[Kenwood] 520SE what goes bad?

[Bill]

Hi Mike.
Driver tubes fail more often than finals.  Also some 12BY7's just won't work in some rigs; best to have 5 or 6 to cycle thru when you need one; save the others for other rigs, as they might work for someone else and not you.
The bandswitch plastic coupling between the RF unit and the PA enclosure often cracks; this causes the "have to jiggle the bandswitch knob to make it work" syndrome.  This is a 1/4" coupling that is carried by Kenwood parts.
Meter lamps, use the 12V grain of wheat bulbs from RS and add a 100 ohm, 1W wire wound resistor in series to make them last longer. Same with the VFO lamp.
Needle oiler with 10W or 10-30 automotive oil, lube the VFO shaft and motor bearings once a year. 
Compressed air (from compressor, not canned variety) to blow rig out once a year.
Surge absorber for AC Line, to prevent hi-v caps from shorting due to line spikes, spend at least $50.00 here.  Don't use the $14.00 cheapies.
Set of filter caps for the hi-v section, these fail rarely but are not easy to find in the original configuration.  Anything else looks ugly.
That's about it, the 520/530 series was very reliable.  Oh, when you are blowing out the rig, check the solder joints to tube socket pins on the finals... these will develop bad solder joints over time, just resolder with pretty good amount of solder, fill it in, you should not have to do again for a long time.
b
 radionut <radionutmike@mindspring.com> wrote:This is kind of a off the wall question, I have two Kenwood TS-520(one S and
one SE) rigs. Recently I decided to pick up a few of the tubes just to have
on hand incase one went bad. I was able to find a number of good ones on
e-bay and have a stock pile now.

This got me thinking, while I have not had any problems for quite some time
with either rig, what are the most common failures in the TS-520 S and SE
line?

I think it would be wise to collect a few of those components that are the
most common to fail so that they are on hand in case of the need for
emergency repair.

Told you it was kind of off the wall but I think it would be helpful for my
self and others who have these rigs.

Any ideas or suggestions of what history has shown the most common failed is
with these rigs and what parts would would be good to stock?

Mike


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