After my successful driver modification and it being ''ON AIR'' flawlessly for over seven months it has now died The display has now died - no contrast whatsoever - it was still working when it went faulty. Now when it powers up - just the back light. CPU Keyboard No circuit diagram of the Display - this is the back of it

R.I.P

Elenos may supply you a replacement ifn you sweet talk them, it'd be worth it for such a nice transmitter - you probably need a new one unless you have a magic way of dealing with all that hot melt glue!

Look for some "contrast" control. It should have a potentiometer gone bad, and probably needs a negative voltage that should be present.
Btw, it looks like a standard "hd44780" based LCD module, maybe 40 chars x 4 lines?

Krakatoa wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:53 am Look for some "contrast" control. It should have a potentiometer gone bad, and probably needs a negative voltage that should be present.

I can't see a pot in the Diag
The 'contrast' is controlled by the Keys

Krakatoa wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:53 am Btw, it looks like a standard "hd44780" based LCD module, maybe 40 chars x 4 lines?

This is a display working

yellowbeard wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:04 am Elenos may supply you a replacement ifn you sweet talk them, it'd be worth it for such a nice transmitter - you probably need a new one unless you have a magic way of dealing with all that hot melt glue!

Nothing available from Elenos...... it's the old model

I would have to look for a second hand one
They would probably want a fortune for it and...
There would probably no guarantee that it would work

use hot gun and remove white plastic..

The contrast control is VR1 which is the blue trimmer near top right of the photo. Check voltage on all 3 pins. Pin 2 voltage should be somewhere between pins 1 and 3 but not same as either. If its the same then pot has probably failed. Also just try turning the pot a little either side and see if it comes back.

Tbh those bourns multiturn pots are sealed and almost never go bad so probably not that but worth a try.

Does anything else on the unit work, i.e. does it still transmit or is it completely dead? Would help to know if fault is with display or CPU. If its just display then the unit should work otherwise

Btw is the glue hot melt? I find hot melt comes off easy enough with a bit of hot air. Not so much it melts just enough to soften it. Just be careful not to pull components off with it

Btw I can see "Ampire" printed on the LCD board. Ampire are an LCD manufacturer. If you can make out any more text under the glue might be able to ID a replacement. The numbers on the white sticker (?) partly hidden by the ribbon cable might be useful

Does the transmitter put out any RF? If it's completely dead, it's almost certainly a PSU fault. We had trouble with Elenos power supplies on several of their rigs. They're (usually) very close to their limit ratings - there's little margin at all. One installation had an antenna / feedline SWR that increased slightly (due to corrosion) from 1.05 : 1 to ~1.1 : 1. The site engineers didn't notice the small change, and the PSU on the rig failed after a couple of months.

This down to poor design practice, but is all too common with equipment from certain countries (looking at you, Italy!).....

jvok wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:46 pm The contrast control is VR1 which is the blue trimmer near top right of the photo. Check voltage on all 3 pins. Pin 2 voltage should be somewhere between pins 1 and 3 but not same as either. If its the same then pot has probably failed. Also just try turning the pot a little either side and see if it comes back.

These are the Voltages around VR1

jvok wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:46 pm Does anything else on the unit work, i.e. does it still transmit or is it completely dead? Would help to know if fault is with display or CPU. If its just display then the unit should work otherwise

When it went faulty it was working OK
Still putting out power and working audio wise as normal so I am assuming it's just the display.

jvok wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:46 pm Btw is the glue hot melt? I find hot melt comes off easy enough with a bit of hot air. Not so much it melts just enough to soften it. Just be careful not to pull components off with it

I will give it a go, might take a while

Albert H wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2024 1:47 am Does the transmitter put out any RF? If it's completely dead, it's almost certainly a PSU fault. We had trouble with Elenos power supplies on several of their rigs. They're (usually) very close to their limit ratings - there's little margin at all. One installation had an antenna / feedline SWR that increased slightly (due to corrosion) from 1.05 : 1 to ~1.1 : 1. The site engineers didn't notice the small change, and the PSU on the rig failed after a couple of months.

This down to poor design practice, but is all too common with equipment from certain countries (looking at you, Italy!).....

As I mentioned in the first post "it was still working when it went faulty."

It had been on working normally for about 2 hrs before I found the display was not working
I left it on for another 3hrs so I could get another Transmitter ready to replace it.
So...... I'm assuming everything else is OK

When I power it up now it runs up as normal but the display is dead, no contrast as the picture

And NO it does not put out any power it never did just by powering it up
it had to be turned on using the Keyboard and the display.

jvok wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2024 7:49 pm Btw I can see "Ampire" printed on the LCD board. Ampire are an LCD manufacturer. If you can make out any more text under the glue might be able to ID a replacement. The numbers on the white sticker (?) partly hidden by the ribbon cable might be useful

The Board is an AMPIRE 24064B1 REV.C
The Sticker on the IC is...
24064B1
FILYOO
03.16
C3272

2.46V on VCC doesn't look right. Expect 3.3 or 5v on there. Sounds like either a bad PSU or something shorted and overloading it.

Trace VCC back through the schematic and see where it comes from. Can see it shows up as "V_display" on the CPU page (going into L8) but not sure where it goes from there.

Could be a short in the display module. Try measuring VCC with ribbon cable unplugged

jvok wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2024 3:02 pm 2.46V on VCC doesn't look right. Expect 3.3 or 5v on there. Sounds like either a bad PSU or something shorted and overloading it.

Trace VCC back through the schematic and see where it comes from. Can see it shows up as "V_display" on the CPU page (going into L8) but not sure where it goes from there.

Could be a short in the display module. Try measuring VCC with ribbon cable unplugged

These are all the VCC Voltages on the Keyboard - I'm totally baffled now

Could be a broken trace/solder joint stopping 5v from getting to all those points. Check continuity between all VCC points (with power off) and see if theres any open circuits

With the power off (obviously), and with the display, keyboard and power supply disconnected, measure the DC resistance between the 5V rail and ground. They usually cheap out on the electrolytic capacitors, and they fail after being warm for a while. Your 5V rail may be being dragged down by a dud filter capacitor from rail to deck (that's just about the most common type of failure with Italian rigs!).

jvok wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2024 8:45 pm Could be a broken trace/solder joint stopping 5v from getting to all those points. Check continuity between all VCC points (with power off) and see if theres any open circuits

I assume all the *VCC* on one board should measure the same Voltage so...
YES I am assuming a broken trace or bad joint

Albert H wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2024 12:00 am With the power off (obviously), and with the display, keyboard and power supply disconnected, measure the DC resistance between the 5V rail and ground. They usually cheap out on the electrolytic capacitors, and they fail after being warm for a while. Your 5V rail may be being dragged down by a dud filter capacitor from rail to deck (that's just about the most common type of failure with Italian rigs!).

As you can see on the picture I posted - three of the VCC points measure 4.97V
So.......... the 5V rail is obviously not being dragged down

However the other four VCC points only measure +/- 2.46V
So............. I am assuming a broken trace or bad joint causing the problem

I have noticed that some hotmeltglues slowly absorbs water. Might be that hotmeltglue making problems.