[TenTec] Paragon 585 troubleshooting

[Joe Hetrick]

Hey folks,

  I recently acquired a 585 that has some troubles.  When I received it was suggested I replace the 9V internal battery to revive the memories and such.  Upon inspection I discovered that the 9V hardness was corroded away due to the leakage of the 9V nicd in the rig, and there was a great deal of corrosion on the board.

  Knowing I'd have to tackle the damage to the board and a handfull of IC's at some point, I made a note and dropped in the new nicd cell.

  Rig worked fine for a couple of weeks, then, the cell ran down.  I replaced it with an alkaline, which I had on hand, knowing the danger and made a note to get a new nicd.  That too ran down in a couple weeks time.  I assumed that with the first rechargable I put in, the charging circuit must be damaged from the previous battery leakage.

  At this point, I had another charged nicd to replace the alkaline with and I put it in to discover that memory status wasn't restored between power cycles.. So, I left the nicd in, rig running for a day, and then left the rig connected to live power for another day.  No change.  Checking the nicad shows a charged battery with 9V nominal. 

  If I check the voltage at the 9V connector, I see supply voltage, so, something else is amiss.

  I think I have two issues: damage to the main board due to cell leakage, likely leading to the second issue.  Looking around, I'm assuming I'm not the first person to have one of these with damage of this nature--what have peoples experiences been cleaning these up and rehabbing them?

  The run-downs are also interesting, and i see that there was a mod (a description of the symptom, but not the mod itself) where the voice board would cause the battery to drain; how can one tell if that mod has been performed, and, what exactly is it?

  Anything else anybody might add I should look for?  Rig has the Geihl chip in it, and, everything else seems to work OK, outside of the obvious damage and issues with the thing keeping its wits between uses.

73 
 Joe KC0VKN