[Elecraft] KX1 repair complete!

[John Shadle]

Last week I posted (in quite a state of despair) about the temporary 
death of my KX1 (S/N 1601). Long story short was that I had most likely 
shorted Q6 to the top case due to some metal burrs poking through the 
countersunk hole for the nylon screw. I smelled an awful burning odor, 
shut off the KX1 and found that I had burned the trace under R16 and R17.

By searching the archives of this list, I found a fellow builder who had 
reported on the same problem (Denny, W7SNH).

http://marc.info/?l=elecraft&m=111269643608699&w=2

Denny, as well as others on this list and the folks at 
support at elecraft.com helped guide me through the repair process.

I've documented some of the work below, for those of you who like photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shadle/sets/72157600964189359/

Main lesson learned from this repair and experience was that it is super 
important to put a 1.5A fuse inline with the positive lead of an 
external battery. That may have limited damage to my PCB.

Thanks to the folks at Elecraft for getting replacement parts to me in 
short order (received them today and finished my repair this evening).

Happy to report 3w out on 40m and 4w out on 20m with the DL1 at 12.8v in 
from the gel cell (fused, of course). ;)

Thanks for all your help. Lesson learned.

-john W4PAH