Xts3000 problem

[JJones27320]

Recently I have been having a problem, sometime when I turn on my xts3000, after self test, the screen shows a bunch of ascii characters and doesn't work, then other times I can turn it off and leave it a while and turn it back on and I works fine. I've attached a photo of what it shows on the screen.

Has anyone else had this issue or know what could be causing it?

 

[GearJammersc]

It appears to me that the LCD is going bad? I had one years ago the characters started getting weak and it only show half of a character. This is not suppressing sense those radios are old. You can always replace the housing. The housing are available on Ebay cheap.

 

[mmckenna]

Well, the 01/82 part looks to be an error code.
This might be the wrong one, but searching BatLabs.com shows:

01/82

External EEPROM Checksum Failure

Reprogram the Codeplug

 

[kayn1n32008]

Time to retire it and upgrade to a XTS2500 or XTS5000... the XTS3000 is VERY long in the tooth.

 

[MTS2000des]

Yup. The EEPROM that stores the external codeplug is literally worn out. These radios (and modern ones too) do background writing of data such as trunking control channel table updates, scan list members, last zone/channel powered up on. They only have a finite number of write cycles before they crash. The FAIL 01/82 is the radio operating system equivalent of an IDE SMART message telling you YOUR DRIVE IS HOSED.

Sure, you can source the Atmel chip, desolder and replace it, but why bother? A used XTS2500/5000, especially 7/800, are the cost of a tank of gas these days. And much better sounding than a two decade old XTS3000.

 

[JJones27320]

That's what I was afraid of. I thought it may be the eeprom. Thanks for the info

 

[mm]

I have had 3 of these crappy xts3000 bad displays sitting for the past 7 years and finally today I fixed all of them.

For the past weekend I was playing around with a new Thermatron temp chamber that I purchased and after waisting an entire day sunday trying out various methods that others told me on how to fix LCB lost pixels by throwing the lcd in the oven at various temperatures and trying to dry air bubbles from the flex and other nonsense I had zero success.

I was almost going to give up when I started squeezing the circuit board front to back between my fingers and I noticed that when I squeezed the circuit board near the row of circuit board vias that comes off of the flex going to the front side of the LCD that my LCD characters started coming back.

So coming up with an idea that maybe this is not a flex epoxy glue issue as many have thought but a simple loss of via contacts due to poor quality circuit board vias from one layer to other inner layers I first took some alcohol and I cleaned all of the circuit board vias near the flex going to the LCD to get any contaminants out of the vias.

Working under a desk magnifier is imperative so that you do not accidently hit the flex with your solder iron.

I inspected the via holes and I could clearly see inside to other layers that looked questionable on some vias so I figured what do I have to loose by trying to get solder flowing into all the backside circuit board vias.

I have a very good magnifier used to look at RF power transistor DIE marking s and such so this helped me to zero in on the issue but it isn't needed for other who want to try and fix their LCD's.

Next I took a small bristle cleaning brush of the type intended to clean flux off of circuit boards and I cleaned all of the crud that was in these via holes with alcohol.


Next I took some liquid flux and a very small soldering iron with a small tip I have and I slowly/carefully filled each and every via hole with flux then carefully using ultra fine solder I filled each hole being careful not to hit the flex cable, some electrical tape along the flex to circuit board contact area may help but I had Kaptone tape on hand and this what I used.

Working from one side to the other I filled in each via hole with solder then I went back and put more flux over each hole and hit each via hole again with the solder iron and solder until I could clearly see the solder being sucked into each via hole.

I now have 3 good working XTS3000 displays.

Thank you Motorola for giving up and leaving everyone clueless with your crappy circuit board vias.
Feel free to pass this on to other Motorola groups as needed.

Disclaimer: I assume no responsibility for any damage done to anyone's radios LCD's etc, this is entirely for those adventurous souls who want to try and bring back dead/dog FUBAR XTS3000 LCD's.

Also since there may also be an issue with some flex connections with bad crumbling epoxy this may not work 100% on all LCD's but it is still worth a try before going to other routes that may certainly damage the flex cable going from the LCD boards front to back side such as solder irons and heat guns on the flex cable.