xts3000 display replacement

[VE3TUH]

Hello guys. I am sorry if this is easily searched, I have tried and my search function does not seem to be working currently. I have a couple of xts3000 vhf's with bad displays, I am wondering if I can purchase those cheap 800 mhz units off ebay for using the displays out of them, I seem to remember there was possibly an issue with different displays being used between frequency bands. Or maby that was the xts5000. Appreciate your advice!

[jry]

yes but there may be a firmware compatibility issue.

The latest displays required the firmware above a certain level ...there was an SRN and Motorola did provide the firmware update for awhile.

Someone may know the minimum or provide the SRN with the info.

Worst case is try it and if you need the later firmware move the controller over as long as it's not the 6.X vintage firmware which supported P25 trunking on 800 only.

Not sure if 6.X works outside of 800 ...it may but was never supported.

[fineshot1]

I do not remember all the details but IIRC Motorola FSB0047 has something to do with this.

[mike m]

I posted the following today over on radio reference.

Worth a try before tossing out lcd's.
RR POSTING FROM TODAY:
I have had 3 of these crappy xts3000 bad displays sitting for the past 7 years and finally today I fixed all of them.

For the past weekend I was playing around with a new Thermatron temp chamber that I purchased and after waisting an entire day sunday trying out various methods that others told me on how to fix LCD lost pixels by throwing the lcd in the oven at various temperatures and trying to dry air bubbles from the flex and other nonsense I had zero success.

I was almost going to give up when I started squeezing the circuit board front to back layers between my fingers and I noticed that when I squeezed the circuit board near the row of circuit board vias that comes off of the flex going to the front side of the LCD that my LCD characters started coming back.

So coming up with an idea that maybe this is not a flex epoxy glue issue as many have thought but a simple loss of via contacts due to poor quality circuit board vias from one layer to other inner layers I first took some alcohol and I cleaned all of the circuit board vias near the flex going to the LCD to get any contaminants out of the vias.

Working under a desk magnifier is imperative so that you do not accidently hit the flex with your solder iron.

I inspected the via holes and I could clearly see inside to other layers that looked questionable on some vias so I figured what do I have to loose by trying to get solder flowing into all the backside circuit board vias.

I have a very good magnifier used to look at RF power transistor DIE marking s and such so this helped me to zero in on the issue but it isn't needed for other who want to try and fix their LCD's.

Next I took a small bristle cleaning brush of the type intended to clean flux off of circuit boards and I cleaned all of the crud that was in these via holes with alcohol.


Next I took some liquid flux and a very small soldering iron with a small tip I have and I slowly/carefully filled each and every via hole with flux then carefully using ultra fine solder I filled each hole being careful not to hit the flex cable, some electrical tape along the flex to circuit board contact area may help but I had Kaptone tape on hand and this what I used.

Working from one side to the other I filled in each via hole with solder then I went back and put more flux over each hole and hit each via hole again with the solder iron and solder until I could clearly see the solder being sucked into each via hole.

I now have 3 good working XTS3000 displays.

Thank you Motorola for giving up and leaving everyone clueless with your crappy circuit board vias.
Feel free to pass this on to other Motorola groups as needed.

Disclaimer: I assume no responsibility for any damage done to anyone's radios LCD's etc, this is entirely for those adventurous souls who want to try and bring back dead/dog FUBAR XTS3000 LCD's.

Also since there may also be an issue with some flex connections with bad crumbling epoxy this may not work 100% on all LCD's but it is still worth a try before going to other routes that may certainly damage the flex cable going from the LCD boards front to back side such as solder irons and heat guns on the flex cable.

[mike m]

I was gifted a 4th xts3k display today and it has only around 5 % of pixels working.

This one is a real dog, after the via soldering in my earlier post I only have about 10% pixels working.

Inspecting under my microscope on this displays PCB I can press random areas of the board and actually see layers that have delaminated apart which precludes trying to fix poor vias with solder fills on such a dog.

Optrex who made the displays years ago must have had the absolute worst quality control to let boards out in such poor shape and Moto was no better at not catching this years ago.

On the 3 lcd's that I got working, all lines were somewhat functional and partially readable before the fix which brought the displays back to life as they only had several missing pixels per line and the via repair mentioned previously may only work if the display isn't a delaminated total dead dog as the 4th one was.

Conclusion: YMMV but worth a try if your display isn't missing more than ~ 10 percent of it's pixels, if you only have ~ 50 to 10% pixels working then I wouldn't waste the solder.

Also, judging by the poor PCB lamination that I saw in LCD#4, it isn't know what the life of revived displays is especially if subjected to wide temperature swings.