[Elecraft] K2 5233 alignment problems

kf4pob at aol.com kf4pob at aol.com
Wed Apr 29 22:14:33 EDT 2009


I hear that a third time is a charm. This is the third time trying to post and I hope it works.
I am at the alignment section of phase III and everything seems to have gone hay-wire. Phases I and II went well with only a couple of glitches that were corrected with your help. I checked and repaired a few solder joints, looked for solder bridges and correct parts in the correct locations and fired up the unit. No smoke and no overheating. I set the power out at 2 watts, unit at 7100 and hit the button to adjust L1 and L2. I had .2-.3 watts indicated but they did not fluctuate when adjusting the pots. I checked the diode and resisters that they said were easily reversed and they were all ok. Using the rf probe I had no voltage at either side of r50. Further checks of components in the transmitter section found most of the U chips had improper voltages or double voltages at the appropriate pinsl I then went back to phase I and started running checks again. All was ok until I got to the tone generator and pitch. I now had neither!. The display showed the values I had after the construction of that phase but now they are gone. When I hit the button to turn the tone on the audio went away. I did notice a very low click when I adjusted the vfo. I also went back to check the birdy at 7000 and found it to be very weak and totally disappeared when I moved the vfo dial. It came back when I hit the edit button but very shaky. 
Logic dictates the problem is in the construction phase of part III. The above is a short synopsis of the checks I did but I did not take the time to give the actual values of the U pin voltages at this time. I have tried to post twice before and want to verify this message goes thru before taking the time to enter the values. This leads to two questions

1)? Where do you suggest I start from here?
2)? Is there anywhere I can get a picture of the rf board before any parts are installed. That would be great for helping me locate any solder bridges on those small pads. 

Thanks in advance for your help.
Dan 
af4lb


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