[Elecraft] Field repairs to K3s

[Walter Underwood]

Personally, I would read through the kit assembly instruction for the K3S and see if the module tests were helpful.

http://www.elecraft.com/manual/E740259%20K3s%20Assembly%20Manual.pdf

When you need more than that, I’ve seen awesome support on this list and from Elecraft support. They will often suggest a specific component to test and replace.

wunder
K6WRU
Walter Underwood
CM87wj
http://observer.wunderwood.org/ (my blog)

> On May 26, 2018, at 11:07 AM, <john at kk9a.com> <john at kk9a.com> wrote:
> 
> Well stated.  It's ridiculous to believe that with all of the components in
> a transceiver, one will not fail or that a design could not improvement once
> hundreds+ of the product are being used daily by various customers.
> 
> John KK9A
> 
> 
> Bob McGraw K4TAX wrote: 
> If you are looking for a radio which won't fail, I suggest one keep your
> money in the bank.  All new radios, all brands, have a known failure rate,
> out if the box, at one year, and two years.  That is the reason companies
> offer a warranty. They expect some number but of units to fail during the
> warranty period.  Nothing unusual about this fact. 
> 
> As to personally repairing one of the modern radios, unless one has
> capability to handle remove and replace surface mount components, as well as
> rather extensive test equipment and advanced knowledge of electronics, one
> is relying on board or modular exchange.  This does involve the factory an
> leaves one with a nonworking product for a period of time. 
> 
> For a period of years I repaired many ham radio products for others. In
> probably a majority of cases I had to not only find and repair the original
> fault, but.....I had to correct the attempted repairs of others. 
> 
> Like many other products, we are moving more and more to a toss and replace
> commodity.   
> 
> Bob, K4TAX
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On May 26, 2018, at 11:12 AM, Drew AF2Z <pubx1 at af2z.net> wrote:
>> 
>> I've done a couple of repairs on my old K3: blown pin diodes on the
> transverter board, and the corroded 12 vdc connector pins on the KPA3 amp.
> Have also done several component-level mod kits supplied by Elecraft.
>> 
>> I think Elecraft will supply all K3 parts that are still in production
> and, if I'm not mistaken, they stockpile end-of-life components for future
> repairs. But you can't expect parts to be available forever.
>> 
>> FWIW, I recently managed to find a ceramic filter for my Argonaut V that
> is out of production. I ordered directly from TenTec. Amazingly they still
> had a few in stock.
>> 
>> 73,
>> Drew
>> AF2Z
> 
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