[Yaesu] FT2600M MEMORY PROBLEM

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 22:27:46 -0400

Power lines (pos and neg) direct to the battery was the previous setup.
No stuck buttons on the unit.

I thought about a battery backup for the processor added externally but not
a button cell internally.  I considered feeding 9 volts from an easily
bought battery to the regulator with the battery mounted externally.

Do you know what current the processor might draw from a backup battery? I
thought it might be several mils and kill a battery quickly. I've added a
100uf tantalum capacitor to the regulated side feeding the processor.

Since there is a series regulator I thought the processor might be unhappy
at any voltage other than 5 volts.

There's still something fishy.  I've had three channels programmed for
months without a problem or reset.  With many channels programmed I'll soon
see a reset. If it were a desktop computer I'd want to upgrade the operating
system or at least run diagnostics to look for bad ram or such.

I'm considering replacing the unit with a multiband radio.  Perhaps a happy
ending for all but my wallet.  ;-)

Pat
WA4TUK

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 11:10 PM
To: Patrick A. Thompson Sr.
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Yaesu] FT2600M MEMORY PROBLEM

Well I would take out the relay and leave the radio tied to the battery
(do you have both POS and NEG there??) Also if that does NOT work,
THEN ADD a memory battery to the radio...it aint that hard with a
flat watch style silver button battery and a diode...just feed it to
the line to the CPU...

Either way should fix the problem...

HOWEVER, also look for a dirty or sticky button on the front panel..
is there one which when pressed and power is cycled, it does a reset???
MY TM742 has that problem...and its one of the vol/sq controls which
got slightly bent when the rig was dropped one....(face first of
course!)...I have to be careful or else the CPU gets reset on startup
and it IS a pain reprogramming 100 channels per band!!!

Chris
WB5ITT

"Patrick A. Thompson Sr." wrote:
>
> I've had this identical problem and have not found a fix.  My radio is
long
> out of warranty.  Currently the radio is powered directly from the vehicle
> battery with a relay to disconnect the battery during cranking, etc. as
> suggested by Yaesu tech people.   The reset is related to engine cranking
so
> use on a bench supply might be okay.  The radio also seems to reset more
> often with more memory channels programmed than with just a few
programmed.
> I can program just two or three memories and the unit will be okay for
> months at a time but if I spent an hour or so and program 100 channels it
> will reset within the same day.
>
> I've tried adding capacitance to the five volt regulator internal to the
> radio that supplies the processor without any improvement.
>
> There is no internal memory battery in this radio to replace as some
people
> have suggested.
>
> In my opinion there is a serious flaw in the design of the radio that
allows
> this reset to occur even with reasonable care.
>
> An equivalent new radio is less than $200 so there's a limit on how many
> times I'm willing to ship it back for repair.
>
> Its a shame these units have this flaw because otherwise its a
satisfactory
> radio with good transmit audio and good immunity to intermod from high
> powered FM and TV transmitters nearby.
>
> Pat
> WA4TUK
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