Old RCI 2950 on the bench tonight !! Need help as always lol

[WINKDOGG]

Ok so I have a really old , I believe 1st gen Ranger 2950 . A buddy did a display LED "mod" for lack of a better word ;( All display and faceplate(button) lighting was dead ) but display still was working .) as you can see in the pics he tapped into a plug on the board to find ABOUT 12 volts and wired in two 12v leds from pepboys haha . Hey at least he got the display lit up right ?!? Apparently one of the LED wires got shorted to chassis ground and when he tightened the case screws it smoked and then he gave it to me

Question 1. What is the brown plug he tapped into ?

Clearly the red wire cooked back to the plug he hacked into
I replaced the wire and removed the LEDs he had inline and still no power .
I checked the protection diode (I think) Im having a hell of a time with the ranger Schematic tracing this sucker.

Any Ideas ?? Questions or need more info please chime in the more help the better !

There is also a missing orange LED for the buttons and none of them EVER worked so I'm just going to wire in a few surface mount blues (or a strip of micro blue LEDs ) sounds easier than replacing the orange LEDS that are ugly anyway lol !!

Feel free to talk and recommend diodes to check or whatever you think would fix an internal short!! It was a free radio so Im willibng to experiment but its also a 38 watt driver whwen it works so hopefully if we all put our heads together we will have her buzzing in no time !

I know you ranger guys have some great advice and Im ready to get this old girl talking !

Only the red wire back to the brown plug(see pic) I see no bad traces or hotspots on the board near "the smoking wire plug" lol

Any help getting this good ol girl will be greatly appreciated !!!

 

[newoldguy]

so you are just missing the lighting or is the whole radio dead? did you also check regulators??

 

[Chevboy0167]

Yes, does the display still light up? Does the radio still respond to face plate buttons being pressed? Does the radio still transmit? Very important questions here to go any further.

 

[WINKDOGG]

so you are just missing the lighting or is the whole radio dead? did you also check regulators??

Ok sorry just noticed the reply's !! The radio works pretty well now that I cleaned the knobs and replaced the power wire socket (pin almost broken off ) I think its got a bad final it only swings 15-18watts on the MFJ 18-20 on the DOSY and I aligned tx side as well as turned AM and modulation up to 90% and 105% respectively . But I will figure that out when my new final kit comes in !

I don't know the back story but my focus is the lights right now . All of the yellow button backlights were blown (but not a single resistor in line???) There was two pep boys LEDS 12v wired to the power socket lighting the display but they shorted on the case After pulling the face plate apart (long ass pins lol) I fount the pads for the original 6v display leds , attached leads but no power to those pads . I then checked the yellow LED pads and no power to that entire circuit ??

I can just wire in a fresh set of 12v leds for the display but I would rather do it right and I cant think of a 12v workaround to light the buttons (tiny pace cant fit a strip need to replace all the little yellow guys and get power restored to that circuit (with the help of you gentleman of course lol)

Apparently my schematic reading skills are lacking bc the RCI schematic it heavily populated and hard for me to interpret . Im much better with older single layer schematics(preferably hand drawn with lots of notes and arrows and circles haha) and will admit that flat out So I need some help on a more basic level if you know what I mean sorry . Im no dummy and I can chase components on the board by number but that schematic really looks Chinese to me .

Thanks in advance for any help my friends 73's Brian

 

[WINKDOGG]

Yes, does the display still light up? Does the radio still respond to face plate buttons being pressed? Does the radio still transmit? Very important questions here to go any further.

Sorry I didn't explain the basics first guys !!

Ok sorry just noticed the reply's !! The radio works pretty well now that I cleaned the knobs and replaced the power wire socket (pin almost broken off ) I think its got a bad final it only swings 15-18watts on the MFJ 18-20 on the DOSY and I aligned tx side as well as turned AM power and the modulation up to 90% and 105% respectively . But I will figure that out when my new final kit comes in !

I don't know the back story but my focus is the lights right now . All of the yellow button backlights were blown (but not a single resistor in line bad ???) There was two pep boys LEDS 12v wired to the power socket lighting the display but they shorted on the case After pulling the face plate apart (long ass pins lol) I found the pads for the original 6v display lamps, attached leads but no power to those pads . I then checked the yellow LED pads and no power to that entire circuit ??

I can just wire in a fresh set of 12v leds for the display but I would rather do it right and I cant think of a 12v workaround to light the buttons (tiny space cant fit a strip need to replace all the little yellow guys and get power restored to that circuit (with the help of you gentleman of course lol)

Apparently my schematic reading skills are lacking bc the RCI schematic it heavily populated and hard for me to interpret . Im much better with older single layer schematics(preferably hand drawn on napkin with lots of notes and arrows and circles haha) and will admit that flat out So I need some help on a more basic level if you know what I mean sorry . Im no dummy and I can chase components on the board by number but that schematic really looks Chinese to me .

Thanks in advance for any help my friends 73's Brian ​

 

[WINKDOGG]

Update … I had great skip conditions and wanted to run the 2950 as a low wattage driver so I did this ….

Just ran some leds with 47Ohm resistors right off of the 12 volt power jack again

I would still love to restore power to the original solder pads If anyone knows what I should chase down to get power back to the button back lights and display solder pads … no voltage anywhere and I really need that dim button back lol !

Thanks Guys , Brian 4-2-ZERO

 

[newoldguy]

Update … I had great skip conditions and wanted to run the 2950 as a low wattage driver so I did this ….View attachment 32417 View attachment 32415 View attachment 32416

Just ran some leds with 47Ohm resistors right off of the 12 volt power jack again

I would still love to restore power to the original solder pads If anyone knows what I should chase down to get power back to the button back lights and display solder pads … no voltage anywhere and I really need that dim button back lol !

Thanks Guys , Brian 4-2-ZERO

the radio is looking good with the blue i always liked the yellow leds but thinking back you have the old version which has 3 boards in the front with the long pins i think i would first take them apart and look for burnt traces if that all looks good there is a 5 volt regulator up towards the front i would definately check that I have worked on tons of the 2950's and 70's plus the base maodels but that was years ago. also i would trace where your friend tried to put bulbs in at that point where he got voltage

 

[WINKDOGG]

the radio is looking good with the blue i always liked the yellow leds but thinking back you have the old version which has 3 boards in the front with the long pins i think i would first take them apart and look for burnt traces if that all looks good there is a 5 volt regulator up towards the front i would definately check that I have worked on tons of the 2950's and 70's plus the base maodels but that was years ago. also i would trace where your friend tried to put bulbs in at that point where he got voltage

I have pulled the 3 boards apart and checked all the traces visually and with a cont tester (where possible) with no issues I could find . The problem Im having is finding that regulator or any type of regulated "LED driver" I know they didn't call them drivers back then but that's how I think about that circuit . If you have an idea of the location or could mark it if I post a picture that would be a huge help ! Ill take a few shots of the whole chassis and post the schematic (that I cant read lol) and hopefully we can restore the power and Ill replace the tiny leds that were all fried with something blue or maybe red ! The buttons are very yellow from age and smoke , I soaked them overnight in 30% peroxide paste with only a tiny improvement ;( I have used that stuff to restore vintage Apple computers and Nintendo NES systems that were almost black from the tar and nicotine and they look amazing but the rubber will not brighten up ! I could probably find a nice set of new buttons somewhere but I think red leds will hide the yellowing and look cool with the blue display lights . I also want to get them wired back to the dimmer the blues are too bright so I hope we can track down and restore the original power to the front boards !!!


Thanks Newoldguy!!!

73's

 

[WINKDOGG]

Anybody got any ideas on lighting the buttons ?????????????????

She looks good with the blue display but I still cant see the bottons lol

I don't even mind a workaround instead of restoring power to the circuit top the little burnt leds ! I am trying to find these tiny strips of leds I took out of something (toy or something ) They are white but I have colored them red with a sharpie before and they were pretty decent but want to get these buttons lit to accent the blue display and so I can SEE them LOL

73's And thanks everybody !!

Your long distance radio friend , Brian 4-2-ZERO in the Garden State !!!

 

[WINKDOGG]

Well I said I would work around it and here you have it ! I ran a 12 volt "fiber optic" (clear plastic jelly bracelet) type of thing with two blue leds shrink wrapped to both ends ! Its another 12v rig but Its completely reversible like the other leds if I ever decide to really dig into it . But for now I have blue display and buttons on my beat up first gen and Im ok with the way it turned out . Just wish it was controlled by the factory button . But again its a simple two wire setup and one day Ill send her to a real pro to restore it 100% or Ill find a really clean donor radio in need of guts and swap over my board !