I had one from new when they first arrived as a replacement for 706. Never had a problems with it still running fine. As mentioned before I only use about %50 power.
Whenever magical smoke is mentioned, I just have to watch the video. Another gut one, Peter. I thought only Yaesu were the ones to use not enough heat sync paste. 125 watts is too high. Cheers & 73 from W Rusty Lane K9POW in eastern Tennessee
Excellent videos. Thank you. BTW, there are high-performance heat-sink compounds used for computers CPUs which may lessen the temp by perhaps 2C. I am also surprised that the heat sinks/and spreader did not have a better surface finish.
Hi Peter I had this problem several years ago and cured it by replacing the whole driver board. It was cheaper from ICOM than the cost of a new FET! Its a real shame they don't sell them anymore. I noticed on my new board a resistor AND an inductor had been placed in series in the gate circuit...perhaps to prevent the driver from self oscillation at VHF/UHF. Mine didn't have heat transfer paste either. Nice work Peter, thanks for sharing. Steve G4EDG
You tech guys probably are already aware of this but when a board becomes carbonised great care must be takes because the carbon left behind does conduct electricity, the once insulating vero board then becomes a conductor between tracks and components. All carbon usually needs to be removed.
Can't believe turning the power up. You just don't get much more performance from 25 more watts. Definitely expensive to do. They should have put the heat sink compound on it but maybe added a thermistor for auto shut down on that driver and the finals.
Good job again on the repair. Icom should have this set so it will not do over 100 watts top. Guess you can say it is a flaw between manufacture and user lol. If I run into one of these I think I will copy that board to have some made. Thanks for sharing Peter.
LOL yeah that's it :-) Thanks for stepping in my friend. Ah by the way Buddy if you ever deicide to reproduce the PCB I would buy some from you!! Have a nice Sunday 73
I love your videos , I have learned so much and you explain everything very well. I attempt my own repairs using simple tools mainly a multimeter and my eyes and nose..... and can usually get things working again 95% of the time. You are a super tech...... thanks for all your efforts to bring your videos and know how to the world....... happy new year.
You can always get the board reprinted from elsewhere theres places that will make boards to spec. I got a new dcdc board for my Kenwood Ts850s and upgraded components.
Hi Peter, another great job. Thanks for sharing. Especially soldering the MOSFET on this heatsink, I think it is nearly impossible with standard soldering equipment.(about 30 W iron). A few words about the "power modification"... I know the owner of this IC-7000(he is a member of our chapter) and he noticed the excessive outputpower from the beginning(misalignment from Icom, he bought this TRX new and he definetely didn´t cranked it up) , he always used this TRX at 80% of the maximum power or less. So I´m of the opinion, that the failure is caused in the missing thermal paste, missing heatsinks of the predrivers and thereby caused selfoscillations.
compromising such an amazing piece of technology for pushing 25 watts more out of the radio. tss tss tss i really like to learn, thank you trxbench, even if its a same fault i love to see how you fix it
Good News USA - the newest Icom IC504 Driver Board is available from ICOM for nominal cost. I haven't had a need yet but ya never know so I ordered a few. Beats the heck out of trying to be a hero by rebuilding a burnt board IMHO. Plus ... you get the latest design changes.
Good thing I ordered some IC504 Driver Boards! Just replaced my first one on a recently acquired 7000. Was so bad the connector pins at J102 were gone. Scorched the bottom side of the PA Board too. Cleaned that area and apparently no component damage even though area charred. And, yes, no thermal paste. Shame on Icom. I could rant further about how the five four-fingered connectors stick through the PA board & solely rely on solder for the connection? Horrible design. @@TRXLab
Great work again Peter. I envy your attention to detail as always. I guess you're not cheap, but worth every penny. Your customers should know they get the best work humanly possible... IC-7000 is such a small and tight packed radio with a lot of power. Even with a little mismatched antenna there will be a lot of heat generated everywhere, things like this are bound to happen sooner or later.
We always try the best we can as personally we see a good service as contribution to environmental protection. We need to avoid to much electronic waste which will kill our planet!! Thanks for stepping in Bora
I been using it at 100%. i have the same radio. Tonight no matter what I will put it at 80%. You are so correct, it's so much stress on this small radio. Thank you for letting me not blow my radio that i just got.
Another informative video Peter. It would almost seem to be good preventative maintenance for all IC-7000 owners to check their driver board for thermal paste.
Yea you are right Michael I only can advice to check the own radio in order to avoid this fault. But it is not only the thermal paste it is rather more the additional resistor on the driver board and the additional heat sinks on the pre driver. Thanks for stepping in
Great job Peter as always! It's hard to explain to people that you almost will not see the effect on the S meter at the other end of pushing the radio so hard. You want another S point? you're going to need 4x the power!
Maybe the lack of thermal paste on that driver mosfet was because Icom had taken it apart when it was first sent in and they cleaned off the factory paste?? You would think some residue would still be there, however, like down in the screw holes. I did not see any residue there. I thought Icom was good brand but maybe not so good afterall?
Hi Herbert, no I'm sure they never took off the main board since they were aware on 2 facts. first they know the driver board issue and second the don't have driver boards any longer...
Hello, your videos are amazing, very educational and of good technical quality. The best UA-cam channel ever !! If I can get a wish; It would be nice to have videos about basic troubleshooting techniques. Eg. how to troubleshoot an RF unit, a low pass filter, a PA unit and so on. And, not everyone has as great equipment as you, maybe a little bit of simple troubleshooting with a little simpler equipment than you have. Just a tip. Keep on !!
Thanks for the kind words. Well I got your point but I'm so short of time that any additional variant is hardly to handle . May be sometime when I'm retired lol
Hi Peter Great video thanks for posting your knowledge, i have a question for you, does the replacement mosfet need special handling precautions? ie baking or anti static conditions. Thanks
came across your channel i noticed a few radios you have fixed the power has been set 100% and above. if you run it a 75% is there a diference in signal if you run 100%. i dont think there will be any improvment I run at 30 % into an amplifier and my max power is 400 watts. i never get anything warm. only my log book is hot. like to see some clips on rm italy style ampfliers sd1446 transistor replacements. keep up the excelent work peter 73
I have been watching your videos of late. Its facinating and educational to watch you work. I sat my full licence exam last week and one of the questions was why running an amplifier at 100% is a bad idea. I guess the examiners thought that asking why running an amplifier at 125% would be to stupid a question to ask! Its seems that if you need to do this you must be desperate to make a contact and if thats the case you cant really be enjoying using the radio or care much about it. I havent bought myself a radio yet I wanted to do all the exams first. Your videos are showing me that a radio needs to be treated with respect and consideration. Regards Kevin.
hello Peter, great repair,you saved the operator a lot of money on this repair.....some techs won't even touch this repair....to time consuming.again nice explanation too. so that us hams understand what is going on in this radio when they (hams) crank it up all the way....i like the videos and i subscribe all of them......again thank you for sharing..........N1inv
Dear TRX Seeing that you are working on many many HF TX radios.. What In your opinion having seen many over the years would be one of your favourite HF radios from an engineering perspective..? Even if it’s an older radio… 73 Mark
Good work, and a great little idea to install the sheet metal fingers on the predriver section. It´s a shame and rediculous that ICOM does such a bad job. And by the way: Today everybody can order HQ PCB from China within a few days, so ICOM can do. And no, there a no such things like "storage costs" in such small ammounts to keep it in stock. They can make a few bucks and have satisfied customers. And no, they would not sell less new radios. You saved this operators day, Peter. And that is fine! 73 de Olaf
As a manufacturer, It is amazing the cost for the service department to get with the engineering department to approve the drawings (correct rev. ..etc) then give them to the purchasing department to contact the vendor for a small order qty so he can find an approved vendor willing to do a small qty. Oops then I have to receive it and setup a "slow moving" stock location for them. Now the following year finance will tell you to get rid of slow moving so you have to justify it every financial audit. Ah almost forgot I need to have LCM for the part so need an engineer to go into the LCM and MRP system and set it up correctly so the receiver knows where to put it. For a prototype part it is much simpler but when you have to put it into inventory all of the boxes need checked or you won't be able to find the part when needed. There are good reasons for the Peters of the world that can simply make it happen for a price.
Peter you will get the name of "Mr Icom" , before I moved over to Kenwood I used Icom I'm saddened they are not supporting the older radio's with important parts like driver boards, I'm also surprised that a 3rd party board maker hasn't filled the need for making obsolete boards, anyway I had a good feeling once it came to your workshop, it would leave a happy radio, I hope the customer asked you to de-tweak it back to 90 watts. all the best 73 Paul de M0BSW
Peter it doesn't say much from ICOM they are not interested in repairing radios want people always to buy new well Peter you keeping well and safe from COVID-19, as you say people want to drain the last watt out off the radio and therefore put much power strain on components and end up burning mosfits again. keep well your friend :)
Something that has no parts available should probably be reduced in power to below standard to improve its longevity, for example the HR2510 and Lincoln’s I do, I always drop those down to 7.5W instead of 10 to reduce the chance of blowing the obsolete final!
Couple of observations. NOT CRITICISMS! One, the heat sink thing between the MOSFET and the heatsink itself looked like a stamped out part. Is the Source of the mosfet soldered to that thermal link? Those stamped parts are typically anything but flat, unless someone has taken the time to lap them on a surface plate, or even a piece of tempered glass. You couldn't make a worse thermal interface if you tried. Now maybe it's just the camera and / or lighting, but it didn't look good. Secondly, that is not a complicated board. I think anyone with even a little bit of skill and experience laying out circuit boards could use something like Express PCB and end up with a suitable replacement. It's not rocket surgery. Get 10 made, keep 2 for oneself, and sell the others on Ebay or something. High power rf is what I do for a living BTW. We're about 2 or 3 generations beyond the BLF-278 now using LDMOS parts if anyone is wondering.
It's really sad that Icom won't support a radio that's 10 years old (ish, released in 2006 according to eham.net). I really like Icom's radios but things like this make me think twice. Hard to repair and not supported within 5ish years (sold until around 2014). I think hams expect to get 10+ years out of properly cared for rigs and if they don't last they at least expect to be able to get them repaired and parts from the factory.
Peter the Great- If the driver board had thermal paste under it, would it be possible to see it as viewed at 4:58 in your video? I may take my 7000 apart to inspect it and look for some squeezed out excess. Thanx, awesome video as always - Bob
Hi Peter so disappointing about ICom, another success and no magic smoke Peter with the cooling fan not help to keep the radio cool would take the fan on to keep radio cool even when switched on as you say Chassis acts as a cooler but the owner would need to keep the power down to protect the mosfet and 80% is a good figure saves stress on other components well done as usual it is a joy to watch an electronic engineer at work as there is something to learn :)
Hey Fabian...great job as usual! Hope I never have problems with mine. Run mine at 50% to keep it a long time. If I ever do have a problem I’ll be paying you to fix it instead of anyone else. Thanks!!! BTW, this radio is really great for swling and vhf/uhf monitoring too..
Thanks for the excellent video. I have an IC-7000 here and wonder if I should look into the driver pcb to see if any heat transfer paste has been applied. Will reduce the power output to 90 watts or so. Thanks again
What do you charge to repair a radio? The same to replace a fuse or troubleshoot to a component? Charge by the hour? Do you account for what a radio is worth?
If you like that piece of garbage, I have one - only max 3h of TX work (like new). but one drawback - driver module needs to be replaced (I switched of the antenna and plugged it into the TRX socket without switching of the Tuner LD700, so the driver transistor got damaged). Anyway, to me this radio is piece of crap sold for a crazy amount of money giving the user nothing which could make him/her happy. I will never move back to Icom - I bought TS440 which is great rig and working QRP on FT817 which is best of all these 3 radios.
Hi Peter, I own two IC-7000 radios which is how i came to view your channel. I'm always looking for ways to make my radios last longer. Fantastic video with excellent information, thank you so much for sharing. I'll be setting my output to 85% from now on. Did ICOM add the resistor to the driver board in production or was it later during repairs? If it was during production, do you know the range of serial number when they started? Thanks again and 73! Ralph KB1ZYI
Thank you Ralph! I'm glad that you liked my video! ICOM is not very much communicative if it comes to issues so they never informed about the changes they did to improve an issue. The same with the pre amp board...suddenly all the new boards had the resistor without any notification and of course no info when they started to put the mod into production for new radios.. 73
Well not sure if I got you right but no watt meter can tell you what the temperature situation is inside the radio and if the heat sink can manage its job.....
Great video to see its just a process like everything. Do you think they corrected these issues in the 7300. Ive always wanted the 7000 but maybe should consider 7300
Thanks Peter for another Good video, a bit disappointing to see inside these brand name products, how they left out the thermal compound on a known overheating area of the circuit. what quality are we really getting when we pay a premium price for a brand name product ?
Looks to me Icom has an ethics problem! They should have a recall and make concessions to the owners. I have two of them, and have had this problem . What say you Icom?
Peter, I bought one of these in what the seller says “unused condition” he says he bought it, had the freq opens up and sat in his closet. Well I trust he was telling me the truth because on examination it was in like new condition. I still would like it looked at and after seeing your videos on this unit I would like all the fixes you did done to it before I install it in my pick’em up truck. How do I get in contact with you?
Hi Peter, what's the mosfet (on the driver board) which is needed to be replaced? Could you specify the name of it? - is it the same for all IC7000 or they differentiate depending on the Serial Number? Where I can buy this transistor? thanks for the info in advance. As always, you're the best guy for Ham Radio stuff on YT! Schoene Weihnachten! 73!
@@tedn4yx628 that is so surprising to me... I mean that was a succes radio that had huge impact on ham community and not having parts to repair those things is ridiculous... specially seeing the price of all the used models found on ebay, they are sold almost the same price they were new...
@@tedn4yx628 releasing a new radio does not make the previous model intantly obsolete... why stopping providing parts?... it's like I wanted to get a nice little mobile radio TS50 but those things are KNOWN to have leaking capacitors and there are daughter boards that are coated in epoxy that are NOT describe in the service manual... if one of those board fail, we are screwed... that TS50 is 25 year old though... a beautiful IC7000 with a color display though is far from being an outdated device... even the 706 was a beautiful radio back then has no more parts to repair them... such a shame... I spoke with some gentlemens here about that situation and the pricing of used old radios and they were telling me that it is a lot easiyer to fix a 40-50 year old radio than a 25-15 year old radio... just like when newer suface mount technology was getting to start... these guys have fun rebuilding beautiful anchor boat radios, they work wonderfully... and when we try to get a nice 15-25 year old little radio, we are screwed if they break and they WILL break... That refrein me to buy the TS50, it was 450$ with the original AT50 tuner, beautiful but I am really affraid to lose 450$ because I can't have my radio fixed... I don't have that kind of money to waste... even worst pay 700-900$ for a 7000 or 650-800$ for a 706... wow... I can't beleive these radios are still sold at those price point... not for me...
what you do is pipe in some propane so it jets up through the fan, then if you run it on six volts to slow the fan down, and when supply an ignition source, you can toast your weenies in style, without having to get under the hood of the pick-up to put aluminum foil on the manifold. Plus it;s real pretty at night.
Hi Des, no not necessarily it is most likely a combination on different factors. One might me high rf power thus device gets hot subsequently the pre drivers get hot too and starts oscillating....
@@TRXLab I tried ICOM here and they stated that the part was no longer available . I don't know how to get in touch with ICOM Europe. Maybe they would have it in stock?
I've often wondered how heat sink compound actually works - it looks as if we are putting in an extra layer of thermal insulation of some kind, preventing metal to metal contact (which must be the best heat sink possible). So does anybody know what the heat sink compound is made of and how does it improve the transfer of heat away from a component?
@@fardellp The big problem is when putting two castings together like in the case of the driver module, neither surface is flat. So there are lots of tiny air voids between the metal surfaces. You only have metal to metal contact in a few high places. Thermal compound fills in those voids and fixes that with a heat conductive paste.
Hello Peter. Is there any chance I send you my IC-7000 driver board and replacement MOSFET for you to replace the transistor? I lack the gear and skills to do it myself.I would probably cause more damage if I tryed. The board looks a repairable. Not too much charging going on. It too has the resistor in place to keep it from self-destructing. xD I haven't been on the bands for far too long since this my only HF rig. If you are able to help me out let me know how to contact you on shipment and pricing. 73s DL1FAB
@@TRXLab Hi Peter. 7 months down the road I still have that burnt driver board laying around. How is the waiting list doing? I would love to have it fixed by you and hate to buy a new radio...
I thought, in the 21st century it should be possible to design amplifier stages, that don´t kill themselves. That´s why i prefer my Drakes from the 20th century…..
Did you know that ANY Radio can let out the Magic Smoke? All brands and All models.It could be caused by the operator and a lot of other possibilities.I bet that’s all News to you. 😱😳🤣
Seems the Icom 7000 was a poor design that they have chosen to abandon. Poor customer service on their part. Well, there are other manufacturers out there.
"end of service"?? How about: end of our money flowing to poorly designed units? what an enraging issue. (it's good fun for us to watch however) nice work.....again.
Great trouble shooting and not giving up on the problem. Thanks for taking us along. Always a pleasure watching your videos.
Thank you
I bought one new when it came out, never had a problem, still working great, and a very well built little transceiver. Lesson No 1, don't abuse them.
I had one from new when they first arrived as a replacement for 706. Never had a problems with it still running fine. As mentioned before I only use about %50 power.
Whenever magical smoke is mentioned, I just have to watch the video. Another gut one, Peter. I thought only Yaesu were the ones to use not enough heat sync paste. 125 watts is too high. Cheers & 73 from W Rusty Lane K9POW in eastern Tennessee
Thank You!! Peter, For showing the driver on this radio and the Failer by ICOM for not putting cooling paste in there!!👍
It happens with every brand and it has been often with Yaesu radios for me.
This man is a Genius very clever in Electronics very good Engineer massive Respect sir....
Excellent videos. Thank you.
BTW, there are high-performance heat-sink compounds used for computers CPUs which may lessen the temp by perhaps 2C. I am also surprised that the heat sinks/and spreader did not have a better surface finish.
Hi Peter I had this problem several years ago and cured it by replacing the whole driver board. It was cheaper from ICOM than the cost of a new FET! Its a real shame they don't sell them anymore. I noticed on my new board a resistor AND an inductor had been placed in series in the gate circuit...perhaps to prevent the driver from self oscillation at VHF/UHF. Mine didn't have heat transfer paste either. Nice work Peter, thanks for sharing. Steve G4EDG
You tech guys probably are already aware of this but when a board becomes carbonised great care must be takes because the carbon left behind does conduct electricity, the once insulating vero board then becomes a conductor between tracks and components. All carbon usually needs to be removed.
Can't believe turning the power up. You just don't get much more performance from 25 more watts. Definitely expensive to do. They should have put the heat sink compound on it but maybe added a thermistor for auto shut down on that driver and the finals.
Good job again on the repair. Icom should have this set so it will not do over 100 watts top. Guess you can say it is a flaw between manufacture and user lol. If I run into one of these I think I will copy that board to have some made. Thanks for sharing Peter.
LOL yeah that's it :-) Thanks for stepping in my friend. Ah by the way Buddy if you ever deicide to reproduce the PCB I would buy some from you!! Have a nice Sunday 73
I love your videos , I have learned so much and you explain everything very well. I attempt my own repairs using simple tools mainly a multimeter and my eyes and nose..... and can usually get things working again 95% of the time. You are a super tech...... thanks for all your efforts to bring your videos and know how to the world....... happy new year.
Thanks for feed back. I'm glad that my videos are helpful to you. Happy new year
You can always get the board reprinted from elsewhere theres places that will make boards to spec. I got a new dcdc board for my Kenwood Ts850s and upgraded components.
Just bought the IC-7300 hope IT has plenty of paste where it should be thank you Peter great video 73 James
Yeah we will hoe the best and time will show what the quality of new Icom radios is...
Hi Peter, another great job. Thanks for sharing. Especially soldering the MOSFET on this heatsink, I think it is nearly impossible with standard soldering equipment.(about 30 W iron).
A few words about the "power modification"... I know the owner of this IC-7000(he is a member of our chapter) and he noticed the excessive outputpower from the beginning(misalignment from Icom, he bought this TRX new and he definetely didn´t cranked it up) , he always used this TRX at 80% of the maximum power or less. So I´m of the opinion, that the failure is caused in the missing thermal paste, missing heatsinks of the predrivers and thereby caused selfoscillations.
Yeah I know that, he told me when he picked the radio and there is no doubt on what he said!
compromising such an amazing piece of technology for pushing 25 watts more out of the radio. tss tss tss i really like to learn, thank you trxbench, even if its a same fault i love to see how you fix it
Glad that you like my videos..Thank you
Good News USA - the newest Icom IC504 Driver Board is available from ICOM for nominal cost. I haven't had a need yet but ya never know so I ordered a few. Beats the heck out of trying to be a hero by rebuilding a burnt board IMHO. Plus ... you get the latest design changes.
Thanks for the information Ted. 73
Good thing I ordered some IC504 Driver Boards! Just replaced my first one on a recently acquired 7000. Was so bad the connector pins at J102 were gone. Scorched the bottom side of the PA Board too. Cleaned that area and apparently no component damage even though area charred. And, yes, no thermal paste. Shame on Icom. I could rant further about how the five four-fingered connectors stick through the PA board & solely rely on solder for the connection? Horrible design. @@TRXLab
still the best mobile rig ever made, with all the issues
Great work! You sure brought that one back from the graveyard. Come-on Icom!
Yeah most likely and I have recognised that that some dealers don't repair it either....Thanks for feed back
Great work again Peter. I envy your attention to detail as always. I guess you're not cheap, but worth every penny. Your customers should know they get the best work humanly possible... IC-7000 is such a small and tight packed radio with a lot of power. Even with a little mismatched antenna there will be a lot of heat generated everywhere, things like this are bound to happen sooner or later.
We always try the best we can as personally we see a good service as contribution to environmental protection. We need to avoid to much electronic waste which will kill our planet!! Thanks for stepping in Bora
I been using it at 100%. i have the same radio. Tonight no matter what I will put it at 80%. You are so correct, it's so much stress on this small radio. Thank you for letting me not blow my radio that i just got.
Yeah 80% is a good idea! Thanks for watching
Probably ok on SSB to use full swing.
Another informative video Peter.
It would almost seem to be good preventative maintenance for all IC-7000 owners to check their driver board for thermal paste.
Yea you are right Michael I only can advice to check the own radio in order to avoid this fault. But it is not only the thermal paste it is rather more the additional resistor on the driver board and the additional heat sinks on the pre driver. Thanks for stepping in
Unfortunately, taking it apart to do that is quite a chore.
Great job Peter as always! It's hard to explain to people that you almost will not see the effect on the S meter at the other end of pushing the radio so hard. You want another S point? you're going to need 4x the power!
That is the point Alan...Thanks for stepping by
Maybe the lack of thermal paste on that driver mosfet was because Icom had taken it apart when it was first sent in and they cleaned off the factory paste?? You would think some residue would still be there, however, like down in the screw holes. I did not see any residue there. I thought Icom was good brand but maybe not so good afterall?
Hi Herbert, no I'm sure they never took off the main board since they were aware on 2 facts. first they know the driver board issue and second the don't have driver boards any longer...
Hello, your videos are amazing, very educational and of good technical quality. The best UA-cam channel ever !!
If I can get a wish; It would be nice to have videos about basic troubleshooting techniques. Eg. how to troubleshoot an RF unit, a low pass filter, a PA unit and so on. And, not everyone has as great equipment as you, maybe a little bit of simple troubleshooting with a little simpler equipment than you have. Just a tip. Keep on !!
Thanks for the kind words. Well I got your point but I'm so short of time that any additional variant is hardly to handle . May be sometime when I'm retired lol
Hi Peter
Great video thanks for posting your knowledge, i have a question for you, does the replacement mosfet need special handling precautions? ie baking or anti static conditions.
Thanks
Nice repair Peter, you make it look so easy, I know its not. You have a lot of skill regards Mike G4VQH
Thanks Mike. Well for the soldering job you need a bit practice... 73
Thx Peter for sharing those quality and valuable videos
Thanks for feed back Carlos..
Hi Peter, great stuff as usual. many thanks.
Thanks for watching
came across your channel i noticed a few radios you have fixed the power has been set 100% and above. if you run it a 75% is there a diference in signal if you run 100%. i dont think there will be any improvment I run at 30 % into an amplifier and my max power is 400 watts. i never get anything warm. only my log book is hot. like to see some clips on rm italy style ampfliers sd1446 transistor replacements. keep up the excelent work peter 73
Fully agreed
Hi Peter,
Guess Icom is a remove and replace and not a repair shop. Two thumbs up on the repair. 73 WB3BJU
That's pretty much the way of the world...
Yeah that is a kind of sad..Thanks for watching 73
I have been watching your videos of late. Its facinating and educational to watch you work. I sat my full licence exam last week and one of the questions was why running an amplifier at 100% is a bad idea. I guess the examiners thought that asking why running an amplifier at 125% would be to stupid a question to ask! Its seems that if you need to do this you must be desperate to make a contact and if thats the case you cant really be enjoying using the radio or care much about it. I havent bought myself a radio yet I wanted to do all the exams first. Your videos are showing me that a radio needs to be treated with respect and consideration. Regards Kevin.
Thanks for feed-back Kevin. Glad that you like my video and hope you have fun with the new hobby. All the best 73
hello Peter,
great repair,you saved the operator a lot of money on this repair.....some techs won't even touch this repair....to time consuming.again nice explanation too. so that us hams understand what is going on in this radio when they (hams) crank it up all the way....i like the videos and i subscribe all of them......again thank you for sharing..........N1inv
Thanks for feed back and subscription Ray! Glad that you like my channel! 73
Dear TRX
Seeing that you are working on many many HF TX radios..
What In your opinion having seen many over the years would be one of your favourite HF radios from an engineering perspective..?
Even if it’s an older radio…
73
Mark
Good work, and a great little idea to install the sheet metal fingers on the predriver section. It´s a shame and rediculous that ICOM does such a bad job. And by the way: Today everybody can order HQ PCB from China within a few days, so ICOM can do. And no, there a no such things like "storage costs" in such small ammounts to keep it in stock. They can make a few bucks and have satisfied customers. And no, they would not sell less new radios. You saved this operators day, Peter. And that is fine! 73 de Olaf
As a manufacturer, It is amazing the cost for the service department to get with the engineering department to approve the drawings (correct rev. ..etc) then give them to the purchasing department to contact the vendor for a small order qty so he can find an approved vendor willing to do a small qty. Oops then I have to receive it and setup a "slow moving" stock location for them. Now the following year finance will tell you to get rid of slow moving so you have to justify it every financial audit. Ah almost forgot I need to have LCM for the part so need an engineer to go into the LCM and MRP system and set it up correctly so the receiver knows where to put it. For a prototype part it is much simpler but when you have to put it into inventory all of the boxes need checked or you won't be able to find the part when needed. There are good reasons for the Peters of the world that can simply make it happen for a price.
Thanks Peter!! Always watching.. Alan.
Thank you Alan very much appreciated! 73
another interesting video! Thanks for detailed TS procedure, and logic used..
Thank you
Peter you will get the name of "Mr Icom" , before I moved over to Kenwood I used Icom I'm saddened they are not supporting the older radio's with important parts like driver boards, I'm also surprised that a 3rd party board maker hasn't filled the need for making obsolete boards, anyway I had a good feeling once it came to your workshop, it would leave a happy radio, I hope the customer asked you to de-tweak it back to 90 watts.
all the best 73 Paul de M0BSW
LOL thank you Paul! For Europe Kenwood's service police is for sure much more HAM orientated and even more transparent. Have a nice Sunday 73
Any users do High power by service menu.
Peter it doesn't say much from ICOM they are not interested in repairing radios want people always to buy new well Peter you keeping well and safe from COVID-19, as you say people want to drain the last watt out off the radio and therefore put much power strain on components and end up burning mosfits again. keep well your friend :)
Something that has no parts available should probably be reduced in power to below standard to improve its longevity, for example the HR2510 and Lincoln’s I do, I always drop those down to 7.5W instead of 10 to reduce the chance of blowing the obsolete final!
Absolutely the right way to do it!!
Ff
Couple of observations. NOT CRITICISMS! One, the heat sink thing between the MOSFET and the heatsink itself looked like a stamped out part. Is the Source of the mosfet soldered to that thermal link? Those stamped parts are typically anything but flat, unless someone has taken the time to lap them on a surface plate, or even a piece of tempered glass. You couldn't make a worse thermal interface if you tried. Now maybe it's just the camera and / or lighting, but it didn't look good. Secondly, that is not a complicated board. I think anyone with even a little bit of skill and experience laying out circuit boards could use something like Express PCB and end up with a suitable replacement. It's not rocket surgery. Get 10 made, keep 2 for oneself, and sell the others on Ebay or something.
High power rf is what I do for a living BTW. We're about 2 or 3 generations beyond the BLF-278 now using LDMOS parts if anyone is wondering.
Yes the Mos FEt is soldered to the heat sink and yes from my point of view it is crucial to use heat paste. Thanks for stepping in
It's really sad that Icom won't support a radio that's 10 years old (ish, released in 2006 according to eham.net). I really like Icom's radios but things like this make me think twice. Hard to repair and not supported within 5ish years (sold until around 2014). I think hams expect to get 10+ years out of properly cared for rigs and if they don't last they at least expect to be able to get them repaired and parts from the factory.
Yeah fully agree...
Agree!
Peter the Great- If the driver board had thermal paste under it, would it be possible to see it as viewed at 4:58 in your video? I may take my 7000 apart to inspect it and look for some squeezed out excess. Thanx, awesome video as always - Bob
Hi Bob, well I found no thermal paste occasionally and no it is hard to see from the side. Thanks for comment 73
Hi Peter so disappointing about ICom, another success and no magic smoke Peter with the cooling fan not help to keep the radio cool would take the fan on to keep radio cool even when switched on as you say Chassis acts as a cooler but the owner would need to keep the power down to protect the mosfet and 80% is a good figure saves stress on other components well done as usual it is a joy to watch an electronic engineer at work as there is something to learn :)
Yeah all is a bit sad...Thanks for watching
Hey Fabian...great job as usual! Hope I never have problems with mine. Run mine at 50% to keep it a long time. If I ever do have a problem I’ll be paying you to fix it instead of anyone else. Thanks!!! BTW, this radio is really great for swling and vhf/uhf monitoring too..
okay thanks for feed back...but I'm not Fabian but never mind
Thanks for the excellent video. I have an IC-7000 here and wonder if I should look into the driver pcb to see if any heat transfer paste has been applied. Will reduce the power output to 90 watts or so. Thanks again
Good idea..it's better to check it in advance.. 73
What do you charge to repair a radio? The same to replace a fuse or troubleshoot to a component? Charge by the hour? Do you account for what a radio is worth?
I wish they would bring this radio back to production
well they never would...
If you like that piece of garbage, I have one - only max 3h of TX work (like new). but one drawback - driver module needs to be replaced (I switched of the antenna and plugged it into the TRX socket without switching of the Tuner LD700, so the driver transistor got damaged). Anyway, to me this radio is piece of crap sold for a crazy amount of money giving the user nothing which could make him/her happy. I will never move back to Icom - I bought TS440 which is great rig and working QRP on FT817 which is best of all these 3 radios.
Every manufacturer should repair everything they ever made!
well okay if a radio is 20 or 30 years old we all can accept it but not as long we are talking about the predecessor of the actual ic-7100
Fantastic video
Hi Peter, I own two IC-7000 radios which is how i came to view your channel. I'm always looking for ways to make my radios last longer. Fantastic video with excellent information, thank you so much for sharing. I'll be setting my output to 85% from now on. Did ICOM add the resistor to the driver board in production or was it later during repairs? If it was during production, do you know the range of serial number when they started? Thanks again and 73!
Ralph KB1ZYI
Thank you Ralph! I'm glad that you liked my video! ICOM is not very much communicative if it comes to issues so they never informed about the changes they did to improve an issue. The same with the pre amp board...suddenly all the new boards had the resistor without any notification and of course no info when they started to put the mod into production for new radios.. 73
Good job! Thanks Peter.
Thank you Robert! 73
Great Job as usual Peter, Nice vídeo to se. 73
Thanks Eduard
I was wondering if you can check the radio with the LP-500 to find the max you can adjust your power .so maybe you have to keep it at 80% or lower
Well not sure if I got you right but no watt meter can tell you what the temperature situation is inside the radio and if the heat sink can manage its job.....
Thanks for sharing Peter. Regards , Pasquale IW0HEX
Thanks for stepping by my friend 73
Great video to see its just a process like everything. Do you think they corrected these issues in the 7300. Ive always wanted the 7000 but maybe should consider 7300
The 7300 is very different from the 7000. The 7300 is not a small mobile / portable rig like the 7000 is. I sold my 7000 and bought a 7300 and 9700.
I hope icom watch this, but I guess they really don't care only interested in selling new radios! Such is this world we live in
What I have learned so far is that Icom Americas is much more customer and HAM focused...Don't know whats going on in Europe..Thanks for comment 73
Again a great video, thanks for sharing Peter ! 73, de ha7wx Christophe
Thank you Christophe 73
Thanks Peter for another Good video, a bit disappointing to see inside these brand name products, how they left out the thermal compound on a known overheating area of the circuit. what quality are we really getting when we pay a premium price for a brand name product ?
Looks to me Icom has an ethics problem! They should have a recall and make concessions to the owners. I have two of them, and have had this problem . What say you Icom?
Brilliant!
Peter, I bought one of these in what the seller says “unused condition” he says he bought it, had the freq opens up and sat in his closet. Well I trust he was telling me the truth because on examination it was in like new condition. I still would like it looked at and after seeing your videos on this unit I would like all the fixes you did done to it before I install it in my pick’em up truck. How do I get in contact with you?
Most important is not to power it at 100%. Take it down to 80% and at FM even lower!
How would I contact you?
Hi Peter, what's the mosfet (on the driver board) which is needed to be replaced? Could you specify the name of it? - is it the same for all IC7000 or they differentiate depending on the Serial Number? Where I can buy this transistor? thanks for the info in advance. As always, you're the best guy for Ham Radio stuff on YT! Schoene Weihnachten! 73!
Hi Waldemar, it is a PD55015, and search on the web there are some shops who have it on store. Thanks for comment
Hi. is this a consequence of the radio been over driven/ was the power of the radio played with? or is this happening on factory settings?
cheers.
thank you. question answered!!
Good job.
Thank you 73
Great job!
Thank you Greg
there is no more parts available for the IC7000 ??? I mean this is quite a recent model...
Yeah that is how it is....
Unfortunately the 7000 is nearing the end of parts support by Icom. Icom's web site has a list of their past radios which are no longer supported.
@@tedn4yx628 that is so surprising to me... I mean that was a succes radio that had huge impact on ham community and not having parts to repair those things is ridiculous... specially seeing the price of all the used models found on ebay, they are sold almost the same price they were new...
@@tedn4yx628 releasing a new radio does not make the previous model intantly obsolete... why stopping providing parts?... it's like I wanted to get a nice little mobile radio TS50 but those things are KNOWN to have leaking capacitors and there are daughter boards that are coated in epoxy that are NOT describe in the service manual... if one of those board fail, we are screwed... that TS50 is 25 year old though... a beautiful IC7000 with a color display though is far from being an outdated device... even the 706 was a beautiful radio back then has no more parts to repair them... such a shame...
I spoke with some gentlemens here about that situation and the pricing of used old radios and they were telling me that it is a lot easiyer to fix a 40-50 year old radio than a 25-15 year old radio... just like when newer suface mount technology was getting to start... these guys have fun rebuilding beautiful anchor boat radios, they work wonderfully... and when we try to get a nice 15-25 year old little radio, we are screwed if they break and they WILL break...
That refrein me to buy the TS50, it was 450$ with the original AT50 tuner, beautiful but I am really affraid to lose 450$ because I can't have my radio fixed... I don't have that kind of money to waste... even worst pay 700-900$ for a 7000 or 650-800$ for a 706... wow... I can't beleive these radios are still sold at those price point... not for me...
I always try to run about %75-80 max of rated output when I can. Two thumbs up to Peter, two thumbs down for Icom.
Absolutely the right way to do it Scott. Thanks for watching
AM should be 25-40w carrier, never 125.
what was it on FM or SSB?
that is very bad
good job getting it fixed though it wont last with 125w carrier
It was on FM, it only was a slip of the tongue. Look at 22:10 and 23:40
ahh my mistake sorry.
I think Icom likes 105w max, this radio yes 95w would do it.
yeah I always test on FM as I don't want to guess what the AM setting is...
what did you use to clean the board and get the black off of it?
Always look forward to your videos, Peter! Thank you for sharing. 73...Dan w4mnc
.Dan w4mnc
Thank you Dan, very much appreciated! 73
Hi. Thanks for the review. I just want to know if we can modify 2m band from 50watts into 100 watts? Thanks.
what you do is pipe in some propane so it jets up through the fan, then if you run it on six volts to slow the fan down, and when supply an ignition source, you can toast your weenies in style, without having to get under the hood of the pick-up to put aluminum foil on the manifold. Plus it;s real pretty at night.
So the reason of the failure is the overdrived power output by some means or tuning, isn't it ? Or otherwise not properly tuned on service monitor ?
Hi Des, no not necessarily it is most likely a combination on different factors. One might me high rf power thus device gets hot subsequently the pre drivers get hot too and starts oscillating....
@@TRXLab Interesting explainaition. Anyway a nice advice from your side to work at 80-85% of max power and not upper of this limit.
We’re can the driver board replacement be found? I have looked everywhere.
contact ICOM they sell spare parts. I get mine from ICOM Europe...
@@TRXLab I tried ICOM here and they stated that the part was no longer available . I don't know how to get in touch with ICOM Europe. Maybe they would have it in stock?
Could it be that the Driver Board was replaced at some point and they forgot the thermal compound? 73 m0wao
Well no as if it would have been replaced we should see at least some residues of the old compound but it was totally clean..
Good one as usual.
Thank you OJ!
What did you said that rig was in Icom repair place and they cannot fix it?
What unprofessionals they then are?
didnt you put thermal paste between fet and little heatsink that is on the circuit board ?
The fet is soldered direct to the heatsink. Shown in earlier video, I seem to remember.
so it is..you have to solder it to the heat sin k
Is there anyway to tell if the radio has had the resistor mod done other than taking it apart?
Not as far as I know but I believe that from a certain serial number up??
I've often wondered how heat sink compound actually works - it looks as if we are putting in an extra layer of thermal insulation of some kind, preventing metal to metal contact (which must be the best heat sink possible). So does anybody know what the heat sink compound is made of and how does it improve the transfer of heat away from a component?
read this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_grease
Thanks for the link - very interesting but it would be nice to have the thermal conducitvity values without the paste to compare...@@TRXLab
@@fardellp The big problem is when putting two castings together like in the case of the driver module, neither surface is flat. So there are lots of tiny air voids between the metal surfaces. You only have metal to metal contact in a few high places. Thermal compound fills in those voids and fixes that with a heat conductive paste.
Hello Peter.
Is there any chance I send you my IC-7000 driver board and replacement MOSFET for you to replace the transistor? I lack the gear and skills to do it myself.I would probably cause more damage if I tryed. The board looks a repairable. Not too much charging going on. It too has the resistor in place to keep it from self-destructing. xD
I haven't been on the bands for far too long since this my only HF rig.
If you are able to help me out let me know how to contact you on shipment and pricing.
73s DL1FAB
Hi Fabian, horrible backlog in the moment. Sorry 73
@@TRXLab Hi Peter. 7 months down the road I still have that burnt driver board laying around. How is the waiting list doing?
I would love to have it fixed by you and hate to buy a new radio...
Haw do You removed driver radiator?
Do not push it beyond its designed capability, getting as far as possible on the least amount of power is the name of the game. M3KQW 73s,
That is exactly what I always tell....Thanks for comment Howard..73
how did you atach the heat sinks to tre predrivers?
we soldered the heat sinks to the transistors. That's it.
@@TRXLab have you dealth with any ic-700 where the CIV/cat interface stopped working?
I thought, in the 21st century it should be possible to design amplifier stages, that don´t kill themselves.
That´s why i prefer my Drakes from the 20th century…..
Nicely said
Thanks and smile...
LOL yeah Stefan that is right I always wonder too :^) Thanks for comment
Yes, 20th. Century radio gear engineering. I have a beautiful ICOM 1-740. Love it, 36 years old now & has an excellent receive. Comments anyone?
Did Icom resolve the problem?
Icom resolved the problem by refusing to service it.
Did you know that ANY Radio can let out the Magic Smoke? All brands and All models.It could be caused by the operator and a lot of other possibilities.I bet that’s all News to you. 😱😳🤣
Seems the Icom 7000 was a poor design that they have chosen to abandon. Poor customer service on their part. Well, there are other manufacturers out there.
That is the point what we all use to less.. Thanks for watching 73
is there anything you can't fix peter ? lol
LOL surly yes. Thanks for watching
Peter dreh das Teil runter für was gibt es PA‘s die Reparatur bzw der Preis muss weh tun das gewisse Leute es merken !
Faustregel, wenns Wattmeter mehr als 10 Sekunden braucht biss brennt, dann hast du zu wenig Leistung...
lol
Is it just me.. or is the mechanical construction of this thing the shits ?
It is highly engineered and very compact. Perhaps a little too compact. It gets hot. It is not repair friendly.
Ja die lieben Ersatzteile bei denn teuren Herstellern ist traurig !
Engineered to fail, thanks Icom
Sorry I screwed up ur name Peter. ☹️
never mind
"end of service"?? How about: end of our money flowing to poorly designed units? what an enraging issue. (it's good fun for us to watch however) nice work.....again.
LOL yeah not a bad idea...
Kam chancellor
thought about this radio but seen too many videos where too many are bad. no thanks.
I had one for 12 years and had no problems with it. I sold it and bought a 7300 and 9700.
Watch at 1.5x speed. You're welcome.
That is the right way as I'm not able to talk faster sorry
what a piece of shit design for the low power TX section...
LOL yeah what can I say :^) Thanks for stepping by