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President HR2510 troubles!

Hello,

One of my HR2510’s gave me a similar problem with the radio turning on, but no display on the screen. I suspected bad capacitors as I already had to change other caps in some of my 2510’s & it seems to be common with the age of these things.

The one that had this problem was the one I use in the mobile, I don’t use it very often & it mostly sits on the shelf, well when it sits for a long time, a couple weeks, or couple months it had a severe delayed turn on, meaning it would have to sit on with the blank display for several minutes or at times seemed like 10 minutes or more then it would finally “come on completely” & work fine. Once it finally came on I could shut it off & turn it back on throughout the day & it would be fine, just could not let it sit for a week plus. I had previously changed a couple caps off the regulators on the CPU board & thought it took care of the problem but it did not.

I finally recently took it apart & started checking voltage on the CPU board & found some odd reading or missing voltages when compared to my other fully working 2510. I was eventually lead to IC314 which had no output voltage on pin 5 which is suppose to be about 5 volts when the radio is on & functioning. I guess IC314 is a delay turn on IC & controls the voltage to the reset or stop pin of the CPU & with no 5 volts present on that pin it will not come on. IC314 has a timing capacitor connected to pin 4 that controls the turn on time of the output of the IC which is C392 according to the schematic at cbtricks (I’ll post a picture of the CPU board, & circled C392 so you can see where it is located). C392 is a 0.1uf 50 volt electrolytic capacitor. I pulled the capacitor & tested it out of circuit & it was WAY out of tolerance. I checked it with my multimeters capacitance check function (which is fairly accurate) & it showed it at over 1.3uf so it seemed to be leaky & I suppose the value could be worse at times & could of accounted for the extra long turn on time, I also checked it with my ohm meter & it looked like the resistance is a little more then it should be as well. I replaced the cap with a good 0.1uf 50 volt cap & it has been working fine since, I let it sit for a week or so then power it up & it came right on just like my other 2510. I’ll let it sit for a month or so & retest it, hopefully that took care of the problem. I plan on re-capping all my 2510’s when I get the chance, been wanting to for a couple years now.

I also have another 2510 that the CPU board seemed dead, again no voltage on the output pin 5 of IC314, but this time the capacitor tested ok, I replaced it anyhow but it was still dead, after more testing I found that IC314 is dead & won’t put out any voltage at all, I bypassed it & manually applied 5 volts to the output pin & the CPU came right on & seemed to function fine, so you may want to check around that area.

I’d suggest completely re-capping the radio as who knows how much life is left in the original caps.

Anyhow, here is the picture of what seemed to be the problem cap in my radio (hope I post the picture ok):

 
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Yup, Thanks Pioneer621, after a discussion on 2 meter with my friend last night, he will change out all 4 of those caps in that area next.
I will C/P your message to him in this regard.
Thank You for the reply and will also post my findings in order to hopefully help others as well.
tracker.
 
Yeah, I’ll be curious to hear what the problem is, & like you say, it may come in handy for someone with similar problems in the future!

There nice radios & I hope you get yours up & running again!

Take care,

pioneer621
 
Capacitors in older radios seem to be at the end of their lives and are showing up now. I have been replacing many caps in many different radios and receivers lately and there seems to be a plague of them with these newer LCD flat screen televisions, even some threads on the computer groups show bad caps! A rumor is around that there were millions of cheap caps out of China for a time, I read that a key chemical was left out that shortened the cap's life! :confused: Just to save a buck.... Cutthroats!

73 mechanic
 
I definitely want to go through some of my radios, especially the older ones like my 2510’s, & considering the bad caps that I, and many other people have found in these radios, it just seems appropriate as the rest (or most) of them are likely towards the end of there life as well.

There does seem to be a lot of the newer LCD & Plasma TV’s / Monitors with caps that seemed to of failed WAY before they should have! I have repaired a Plasma & an LCD or two TV’s with faulty caps, the worst part is the TV’s were only a couple years old! Seems a little too soon, considering the price of some of these things. I also repaired a couple LCD computer monitors with bad caps. I don’t repair TV’s that much, but the ones that I have seen all had bad caps & you read about the problem all over the internet.

Unfortunately your probably right, “Just to save a buck....”
 
That's exactly what I thought when hearing of fairly new equipment failing.
These days products are made to last 10 years or so. You will not find extended warranties that cover the expected life of the product!
It would be nice to find a place that sells a cap parts bag to replace all the caps in the 2510 and have it done and over with.
With high quality products for replacement, this little rig would probably last a long to come?
tracker.
 
I too thought a replacement capacitor kit for the 2510 would be a good idea when I was putting a list together for all the caps I needed since I wanted to do mine, would save some people a little time. I was not sure if it would be a big seller, but I thought some people may be interested especially since the radios are somewhat known for capacitor problems since there getting older. I thought about ordering extra caps when I got them for my radios to see if anyone was interested, like on ebay or something, but never got around to it, still have not ordered any for my own radios, & not sure if I would ever try to sell them. But I do think it would be a good idea!

I think with all new electrolytics it would greatly extend the life of the radios, especially with high quality replacements.

And yeah, it does seem like 10 years or so is the lifespan of a lot of electronics today, I have or have worked on a few different things that have went out easily within 10 years, a lot of it was only a couple years old. Most of the newer stuff I have messed with was due to bad caps, a lot of these companies must be getting the cheapest caps they can! It would be nice if some of this stuff lasted as long as the 2510’s. There problems are showing up now, but at least they lasted a while.
 
the news about the cheap electrolytics on the market is very disheartening to hear, as i just ordered about 40.00 worth of electrolytics from mouser.

i always go with nichicon just because thats what ive been using for a while now and they have not failed me yet.

any word on what brand(s) of caps were missing this chemical?

i am doing a complete re-cap on a cobra 2000gtl (nicest one ive ever seen! seriously, its like brand new) and i would hate for the guy to call me in a year saying its broken.

i swear, if i thought people would pay for it, i would go into the re-capping business. LOL
LC
 
the news about the cheap electrolytics on the market is very disheartening to hear, as i just ordered about 40.00 worth of electrolytics from mouser.

i always go with nichicon just because thats what ive been using for a while now and they have not failed me yet.

any word on what brand(s) of caps were missing this chemical?

i am doing a complete re-cap on a cobra 2000gtl (nicest one ive ever seen! seriously, its like brand new) and i would hate for the guy to call me in a year saying its broken.

i swear, if i thought people would pay for it, i would go into the re-capping business. LOL
LC

loosecannon, I cannot specify any particular brands to look out for on the ones that were not made properly, but I remember reading something about that some time ago.

I use nichicon often as well; they have been around for a long time & I have never had a problem with them. There may be better out there, but again, I have never had problems with them. The ones I get are from mouser too.

If that’s what you’re using in the 2000, I think it will be just fine.

With the age of some of these radios & since they just keep getting older, the re-capping business may be something to think about! LOL
 
the news about the cheap electrolytics on the market is very disheartening to hear, as i just ordered about 40.00 worth of electrolytics from mouser.

i always go with nichicon just because thats what ive been using for a while now and they have not failed me yet.

any word on what brand(s) of caps were missing this chemical?

i am doing a complete re-cap on a cobra 2000gtl (nicest one ive ever seen! seriously, its like brand new) and i would hate for the guy to call me in a year saying its broken.

i swear, if i thought people would pay for it, i would go into the re-capping business. LOL
LC

I have not found out any name connected to the "bad" caps but something tells me the company produced caps for more than one concern as so many different brands have failures. :oops:
Cold solder joints can be connected to all sorts of components as I have found this as a problem with resistors and caps. The legs of the parts are not really "clean" enough to be sure of the cohesiveness of the solder. Mechanical motion can bring this bugaboo right out. I just resoldered the side frame 8 volt regulator on a 2510 that was "dropping" out on power, receive and lights would go out and a tap on the case would bring it back most of the time.... :bdh: :confused:
Works better with no voltage drop! :D

mechanic
 
Been away

Sorry i have not been on to offer any help.
Sounds like you are on the right track.

the Main board 8v Regulator getting hot is a sure sign of a short, usually caused by a bad cap.
C60 and C75 as well as C95 and C97 are the normal 'bad cap' culprits.
'Bad Glue' is always a problem on the HR series radios too.

and of course the occasional bad audio IC damaged by a shorted C95..

And failed Regulators too 5v and 8v.

If you need help fee free to email me, I check email every day, but only get to browse the forums as time permits..

Roger
Rogerbird1 @ aim. com
or
Rogerbird1 @ netscape. net

Rogerbird's Radio Modification Information Page
 
Hi all.

My friend changed all the caps that are associated with a defective HR 2510 today.
We also cleaned the glue on the 2 transistors on the small top board.
He says that all voltages to the transistors seems ok.
There is still no display but the back light works.
He says that it does hear, but who knows what frequency the radio is on?
When the coax it connected, he does hear noise.
When he keys his radio, the receive meter does work on the display.
Just no Xmit and display except for the receive meter.

In which direction should we proceed at this point to get it working?
My friend is thinking it might be the microprocessor but we hope not as he nor I are equipped to make that kind of repair.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, tracker.
 
i have 1 does same. lights up recieves. but no digital display turn the vfo
and you can hear changes so its still changing frequencys.but im
lost on this also
 
display

THe HR series also can have bad caps on the display board.
THere are 3 electrolytic caps on the display board.
I would replace all 3.

Also the voltage for the display comes from the Microprocessor board.

Next to the 5v regulator behind the Memory cap, there are 3 diodes. the left most one is the display voltage diode.
it should be 5 volts on the backside of the diode and 4.4v or higher on the front.
4.2v will give no display.. 4.3v may be there, 4.4 will be dim or only seen at an angle.

You can jump across the diode to see if the display comes up.
I have seen instances where the voltage pin for the display on the micro is weak and 4.4 isnt enough to make the digits light. (Replacing the micro fixes this)

Roger
 
Hi Rogerbird1

With these values or diodes changed to see the display, would that fix the Xmit problem as the radio still has no Xmit?

hotrod, does yours Xmit? Also go to Rogerbird's web site for info. LOTS of stuff there that might help you.

tracker
 
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