[Elecraft] Odd K3 Behavior

[Paul Lannuier]

Thanks to all who have replied on- and off-list. I will start by cleaning the connector pins as best I can and reseating the front panel. This appears to be the most obvious place to start. 

I’ll report back with the results.

73,
Paul WW2PT


On Jan 17, 2014, at 9:27 AM, Don Wilhelm <w3fpr at embarqmail.com> wrote:

> Paul,
> 
> Your low serial number K3 most likely does not have gold pins on the front panel to RF board connectors.
> You can probably fix it by removing and reseating the front panel assembly.  Some have reported that a small bit of DeOxit will help, but I cannot personally vouch for that.
> If that fixes it, know that you can change the connectors to the gold ones, or have Elecraft do that for you - contact support for the part numbers.
> 
> If you did not assemble that K3, you can find the front panel removal instructions in several of the Elecraft documents - one of which is the K3 Front Panel Modification http://www.elecraft.com/K3/mods/K3%20Rev%20B%20FP%20Mod%20v1r6.pdf - you do not have to do the mod, just skip to Section B which covers the front panel removal and reassembly.
> 
> 73,
> Don W3FPR
> 
> On 1/17/2014 9:43 AM, Paul Lannuier wrote:
>> My six year old K3 (#217) has been behaving oddly the past few weeks. The NB button sometimes doesn't work at all, either short press or press-and-hold, and sometimes when I press and hold it to bring up the LEVEL settings it behaves as though I'm pressing SPEED/MIC knob -- i.e., the display will toggle between CW speed and Mic level. Also, the left side of the BAND and MODE buttons sometimes do nothing when pressed; the right side of these same buttons continue to work. There may be other similar problems with other buttons, I can't remember. These are the two that I notice repeatedly since I change band, mode and NB settings often. Nothing out of the ordinary triggers this; one minute it works fine, the next it doesn't.
>> 
>> I can sometimes get the rig to behave normally by cycling the power, other times by pressing another button that does work. Other times nothing works, until it just starts acting normally by itself. I've reloaded the latest revision firmware as well as an older revision from 2010 that I had on my PC. I've also reloaded old and current configuration files. Goofiness persists.
>> 
>> Could something on the front panel PCB have gone awry on me? I have a KPA500 and a PC connected to the rig, if that is relevant. I've not tried to duplicate the trouble with everything disconnected yet.
>>