Batboard

I have a CDM1250 vhf mobile that I'm told needs a new motherboard. Does anyone know if I can swap it with a motherboard from a CDM1250 uhf radio?
Thanks

The CDM radios are almost a single board radio. Sure you can swap the VHF "motherboard" with a UHF one. Just bear
in mind that you will end up with a UHF radio.

You might be better off fixing the problem with the board. Oh wait, I forgot that there are no more techs left working
for any Motorola shop that knows how to use a soldering iron to change out surface mount components. Maybe a better
comment is that there are no techs left that know how to trouble shoot a radio to the component level that still work
at these shops. Motorola has forced mass board replacement to the point it is almost a better cost choice to replace
the entire radio. With many of the Motorola shops now charging $65 to $125 an hour labor rate, you make the choice.

Jim


Jim

ctgo4it wrote:I have a CDM1250 vhf mobile that I'm told needs a new motherboard. Does anyone know if I can swap it with a motherboard from a CDM1250 uhf radio?
Thanks

Tell us what the symptoms are and we'll see if we can't come up with the solution. Even if that board is a BJT I'm sure there is still a chance we can get it fixed up for ya.

Some of us still do board level repairs, when we can get the components. A lot of oscillator components are 'Factory Only'.

Hot air debonders are not dead, just takes more skill to use one than most people have anymore.

AND, $65 - $125 an hour bench rate for someone you are paying $50+ an hour loaded wages is still a bargain.

(Loaded wages are salary+taxes to Feds+health care+retirement+other benefits)

Figure the cost of a bench tech, and he is wasting his valuable time if a radio needs a lot of TLC, the Moto depot flat rate is sometimes more cost effective. I would rather our techs were working on building infrastructure for that $500k sale that we need to get installed vs. schlepping around with a CM200 or CDM for more than half an hour... - and NO, we don't fix speaker mikes anymore.

Karfield wrote:Tell us what the symptoms are and we'll see if we can't come up with the solution. Even if that board is a BJT I'm sure there is still a chance we can get it fixed up for ya.

What ^^^^^ HE ^^^^^^ said. What are the symptoms?

First, $125 an hour for labor in two-way is a near bargain (my standard rate is $95/hr). The standard labor rate for the MSS around me are from $150-$225 an hour for shop service, add another $25-50/hr for field service.

Second, there are still a good number of brilliant techs working in two-way repair. I am by no means an expert and there is a shop across town that I use when stuff is over my head and they've brought back some boards that I was certain were BER. This number is rapidly dwindling, no doubt, and this industry is going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place in 10-15 years when the guys that have been doing this for 30+ years hang up their hat.

Third, even on this board there are folks who would probably consider themselves "techs" that would take exception to the broad generalities in your post

Jim202 wrote:You might be better off fixing the problem with the board. Oh wait, I forgot that there are no more techs left working
for any Motorola shop that knows how to use a soldering iron to change out surface mount components. Maybe a better
comment is that there are no techs left that know how to trouble shoot a radio to the component level that still work
at these shops. Motorola has forced mass board replacement to the point it is almost a better cost choice to replace
the entire radio. With many of the Motorola shops now charging $65 to $125 an hour labor rate, you make the choice.

I'm sorry for the long delay in responding. I've been working way too hard with no internet access. This story has been going on for a while, see the original post here: http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.p ... it=cdm1250
Basically, the radio powers on, displays fine and transmits fine. There is no sound whatsoever. I tried connecting an external speaker, replaced the speaker inside, and no sound whatsoever. I went to a few different repair shops in NY and CT. One told me not to even bother sending it back to Motorola. Another said $285 flat rate, Motorola will replace the motherboard. Now a friend is offering me his UHF CDM1250 for parts. Is there any way to salvage my radio?

Thanks for all the replies

So we're down to just no audio. It's more than likely just the audio PA. One of the other guys on here will have to give you the part number as I'm in the middle of a few things and it's not readily available to me. But I'm certain once you change that out you should be just fine and dandy.

U0271 is the audio PA...TDA1519C, Motorola p/n 5109699X01. You may want to do a quick check before replacing the audio PA to verify that it's failed: the same signal that drives the audio output chip appears at the mic jack, pin 8(handset audio) and pin 4(ground). If you can connect a headset or handset to these two pins and hear rx audio, the output chip has almost certainly failed.

is the audio chip on the right side of the board? This whole problem started when the guy who installed the radio drilled a screw into the side.

Thanks

On all of the VHF schematics I see U0271 is on the "top side" of the board roughly in line with the 20 pin accessory connector J0501 so the IC is on the left side of the board if you are looking at the front of the radio. The top side of the board in the schematic appears in reality to be the bottom side if you open up the top cover of the radio. The IC appears to be close to the tapped mounting bracket holes on the radio chassis but just from looking at one I cannot see how a screw could get through something like that chassis - you would need to do some drilling to get through it (zip screws maybe??). And then if that happened I'd think more damage would have happened perhaps to componens on the other (bottom) side of the board.

In other posts I have read the audio amp can go if someone or something accidentally puts the speaker lead(s) to ground since the output of the audio PA has a floating ground like other models have. Did the installer attach anything perhaps to the accessory connector? Put in an external speaker perhaps? Just some ideas....

486dx4 wrote:On all of the VHF schematics I see U0271 is on the "top side" of the board roughly in line with the 20 pin accessory connector J0501 so the IC is on the left side of the board if you are looking at the front of the radio. The top side of the board in the schematic appears in reality to be the bottom side if you open up the top cover of the radio. The IC appears to be close to the tapped mounting bracket holes on the radio chassis but just from looking at one I cannot see how a screw could get through something like that chassis - you would need to do some drilling to get through it (zip screws maybe??). And then if that happened I'd think more damage would have happened perhaps to componens on the other (bottom) side of the board.

In other posts I have read the audio amp can go if someone or something accidentally puts the speaker lead(s) to ground since the output of the audio PA has a floating ground like other models have. Did the installer attach anything perhaps to the accessory connector? Put in an external speaker perhaps? Just some ideas....

I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly, but it sounds like it may be close. The installer did put a zip screw into the right side of the radio when looking at it from the front, reading the display right side up. Is this what you're talking about? From what I understand, you're saying the top is the on the bottom. Can it be that the right is the left (I think I'm confusing myself). Although the side he put the screw into is on the opposite side from the accessory connector, so I'm not sure it's the same thing as what you're talking about

This was all covered over two months ago in the original thread. Screw into the board, radio NFG. Why drag this out? Without actually seeing the damage everyone here is just stabbing in the dark anyway. Get the guy that broke it to pay for the repair and ship it off to depot, problem solved. If he won't pay you've learned a lesson in why real installers are bonded/insured.