DIY599 PA500

Table of Contents

This tuner/amplifier can also be used with other QRP radios as the TX-500.

Blue light repair #

I am subscribed to a few mailing lists and recently I came across this one here:

PA500 blue bypass light - as the title suggests, it is about the blue bypass light.

I am pretty sure the blue light lit randomly, I think I’ve seen it when I changed the PA500 operational mode back to full automatic.

Anyway, the blue light was off for a while now and I wasn’t sure what I should do with it, just ignore it or send the PA500 back for repair - none of that was a satisfying option to me as both would nag on my mind :D

When I found the article mentioned above I knew I wasn’t the only one with this problem and I joined the conversation and asked about the blue light when Oliver suggested to send me one.

Now what?

The PA500 – opened; showing the location of the LEDs

Right! I changed the blue LED last saturday (today is Sunday, 3 March) and I had the chance to test it today – it is perfectly fine!

Soldering the LED with the LEDS attached to the aluminium housing so it will get the correct alignment to fit into the hole later

I figured that out after I soldered the LED – luckily I only had to push the LED a bit down to get it into the hole.

Although I used a 1mm tip I thought I might got the board too hot already (350°C).