What electronics have YOU fixed lately?

[unit_399]

I "horsetraded" for a '88 Chevrolet (Isuzu) Trooper 4x4 so that we could go off-roading with our friends without using our daily drivers. When we got it, the windshield wipers and the high beam headlights didn't work. I successfully rebuilt the wiper motor, but whenever I shut off the wipers they would immediately stop and never return to the park position. The manual referred to a "parking relay circuit board" but I was never able to find it.
I traced the high beam problem to the dimmer switch on the steering column combination control. While looking in the manual to see which wire on the combo switch plug went to the high beams, I noticed one wire was labeled "self parking." Turned out that the self park circuit board is part of the combo switch. I removed the board and cleaned it. The picture below shows the solder side of the board. There were 25 fractured solder joints. Also found additional bad solders on the dimmer control board. Resoldered ALL of the joints on the entire combo switch. Now the high beams work and the wipers park perfectly.
Simple repair for two frustrating problems.

 

[sunbulls]

I recently grabbed an old 1989 Philly 29LTD to work on. A recap job was way past due and the corrosive glue I found should have been removed years ago. Several caps had their legs eaten out from under them. A resistor and a transistor were also affected. I almost missed spotting the glue on TR-18, so I thought I would draw attention to it in case others may have done the same. TR-18 has a ferrite bead attached to one leg. The ferrites attached to other legs such as the one on R56 are sometimes also glued, but I was already aware of those. Some of them are glued, others are not. It depends on the year made or manufacture. Anyway, that transistor was a failure waiting to happen. The ferrite leg was barely hanging on.

So far the old Philly is working great. I’m only waiting on a new stock of .47uf caps to arrive. While burning the radio in I’m playing pick-a-channel during skip hours with the cover off. Everything else is completed.

 

[TM86]

Fixed a bad external speaker jack on a Cobra 148GTL today. The location is somewhat less than convenient.

 

[Greg T]

I've been a golf car mechanic for the last 35 years (or so) and in that amount of time have encountered well over 100 bad OBC on Club Car electrics.
About 20 years ago I came up with an idea that both satisfied pissed of customers and pissed off Club Car tech reps.
Instead of replacing the bad On Board computers, I bypass them, and then hard wire an automatic sensor/timer into the charger. So, instead of the computer turning the charger on and off, the chargers now work the same as the old Lestronic chargers by Lester electrical. Just did another a few days ago.

 

[binrat]

Me, replaced some electronic parts on our BN aircraft fuel trucks. A couple of diodes and back battery holders later, all working. Came from the manufacturer ok but people with a golden screw driver shorted something out

 

[M0GVZ]

Wife's heatgun she uses for doing signage. She's had it donkeys years and the mains cable just gave up where it went into the plug after 20 years of flexing. She was going to buy a new one and I told her in no uncertain terms was she going to waste money and contribute to electronic waste and needlessly contribute to wrecking the planet buying a new one that she didn't need when all it was to fix it was cutting the mains cable back a few inches and refitting the mains plug.

 

[TheRATT]

It isn't a "fix" but I modified my Icom 7200 for 11m activation.

 

[nomadradio]

It isn't a "fix"

Who says? If it solved a problem, it's a fix.

73

 

[twa77]

Built a fender vibrochamp. Built a fender 6g2 Princeton. Put new caps in and totally rewired a turner plus 3. Right now I am in the process of rebuilding a super sidekick. Gonna powder coat it traffic black ( a low gloss black by diamond vogel) where I work.

 

[sunbulls]

Lately I’ve been working on a previously untouched virgin Uniden Pro 500D. It has the same basic board as a few other Pro models. At this point I believe the SM5124A PLL is bad. I replaced all the electrolytic caps in anticipation of finding another PLL ,but no luck so far. This one will stay on the back burner until I find a source, probably some future parts radio. It’s a CMOS chip and who knows if the new chips from China are fake or even preprogrammed for these radios? This radio showed it had a few missing LED segments, but the LED readout is fine. As proof, channel 88 showed up at some point on the dial. Ha! All the channels now fall into place after the PLL has been removed. This is often the symptom with a chip like the SM5124A PLL as part of it also controls the LED. All the other major parts such as the final, driver, audio amp, 8 volt regulator, plus 10.2419 crystal tested OK.

 

[OldTech03]

This is just what I could remember I know I'm leaving something out but this is what I repaired in the last 2 weeks and turned away 3 times more than this just don't have the time.

GALAXY 99V WHICH I JUST FINISHED:
RANGER 69 BASE
GALAXY DX2517 BASE:
TEXAS STAR 500 MOBILE:
DONKEY STOMPER 2 X 8 REPAIR:
TRANSEL WATT METER
GALAXY DX47 MOBILE REPAIR:
ROBYN 520D BASE
COBRA 25LTD MOBILE
COBRA 29LTD MOBILE
YAESU R-1000 RECIEVER:
FATBOY STRAIGHT 8 REPAIR:
CONNEX 4600HP MOBILE
CONNEX 3300HP MOBILE

 

[TM86]

Realistic TRC-457 with no modulation and a flaky LED segment.

Recapped her and the modulation was restored. Spun the channel selector a few times and the LED segment seems to work fine now.

Best part, I didn't have to undo any weird mods.

 

[sunbulls]

After I finally located another SM5124A PLL chip for the Uniden Pro 500D that I was refurbishing, it’s now up and working great. Checking for heat, I almost burnt my fingers on the bare 8 volt regulator. IMO Poor design, so I extended the regulator’s leads and attached it to the side of the chassis. It's now lukewarm. It should have had some sort of heat sinking in the first place. Good to go… I placed this radio in line for about a week. No problems, so on to my next Uniden compact.

This one is a Vietnamese Uniden Pro 510XL. It looks similar to the 500D on the outside, but it has the later SMT board version. After an electrolytic recap and tune, this one was good go except for one bothersome issue. Some circuit design engineer wired the encoder backwards. While turning the knob clockwise the channels went down, not up as it should. To solve this problem I effectively reversed the two encoder's outer connections by cutting around the terminal traces and adding jumper wires. This was a little tedious since the small circuit board that‘s attached to this encoder was also populated with nearby SMT parts.

 

[TM86]

"Fixed" a child's counting bank. And by fixed I mean disassembled to get the battery tray out, desoldered the power wires, and soaked the tray in vinegar until it stopped bubbling. Then a light baking soda rub, thorough rinse, and a few hours to dry. Resoldered power wires, reassembled the bank and put in a couple new AA cells.

It's being used right now to count the coins that were left in the bank when the old batteries leaked.

 

[unit_399]

A few weeks back, a neighbor gave me a non-op counter top microwave. He knew that I worked on electronics, and thought I might want it for parts. When I opened it up and tested it, it would start up ok, but after a couple of seconds the display would go crazy and it would begin randomly switching on and off. Bottom line was that the computer chip in the control board was toast.
The control board was NLA from the manufacturer. So I decided to try and find a generic timer with a relay that would handle the MW's amp draw. Found this one on AMAZON.

Removed the old control board and touch panel and installed the new timer. The old controller switched the neutral side of the AC line, and the new timer switched the hot side, so I had to modify the MW's wiring to account for this. I was able to retain all of the safety fuses and the door lockout switches.
Refurbed MW works100%. Nice addition to my workshop for 12 bucks and a few hours work.




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