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

[Francesco Ledda]

I surely would buy a few! 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 14, 2020, at 09:17, Todd K. Rodgers <tkr at pobox.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
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