I killed it (the radio that is)

Started working today on the external electronics required to make all of this work together.  Step one was to breadboard a simple 4n33 opto-isolator to connect the radio to the outside world.  But when I checked the circuit as connected to the radio, I was getting voltage where I shouldn't.

So I ended up taking the radio apart again.  I found that I had misconnected a wire.  I hooked up some 30ga wirewrap wire to the correct locations, and then connected those to the 24ga I had originally used.  Tested with the radio disassembled, it worked, and so I put it back together.  Things sort of devolved from there.

The radio no longer transmits or receives, although the cpu still seems to be working.  So something is fried on the back side of the board.  I'll keep it for spare parts for the other UV-5R I have.  And this particular project is now dead.

I'd still like to do a combo cross-band/in-band portable repeater system, and I may still using some small mobiles of some sort.  Something that's easier for me to work on.

If something breaks loose, I'll post it.  But for now, I'm done.

** Edit **

After considerable thinking about the problem, I've decided to re-activate the project and order in another UV-5R from Amazon. 

I know where I made my mistakes, and I intend to fully document this in case anyone else decides to do the same thing. 

Issue one was that I originally used 24ga solid wire that I had around.  If I had connected everything up right the first time, it would have been ok.  But when I put everything back together, I pulled the excess wire out of the radio because there was no place for it to go.  That made disassembling the radio again next to impossible because of how I attached the 3.5mm jack to the side of the radio. There was no slack to allow the radio to be taken apart again if necessary.

Issue two was that in adding the additional length of 30ga wire, the original 24ga wires were no longer routed as they had been initially and were subject to pinch points during re-assembly of the radio.  This cause shorting between the wire carrying the positive power and ground as represented by the metal frame around the display.  So by repeated disassembly and reassembly the radio finally decided it had had enough.

On the next try, I need to see if I can work out a better routing for the wires.  Something that will avoid the metallic pinch points.

That's all for now.

73
Steve
KDØWSW