Batboard

While this is probably generally not a good idea, but does anyone have thier radios set up so when you hit the light button it never shuts off ? On both the XTS5000, and Astro Saber CPS I noticed that infinite is an option. Since one of them sits on my desk all the time, would it hurt the radio to have the backlight on all the time ? How much battery life would it drain if the light was on all the time ?

I'd be more concerned with how quickly will the bulbs burn out, & what kind of pain is it to replace them. GARY

N4KVE wrote:I'd be more concerned with how quickly will the bulbs burn out, & what kind of pain is it to replace them. GARY

Fortunately, this is the 21st century, so the backlight is LEDs, not bulbs. If they are typical LEDs, they are rated for 100K hours... or a little more than 11 years running 24/7.

The APX runs permanent backlight unless you change it (although it does dim a bit).

Does the Astro Saber have LED's as well or is it bulbs ? I'd assume even though it's 15+ years old, that it's LED ?

I used to run this way in the past, but now use "Auto Light".

There's no concern about burning up the LED's, and if one does go out, just replace it. It's not THAT difficult.

I would conduct your own test - turn the lights on permanently, on a fresh battery, and see how long it lasts.

Then repeat the test, same battery, freshly charged, with the lights off.

But it certainly isn't going to hurt anything.

And the ASTRO Saber is LED's. JEDI radios are LED's. I don't think I ever actually saw a Motorola portable that was synthesized and had bulbs in it - EVERYTHING that's even REMOTELY modern is LED's... From the MX series forward, at least.

I had a System Saber years ago. One of the bulbs for the display was burned out. Had to replace a whole shield just for the bulb, Fortunately a friend had a spare, or it would have cost a fortune to replace. GARY

No bulbs in the Systems Saber, they are LED's.

If you're handy with reasonably sized SMD's, they are not that difficult to replace.

The point is they do fail, & burn out, LED, or bulb. My friend who replaced the shield was/is a radio tech, & there was no way he was going to replace it. Fortunately he had a few spare shields. GARY

Hmmmm, all very helpful info guys !!

I'm going to program the Astro Saber tonight for the light to always stay on, and will conduct a test this week and post the results here. I've searched the site for this question, but it was such a random question that no one else probaly runs thier portables with the LCD always lit. ( unless it's in a Convertacom or charger that is ).

In the case of a convertacom, there is an option in most radios (Jedi/XTS3000/5000) called "Backlight in VA" that keeps the lights on when the radio knows it's in a convertacom.

Of course, this is pointless for a Saber or ASTRO Saber, as you cannot see the display with the radio inserted into the convertacom.

N4KVE wrote:The point is they do fail, & burn out, LED, or bulb. My friend who replaced the shield was/is a radio tech, & there was no way he was going to replace it. Fortunately he had a few spare shields. GARY

If I had spare shields laying around, I probably wouldn't either. But if I didn't have any spare shields, and I wanted to make the lights work properly, I could have fixed it. The point is that the repair can be done, by even the most mediocre of subscriber techs (like myself) with the proper tools.

d119 wrote:In the case of a convertacom, there is an option in most radios (Jedi/XTS3000/5000) called "Backlight in VA" that keeps the lights on when the radio knows it's in a convertacom.

Of course, this is pointless for a Saber or ASTRO Saber, as you cannot see the display with the radio inserted into the convertacom.

That also affects the HHCH IIRC, for Astro Saber and XTS at least so not totally pointless

resqguy911 wrote:

d119 wrote:In the case of a convertacom, there is an option in most radios (Jedi/XTS3000/5000) called "Backlight in VA" that keeps the lights on when the radio knows it's in a convertacom.

Of course, this is pointless for a Saber or ASTRO Saber, as you cannot see the display with the radio inserted into the convertacom.

That also affects the HHCH IIRC, for Astro Saber and XTS at least so not totally pointless

Good point, it very well may... But I know of virtually no one running HHCH on an ASTRO Saber. I know there's a couple folks out there, but it requires *really* old firmware. That's a whole different subject for a different thread.

MT2000 man wrote:While this is probably generally not a good idea, but does anyone have thier radios set up so when you hit the light button it never shuts off ? On both the XTS5000, and Astro Saber CPS I noticed that infinite is an option. Since one of them sits on my desk all the time, would it hurt the radio to have the backlight on all the time ? How much battery life would it drain if the light was on all the time ?

I am fairly sure what this does is require you to hit the button to shut it off rather than it timing out. This does not override the button.

Jason