Batboard

I just got a UHF spectra and a rib box and had everything set up. As soon I turned the power on, the rib box immediately got warm and smoke came out of the box. Has anyone else had problems like this?

No, but I typically verify my cabling before I plug expensive things together. Smoke recharge kits for RIBs are quite expensive...

motorola rib box?

Yeah, I smoked a smartRIB in the same type of situation, with a spectra plugged into it.

I'd never had a problem with it before in the same setup. Solution: bought a new RIB.

-Josh

the power supply have no 13.8 VCD.
radio was on the table? no on power supply.??
check voltage before new rib

An MSS local to me fried an Astro Spectra, a Moto RIB, and a computer, all at the same time, several years ago. They always put a trickle-charger on a vehicle's battery while doing installs, to keep from running the battery down from trunk/underhood/interior lights being on for hours at a time. The charger had a ground fault in it, which no one knew about, and the ground prong was missing form the extension cord it was plugged into. There was no problem (luckily, none of the techs working on it got the knocked out of them), until they plugged the brand-new radio into the RIB to program it, and the ground fault in the charger found a path to ground through the radio, RIB, and computer. Not pretty! Needless to say, they threw out the charger and the cord, and they regularly check such things now.

Another alternative, I repair /\/\ Radio Interface Boxes.

Well, so far the seller of the rib is making me send it back in. So hopefully that will take care of it. But I think the idea of a rib was a stupid thing. I can understand the big M's logic for making one but geez, that's a lot of risk switching the thing on. I'm glad to see i'm not the only one that's had a problem like this. Thanks guys!

The zeners like to go. I had one that burned a blister on the board surface but was good as new once I replaced it.