Batboard

Help !!!!

I went down to my local post office this morning and picked up my new Motorola Spectra "D43KMA7JA5AK" that I purchased of off E-bay. Upon power up, the unit reads "Self Chk" then goes into FL 01/90. The unit will continue to loop from self check and FL 01/90.

This unit is a trunk mount w/a-5 control head I checked all electrical conections and they seem ok.

Any ideas ??

Thanks

Dan....

I forgot to mention that I read the Spectra primmer and checked most of the suggestions listed. How do I check the command board ?

[email protected]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ScannerDan on 2002-01-30 16:57 ]</font>

FL 01/90 Serial Bus Failure.

May be control head failure, a radio command board failure, or a cabling failure.

This comes from the service manual is available under model specific information on the batlabs site.

This may sound silly, but I had a Spectra that gave me the dreaded Fail 01/90 until I grounded the "emergency" pin (number 2 on the accessory connector.)If you are new to Spectras as I was, it might not occur to you to ground it. It is not supposed to have that effect, but...

Fortunatley, you have a problem that I am probley the best at fixing. If you cannot get it to work, you can email me at
[email protected]
Let me know what version the firmware is on the MLM board. The other thing you need to do is disconnect the remote kit completely and mount the control head to the radio as if it was a regular dash mount. You will need an interconect board form another Spectra. If it works, the problem is most likeley the remote interconect board. I have seen this problem more times than you can imagine.
If you still get a fail 01/90 , then you have a problem in the MLM or Command board. Usually because someone tried to make the radio do something it normally could not do by force feeding it with another archive. 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the time, I can breathe life back into the radio with out major surgury. I probly do about 10 to 15 Spectras a month.

PS, I am in Moreno Valley and go to all the Swap meets like TRW, Pomona, and AB Miller Fontana.

Metro121, I'd love to hear anything else on this because I've got this problem too. I had this happen to another Spectra a few years back and fixed it by hitting the home/zone and backlight buttons while it was looping thru the self-check. But with this other Spectra nothing's working.

And if nothing else works...I had a Railroad Spectra that got this error. Turned out that the problem was with a 4 MHz "resonator" on the control board. It was off frequency enough that the control board couldn't synch up and communicate with the front panel.

Replacing the resonator ($7.00 from Motorola) fixed the problem.

An automotive Spectra is obviously not exactly the same radio as a RR Spectra, but it does use the same method to interface to the front panel...



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: larryepage on 2002-01-31 10:01 ]</font>

One other option of the source of this error code, is that the radio is looking for some type of external device. Most likly, at some point in the radio history, it may have had the siren option programmed into the MLM board. If you don't have this, it needs to be changed in the programming.

If it is one of the X version radios that came out of a government system, it may have had the external DES box programmed into the MLM board. This also needs to be changed.

The serial error could come from a number of places. Just work through the software and shut off all the options you don't have if they show up as being active.

The other thing you could do is try to locate a bare bones radio code plug and force a clone download into the radio.

Jim

Jim
There are quite a few error codes you can get when you turn on a spectra which will tell you something is not right but the radio will stay on,
Fail 01/90 is a problem with the control head wanting to know where the rest of the radio went. This error will cause the radio to turn itself off and then back on untill it can feel its legs again. It is the only code that will cause this power on , power off cycle.

PS
Force feeding another code plug into a Spectra is not recomended. This is one of the major problems I come across with this exact problem. I submmited a brief and quick description on how to make up your own high end MLM boards to Batlabs a while back. If you go to the Spectra section, you will see a basic way to redo MLM boards without force feeding them. I realise most do not have access to hot air bonders and programmers but if you are a Spectra nut like I am , you can come up with some short cuts in this method of creating MLM boards.
I also realize there are quite a few on the forum have force fed an MLM board with some success and never had one go south on them but it is a matter of time before you will have one go into cardiac arrest.
I have litteraly done a couple of thousand Spectras over the last 7 years and have had practiced most every conciveable method of fixing MLM boards, and 90% of the time I am successful of bringing back the original life
to the MLM with out surgury or replacing. If that fails, I will either repair the board or replace it. I hav made up several blanks and keep them in stock for such a disaster.
I do admit that I will make several attempts to restore the bad one because I live a challenge and I hate to loose.
There is one other person who is probly better than me when it comes to this tallent.
He is my mentor and will remain a mystery unless he decides to come onto Batlabs and make himself known.

There is a fuse inside the radio, looks like a small radial leaded green resistor that blows causing this error. It is a 3 amp 125 volt Pico fuse.

Will
Are you referring to the geen fuse on the fron of the command board next to the black port where the control head interconnect board plugs into?

Yes, Sir.

I must have missed something. I have replaced this particular fuse numerous times due to loss of audio. I have never had the radio give me a fail code when this fuse blows.

Metro121, I did not see you at Pomona! or did I?

I was at Pomona. I usually get there early and BS with Chuck and Ken from San Diego.