[Premium-Rx] RA6790GM replacing LED bulbs above display windows

[Dan Rae]

Jim Garrison wrote:

> How easy?/How difficult?, and How cheap/How expensive?
>
If you are talking about leds which are found in the later version, they 
should not ever need replacement. If you are talking about the 
incandescent filament bulbs found in the early version then some or all 
will almost certainly have died by now...

You can buy a replacement led board kit for the old version, I'd guess 
around $50, and this is fairly easy to install in the old version, but 
may require some machining of the acrylic spacer round the windows for 
the leds to fit.  I have found it easier to fit little surface mount 
leds (side firing yellow ones by Panasonic) on 1/8th inch wide strips of 
pcb board material, after removing the bulbs from the board.  They are 
connected in series in groups of 4, each fed with a 180 Ohm R.  8 above 
and 8 below each display.  Little slots are cut in the pcb material 
under each led.   The original tracks are used as supply busses and the 
strips can be glued, but also are held in place by the Rs and the ground 
returns.

I got the leds from digikey, buy a few extra, as they have a habit of 
jumping away and getting lost...  This is actually more complicated to 
describe than to do.

I have also fitted led lighting to one of my RA1792s, using a similar 
approach, a big improvement over the original which had no lighting...

Good luck,
Dan
ac6ao / g3ncr