, they're easy and cheap enough.
Will
Posts: 6823
Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2001 4:00 pm

Post by Will »

Sounds for sure you have a bad RF board with caps that have allready leaked. As Jack says, they sometimes do not show any evidence to the untrained eye.
Artee
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2004 1:08 pm

Post by Artee »

I've replaced RF board with another one and now it seems to work ok.
Next time i try to replace caps.
Thanks for help.
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