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I let the smoke out! :(

B

BigBase

Guest
I hooked up my amp today , and went to change the jumpers to the amp, and the radio (Cobra 148 GTL) came uplugged, so I plugged the plug back in, but backwards. Somehow the terminals touched and i heard a pop so I plugged it in right and 2 secounds later smoke came BILLOWING out, i unplugged it and opened her up. The two wire wraps that were on the terminal had gotten so hot they melted and burnt the wires touching them. I think it's fixable, but I don't want to try to do anything until I know what happened, and how to fix it. Any ideas on how I can fix it?
 

You might wan't to check your reverse polarity diode located on back of rig. Right where the Pos and Neg come into the radio.......I'm sure Nomad Radio can be more specific..........They sure do puff out some smoke when polarity gets switched don't they :p .........
 
Phil501 said:
You might wan't to check your reverse polarity diode located on back of rig. Right where the Pos and Neg come into the radio.......I'm sure Nomad Radio can be more specific..........They sure do puff out some smoke when polarity gets switched don't they :p .........

I looked and the glass isn't broke. I think the smoke might have just been the wires melting.....but don't want to run it until i know fer shure.
 
Man that thing must of let out one heck of a pop to scare you like that. I had a cobra that was decent but at the time it was nice for me. It had a LCD and LED meter. I thought it was nice for the price you see it was free. Well I used some wires for it that were not black and red and when I hooked it to my power supply all I heard was pop. I knew something was wrong right away. This all reminds me my friend still has that radio after I had asked him if he could try to fix it, I guess I will ask him if I can get it back and try to fix it myself.
 
Phil501 said:
You might wan't to check your reverse polarity diode located on back of rig. Right where the Pos and Neg come into the radio.......I'm sure Nomad Radio can be more specific..........They sure do puff out some smoke when polarity gets switched don't they :p .........

Welp, I took the cover off and plugged it in. The coils inside the radio where the + & - come in got RED hot! Can the diode be blown but the glass not broken?
 
BigBase said:
Phil501 said:
You might wan't to check your reverse polarity diode located on back of rig. Right where the Pos and Neg come into the radio.......I'm sure Nomad Radio can be more specific..........They sure do puff out some smoke when polarity gets switched don't they :p .........

Welp, I took the cover off and plugged it in. The coils inside the radio where the + & - come in got RED hot! Can the diode be blown but the glass not broken?
could be posible the best way is to check with a multimeter or some other tester.
 
Protection diodes

Yes the diode can be blown without the Glass being cracked.
You need to check it to be sure it is not Shorted.

That is the diodes job, to short and blow the Fuse if it gets reverse polarity. If there is no fuse or too large a fuse it burns shorted. So it has to be replaced.
 
Re: Protection diodes

Rogerbird1 said:
Yes the diode can be blown without the Glass being cracked.
You need to check it to be sure it is not Shorted.

That is the diodes job, to short and blow the Fuse if it gets reverse polarity. If there is no fuse or too large a fuse it burns shorted. So it has to be replaced.

I sent it to my tech.... it needed to be tuned up anyway.
 
You all dont think that POP was a cap???? Im surprised you didnt see remnants of a cap strewn all over the inside of the radio too. :LOL:
 

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