I have been working on CP 185 radios I purchased on eBay for fun. I have about 25-30 radios and I have fixed most of them.
VHF and UHF assorted.
Lots of head phone jacks that were messed with by someone before me. I had to use the microscope and run new wires because of damaged pads! Total pain. I ruffed up surfaces and used epoxy to secure them back to the board. There literally were no pads left to secure them to. Had to preheat boards and use hot air to re flow. Someone had purchased new plugs but the boards were trashed.
Had one with very distorted and buzzing audio. Didn't matter if it was monitoring or listening on a good carrier. Sounded like a audio amp problem to me so I replaced the audio output IC and it fixed it!
Knobs, cases and switches. The hardest switches were the SMD ones for press to talk (A) (B) Playing picture pages online I was able to source exact replacements. Worked well. Cases and knobs were ebay. very cheap.
Batteries! OMG. found cheep batteries. Few bucks each but all bad. Had to rebuild cells. Turns out those cells can be found in several Dell laptop batteries for super cheep.
Now I am down to the "hard few" that I really need help on. I have one that was water damaged so it is a donor board. I don't even want to chase bad through holes and traces without a schematic. I have already stole several parts from it including that audio IC.
This is what is left.
1, No Transmit "transmit light comes on. Nobody else hears anything" I have not put it to a Bird Watt meter. I would love one of those but I do not have one. My guess is probably main output driver.
2. No Receive "won't break squelch, monitor nothing but static"
3. No mic "not the one in the case. have swapped with wires. Will modulate but not insert audio"
4. Unknown Code Plug password "I have no idea"
5. Code Plug not supported "Maybe a new version of the software?"
I sure could use some schematics for these things.
If anyone has any suggestions or knows where I can get a schematic drawing for these things I would appreciate it.
Cheers
Randall
VHF and UHF assorted.
Lots of head phone jacks that were messed with by someone before me. I had to use the microscope and run new wires because of damaged pads! Total pain. I ruffed up surfaces and used epoxy to secure them back to the board. There literally were no pads left to secure them to. Had to preheat boards and use hot air to re flow. Someone had purchased new plugs but the boards were trashed.
Had one with very distorted and buzzing audio. Didn't matter if it was monitoring or listening on a good carrier. Sounded like a audio amp problem to me so I replaced the audio output IC and it fixed it!
Knobs, cases and switches. The hardest switches were the SMD ones for press to talk (A) (B) Playing picture pages online I was able to source exact replacements. Worked well. Cases and knobs were ebay. very cheap.
Batteries! OMG. found cheep batteries. Few bucks each but all bad. Had to rebuild cells. Turns out those cells can be found in several Dell laptop batteries for super cheep.
Now I am down to the "hard few" that I really need help on. I have one that was water damaged so it is a donor board. I don't even want to chase bad through holes and traces without a schematic. I have already stole several parts from it including that audio IC.
This is what is left.
1, No Transmit "transmit light comes on. Nobody else hears anything" I have not put it to a Bird Watt meter. I would love one of those but I do not have one. My guess is probably main output driver.
2. No Receive "won't break squelch, monitor nothing but static"
3. No mic "not the one in the case. have swapped with wires. Will modulate but not insert audio"
4. Unknown Code Plug password "I have no idea"
5. Code Plug not supported "Maybe a new version of the software?"
I sure could use some schematics for these things.
If anyone has any suggestions or knows where I can get a schematic drawing for these things I would appreciate it.
Cheers
Randall
