Power drop on my 6300----again!

VE9XA - Tim Billings

Experienced a power drop on my 6300 (running Smart SDR 3.18) again after being sent back for repair twice before.
Tuning and testing into a dummy load.
I very much enjoy this radio ..however it is starting to become very costly and inconvenient with all the shipping and repair costs for the same problem. 
Guess I will have to go thru the testing procedure again to determine the issue before I send it back in for repair.... if I send it back. It may end up in the trash.
.....very discouraged.
After cycling thru the bands at 100 watt tuning (..yes..100 watts for a test) the radio now appears to be producing full output... What gives?

Mike-VA3MW

When the power drops, are you able to notice what your 12V voltage is on the back of the radio?  Could it have dropped some?  (I'm sure you have been asked that before).

henrylance

What is your power supply.  How old is the PS. What is the gauge of the wire.  And what type of terminals are on the PS end.

k4wh

Erika - KØDD

Tim, you really have to watch those Anderson Power Pole connectors on the radio. They are Tinned and NOT GOLD Plated...  They should be gold.  Sometimes just bumping the cable on my 6500 will knock 50% off the output.  I notice it because I run DDUtil v4 and it shows voltage key up and key down plus power out and swr. inside the radio...  Great diagnostic tool. 

I have the voltage cranked up to 14.4 resting and if it drops way down in the 13's under XMIT its time to inspect and clean the connectors.  I flat removed the power supply end I had with Power POLes and put rings on and bolted them down. 50% less liability.

Anderson Power Poles are convenient, and kinda pretty but almost next to worthless.  Some day they're going to cause a fire and melt right out of the back of the radio.  The only ones worth their salt were the ones inside the stacks of  3000VA UPS's that were in my server racks.  When I scrapped those UPS's I kept the big Power Pole battery connectors that were inside.  The 300 Amp ones on my old company forklift were MASSIVE and those were sweet, but finger nail busters pulling them apart everyday to charge Mr Clark the forklift. YMMV

Tim W

Mine have been a lot better since putting de-oxit inside the terminals. These connectors seem to oxidise when not replugged. I agree, convenient but not a great design

Rich McCabe

Short heavy gauge wire will make way more difference than plating.  I have double feed wires from my Astron to my rig runner and then really short heavy leads from the rig runner to the Flex. 

The Flex leads shipped with radio had a lot of voltage drop at full output.

Erika - KØDD

I'd say we're on to an issue AND a fix though temporary and not a permanent fix. Erika DD

Erika - KØDD

Yes I agree Rich the leads need to be beefy and voltage cranked to get the power out. But the connectors just stop making connection. I've had this happen a few times. I'd pull it off and reconnect and things would be working again. The are becoming high resistance connections. And that's more than just wire drop. Erika DD

Dan-N7HQ

Tim, 

Please open a helpdesk ticket for this and supply all the information from the questions here, plus inform us on how much of a power drop you are experiencing, the temperature of your output devices, the voltage and current of your power supply when the power drops, I haven't read those values in this thread.   Our support team will help you walk through your system. 

We calibrate our radios to produce 100W at 45C with 13.8vdc present at the Anderson connectors on the back of the radio. 

Note that some power drop (~10%) is normal when output devices heat up.  RF output is inversely proportional to the temperature of the output silicon.

Best,
Dan

VE9XA - Tim Billings

Thanks Michael... I have not seen a voltage drop.. I will be monitoring.

VE9XA - Tim Billings

Daiwa- 30 amp- older that my socks. Heavy gauge wire - at the PS...terminal lugs. 

VE9XA - Tim Billings

Thanks fellas.. lots of good info. I unfortunately have been down this road twice before. 
I will be repeating all the steps as per your comments. 
Much appreciated.
The rig is working fine now after I cycled thru all the bands doing a output check. I was surprised when I saw 100 % power availability on 160 m and then on 6 m.
After that I was able to achieve 100 % availability on the other bands.
I did have an old HO-10 scope inline (very close to the radio) at the time of "failure". I have since taken it out of line and continue to monitor the radio for issues as I operate.
Anderson PP have been de-oxitized and heavy gauge wire in place for the power supply connection.
Thanks again... stay safe out there! Stay home if you can!
Best Tim
VE9XA