The ghetto mod thread

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

toroids are seen as a sign of quality - put a toroid in and show open-case photo's and audiophyles will pay more.

[madan1]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

But do you know what's the funny thing? They've put a big ass 1.4KW toroidal transformer which weights a ton! This is an expensive hardware part and most manufacturers tend to save money from it. Such transformers can be found only in the high end products of the other companies ( onkyo, denon, yamaha... ). I really do not see the logic here - "let's use a 100 buck power supply, but let's cut $10 from the boards.. yeah... great idea!"
Oh, and another funny thing - the sucker sounds better than my high-end yamaha aventage... go figure

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

cambridge audio
says it all.
i remember them - paxoline pcb's and probably built in a shed by housewives - forget china!!
i worked for a very high-end company in the u.k. once,
they had a u.k. pcb stuffing facility they actually refered to as the chicken coup!!!

[madan1]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

shame about the track damage.
why is there so much flux on the diodes??

The board is made out of cardboard... as soon as it smells a hot iron and the tracks start to run away.. no, realy.. cambridge audio - engineered in the UK, made in the PRC with the crappiest boards available! Even straight out from the factory, it had damaged tracks and solder blob bridges.
And in addition, I had to remove/install several times the original bridge rectifier and even swap it with the other one ( next to my ghetto fix ), before being sure it had failed. The rectifier was not dead, but partially working.. it was outputting 100% of the negative rail and about 70% of the positive.
About the flux - I just did not care to clean it.

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Back to basics ( and of course it is a temporary fix.. "temporary" )

We need Electroboom here to say That's a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!

Regarding the temporary part... as my dad would say about a friend of his who borrow his car wrenches: Oh he didn't steal them from me. He just borrowed them "temporarily"... for almost 20 years.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Seal of approval

Kester "44" tends to leave a lot of flux around, but better plenty of flux than not enough flux...

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

shame about the track damage.
why is there so much flux on the diodes??

[madan1]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Back to basics ( and of course it is a temporary fix.. "temporary" )

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Winner!
https://forums.radioreference.com/th...-fails.381842/

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Oh screw this. My Kenwood TR-2500 3/32" and 1/8" jacks are closer together than the Baofeng 3/32" and 1/8" jacks, so they are not physically compatible with each other though I think they're electrically compatible including PTT...

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

i know the pinout, i dont know why the "shield" is not earth but it could be because they consider the pair a single coonection - so it would be a waste to double it up.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

But with the exact same pinouts and levels?
The baofeng seems to use TTL (0V-referenced, positive going) compatible signals on the 3/32 and 1/8" plugs, which is not very robust for long distances, though the speed is fairly low...

BTW the pinout is weird - microphone Shield connector is the data in/receive TTL pin. The Ring connection of the speaker jack is the transmit...

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

programming has always been through the audio pins - it may go back to the days of 8bit computers that loaded software through audo cables.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Well they invented it for their speaker microphones and headsets, but did they first design the pinout for their serial programmable radios that's used on all these baofengs?

Yeah apple^H^H^H^H^H^H motorola needs to stop making different cables...

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

kenwood first invented the 2.5mm+3.5mm combined plug,
almost everybody else slowly started adopting it - other than the mofo's at Motorola who still want to invent a different cable for every model of radio!

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

That Kenwood merged 3/32 1/8 plug is simply awful. Hate that "feature" to make things "easier" to connect...grr. Alas yes "after the fact" it is a one-plug deal to hook up the programming cable.

So it actually works for Kenwood too despite being for Baofeng? My TR-2500 is definitely not one of those programmable via serial but interesting that Baofeng even copied things down to this level...

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

i would pay 2$ just for the molded plug & cable.
infact that reminds me, i need to get a spare mic/earpiece for the cable to make an FRN interface.

http://www.freeradionetwork.eu/

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Mainly shipping time, and well, looks like RS232 versions can't be had that cheap...

[stj]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

we know what it's for, question is why you didnt get one from china for under 2$??

radio-programming cable - kenwood compatable.

[eccerr0r]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

LOL, yes MUCU5 chip!

Actually no ICs, just two NPN transistors, three resistors, and some wire.

stj probably already got the answer because he saw a LOT of clues scattered everywhere, but the bonus question is: what is it used for (exactly).

Hint is that it doesn't need any additional power source...

In any case, perhaps I need to go over it one more time with a heat gun to smooth out the plastic...

Oh, and no, I don't think this will be torn up and reused like other things