XTS4000 won't power on

[PRC148]

It's an ABC ALT radio so who knows what the deal is. It could just be toast. But, here's what's going on. When I first got it it would not power on. I tried a few times and it powered up. It seemed to work just fine with good RX and TX. If I remember correctly it had version 15 or so firmware. It communicated fine with the PC. I read the codeplug and then turned it off. It would not power back up. I opened it up but saw nothing obvious. When I put it back together it would power up. I eventually shut it off and again it would not come up. Again, I opened it and again it would power up once reassembled. I eventually noticed that once a screw was torqued down near the antenna it would not power up. Eventually this dance was over and it will not power up all now. I tried applying pressure to different areas of the board while it was open to see if there is some sort of stress fracture that would temporarily connect but no go.

I'm sure it's a long shot but is there anything anyone would suggest short of giving to the dog as a chew toy or the neighbor kid as a cool fake phone?

 

[Alpha]

Either one of two things likely has happened; 1) the BGA-type chips have either separated from the PCB from having insufficient solder, or they have torn off pads from flexing, or 2) the interstitial traces or vias have broken or separated - also probably from flexing. This is the big "silent killer" that is typically manifested by ALT stuff, having been dropped, heated and vibrated - all of which put mechanical stress on the boards and the chips on them.

You can try baking the board with a hot air gun or an SMT rig if you have one. Try re-flowing the big chips and so forth, be careful not to overheat or melt anything. It's probably a last ditch effort, since it's just about toast anyway.

 

[Mars]

^^ What Alpha said. But if you're going to reflow the 56-ball VFBGA flash ROM (contains everything. BL, firmware, codeplug, etc.) put some flux under the chip first. It's pointless trying to reflow it without fluxing it. Speaking from thousands of VF/F/BGA reflows here.

Check the seating of the flex cable connector/socket mating.

Gotta love ALT stuff.

Finally, as it's ALT and has a questionable history, see what BL (FlashZap) version is installed. The 4000 will play dead unless it has a R03.50.00 or newer bootloader onboard. The screen won't even light up. These days, there are many fools using certain tools to write things to flash ROMs of which they have absolutely no understanding of.

Hope you get it going.

 

[PRC148]

Thanks guys. I will probably try a reflow.

I was messing with it again a bit ago and had just the raw board connected to keypad/flip portion. I sat the board down on the battery and was able to press the button while holding it there and it fired up. Of course it was hard to hold in that position and the connection was lost. Once it turned off I again couldn't get it to come back on. It's frustrating as ****.

 

[com501]

If reflowing doesn't fix it, then it's probably all fluxed up anyway..... heh heh.