[Elecraft] K3 transmitter power woes

[jerry]

On 2021-09-13 12:56, chetsubaccount at snet.net wrote:
> Any other suggestions before I bit the bullet and prepare to send it to
> Elecraft? Thanks for any ideas.
> 
Generally, when miscellaneous weird stuff happens to a piece of complex 
equipment - stuff that seems to have no relationship the one to the 
other- my first instinct
is to check the power supplies.  Not just the main 13.8V power, but also 
any lower
( or higher! ) transformed voltages.

   Here's an example - I have a Fluke 3000 signal generator that mostly 
works....except when it doesn't.  It has a pair of 18V power supplies - 
plus & minus.  The RF guts are
in a multitude of little shield cans.  In each can - well, in most of 
them - are a
couple of 10uF tantalum caps, one on the positive leg, one on the 
negative leg.  Once in a while, one of them will short out, disabling 
that particular power supply.  When one of those 18V supplies goes out, 
pretty much everything dies.

   Power supplies are like octopi - with tentacles going into every part 
of the radio.
No guarantees of course - but when seemingly unrelated stuff starts 
failing, that's where I look first.

                       - Jerry KF6VB