[Elecraft] [K3] Keyer Pause

[Donald Thompson]

Hi Bruna,
Thanks for getting back to so quickly.
I cleaned the contacts with WD40 as you suggested and now it runs clean.  I saturated a paper strip in WD40 and firmly passed the strip between as I held the paddle closed.  Before cleaning I backed the contacts way back and inspected with a 10X loop.  The contact on the adjustment screw for the dash appeared to have a large imperfection in the center of the contact.  It looked like a rust pit on iron.  I thought for sure it was a manufacturing defect but after the cleaning as described above it's gone and contact appears normal, like the others. After the cleaning I did about 100 73s and no 7V or other error.  Same with other tests.  For now it seems to work fine.

It is still strange to me since the Leonessa worked fine on my K2 and on the CW Machine but not on the K3 (not KX3).  Someone on the reflector talked about wetting current with Silver contacts.  I see this as the only explaination of why it worked fine on the others but not on K3.  I am going to talk to Elecraft support.  My guess is that the K3 uses less current than the other devices, and thus never 'turned on' the dirty contact.  In any case the real problem was a dirty contact. 

Thanks Piero and Bruna, and everyone on the reflector.

73,
Don KA1KU



> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donald Thompson" <thompsondd at comcast.net>
> To: "David Cutter" <d.cutter at ntlworld.com>; "BRUNA BEGALI" <bbegali at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Elecraft Reflector" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 5:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [K3] Keyer Pause
> 
> 
> Hi Bruna,
> I moved my Leonessa Key from the CW Machine to my new K3 and encountered failures on the dash sometimes.  I think that I have confirmed it to be dirty contact on the Leonessa since the K3 works fine with the Elecraft Hex key.
> 
> I would like specific instructions on how to clean this.  I got lots of different suggestions on the reflector but want to make sure I do it correctly and don't damage anything.
> 
> Can you also confirm that this key gas gold contacts?
> 
> Thanks,
> Don KA1KU (KB1YBG)