[Elecraft] K3: Repair Broken Power Pole

[Jim Brown]

On 5/31/2014 4:03 PM, Don Wilhelm wrote:
> what did you do the break the APP housing, they are pretty sturdy things. 

Once I looked more carefully at it, it turns out the wound was 
self-inflicted. My operating bench has no clearance space  behind it and 
a shelf only six inches or so above it, so it's difficult to get to the 
back of gear, let alone see what you're doing when you're back there. 
The failure occurred when I tried plugging in the DC power connector and 
missed by one position, so that the red 12V hot lead plugged into the 
black jack, partially melting it.

Thanks for all the detailed suggestions. The solution was to remove the 
top panel, then the side panel. That gave me access to the jack, but 
when I removed it, the #14 wire soldered to the PCB came with it. To 
solder a new wire to the board, I needed access to the bottom side of 
the board -- my Hakko from the top side wasn't cutting it. So I removed 
most of the screws holding that bottom corner spacer, swiveled it out of 
the way of the iron, loosened several screws holding the bottom cover 
and propped it open with pliers so I could see that under-side solder 
pad. That let me make a good joint.

Everything is all better now. Thanks for the advice.

73, Jim K9YC