[Premium-Rx] Harris RF-590 or R-2368/URR VFD Replacement thoughts

[Todd K. Rodgers]

Hello All:

  I've just acquired a very nice Harris R-2368/URR receiver. 
Unfortunately, both the mode and frequency display VFD's are aging as 
they do. In my searching, it appears that the actual displays (the VFD's 
themselves) are long out of stock/manufacture, and Harris assemblies 
have been hard to find (my experience, so far). My displays are still 
quite readable, but...

  I've begun to think about building replacement boards with either 
LED's (both 14 and 7 segments, as appropriate for each display type) or, 
use either OLED or TFT LCD arrays to replace the VFD displays. The LED 
solution is relatively straight forward, but I'm intrigued by using an 
image display to get the appearance to look like the original VFD 
elements. If an image based solution is implemented, one could change 
the "font" of the display, provide different colors, etc. Additionally, 
with some additional wiring internal to the receiver, and the expanded 
"screen" real estate, one could imagine a digital clone of the signal 
strength/audio output meter. Perhaps there are other new information 
display options as well (COR status, mirroring of existing single-LED 
status, etc.).

  OLED's also age (20,000 hour MTBF, or slow dimming), so some 
experimentation of making them easy to replace (and remain available) is 
needed... or just go with the TFT display choice. If I pursue the image 
display solution, a processor would be required to store "fonts" 
(perhaps stored on an internal SD Card) and to assert chip select 
properly to each digit in the display. This processor could be WiFI 
enabled (along with a simple web server), so that one could change 
display behavior without any wiring... all through a browser. No new 
holes need to be drilled to implement.

  Anyway, still just some sketches on paper, although I've acquired a 
variety of properly sized display to start playing with. The goal would 
be to design, build & test a drop-in replacement that would connect to 
other front panel boards as the current VFD display do (ribbon cable).

  Curious to get feedback from the group:

  * Are replacement OEM displays available? From where? At what cost? I
    am aware of a ham in Australia (or New Zealand) that was able to
    design a custom circuit board and source 14 segment VFD's that drop
    in, but not sure if he's still doing this and if the VFD's are still
    available at reasonable cost.
  * Are there other drop-in replacement solutions out there?
  * If a 7/14 segment LED solution is developed, I've yet to find a 7
    segment display with both "comma" and "period" elements. Does anyone
    care if there's no comma?
  *  From the "purist" point of view... is having anything other than
    the original (or near replacement) VFD display "heresy"?
  * Is the image display version of things (including different fonts,
    new modes of display, WiFi, etc.) just way overkill? Or, is there
    some interest in this.

  Likely I'll start to work on this in the next few weeks, and could 
offer up the solution (circuit boards, parts, maybe fully assembled 
things) in the next few months. Just curious if there's any interest in 
acquisition of the output of my efforts (and if yes, I'll get quantity 
pricing on things as part of the design effort) and what would be a 
reasonable cost (I'm not looking to make a living with this task) would be.

   Any feedback, most appreciated...

best 73's


Todd, KC1SQ