Are my IC-7000 cursed?

[VK3OHM]

I bought an IC-7000 4 weeks ago. After two weeks it had smoke pouring out of it. Back to Icom for repair.
Two weeks ago I bought another (one for the car, one for home). Tonight it has smoke pouring out of it. Back to Icom for repair.

First one is back from repair - faulty driver board. Second one is the same problem.

Am I just REALLY unlucky, or is this a very common problem?

[VK5ACY]

Hello VK3OHM from foggy Bowhill.

I use an IC-7000 every day and mine has behaved well.

I would be checking your power supply to ensure it supplies 13.8 VDC (or close)
at all times...including the times when you are transmitting....to make
sure the supply is stable and not changed with the presence of RF energy.

Some supplies don't like RF fields and can do unusual things like 'go high volts',
or even low volts.

If your supply drops in voltage the driver devices may be 'pushed harder' to
try to deliver RF from the PA devices as their gain drops with the lower voltage.

And...always tune your antenna coupler using low power - just enough to operate
your SWR meter.

(well - it's a start !)

Bill VK5ACY
PF95sb

[VK5BC]

Hi Marc

I have used an IC7000 for several years now from my portable location (Corny Point) and the only real issue I have had is sometimes the screen will go blank. I have found that if I put the radio in TV mode (hold the AF control(volume knob) in for a couple of seconds) and then return it to normal mode the screen comes back.

The only other issue is that the unit requires 13.8v and power output drops off dramatically with lower voltage or high SWR. make sure the fuses are clean.

Other than the above the radio has performed very well, I have used it regularly on all bands including 2m & 70cm with success.

Good luck

Brian
VK5BC

[VK3DXE]

Hi Marc,

The driver board self oscillation/self destruction is a known issue with the IC-7000. I had it happen to mine, even though Icom say mine was from a batch that the mod to prevent this had already been performed.

Other than that specific problem, the later models seem to be pretty reliable.

They really don't like stray RF getting in to them and this may exacerbate the problem. I've become a bit anal about ferrites on everything, don't run antennas without a balun, etc., and this seems to make the 7000 a whole lot happier.

[VK2AAH]

Hi all,

Help!!! It looks like it is my turn to have an IC7000 fault- just before the VKZL contest. The function keys seem to be doing strange things... first the Mode button wouldn't let me switch from 80m LSB to AM (doing absolutely nothing), then when I scrolled through the bands & went back to 80m it is now locked on FM. Seems like a CPU fault... anyway of doing a reset??? I've tried all the usual tricks- powered down, disconnected DC etc to no effect.```

Lucky I didn't sell my old Alinco- but going from an IC7000 back to a DX70 is like stepping from a BMW into a Volkswagon...

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Cheers,


Richard
VK2AAH

[VK2AAH]

Fixed with a CPU reset... holding the Band Down & Up keys while turning the radio on does the reset. Handy to know in case it happens again.

Cheers,

Richard
VK2AAH

[VK3DXE]

Out of interest, was it working with your rig control software (presuming you run it)?

One thing I have found is that they REALLY don't like stray RF. If I can't eliminate it on a certain band/antenna, then I don't TX on that band/antenna until I've found a solution.

[VK2AAH]

Nope, all by its lonesome... not sure what caused it but it didn't miss a beat in 5 hours of hard work tonight. CPUs are there to keep us on our toes anyway!

Cheers,

Richard
VK2AAH

[VK3AUU]

How does the IC-7000 perform when operating portable with just a 12 volt battery powering it?

David

[VK2AVR]

Scott Honaker, N7SS has published an IC-7000 FAQ with a lot of useful info, one of those is the power output. The below URL is valid at the moment:
http://www.ab4oj.com/icom/ic7000/7000faq.pdf

The IC-7000 is both hungry on current (whether transmitting or receiving) and drops transmit power as battery voltage decreases, remember that power output is going to be related to "voltage under load" which includes both the battery's internal resistance and the resistance in your wiring. An open circuit no-load voltage test will always be much more favourable. The IC7k really wants to be powered from a 13.8V source to get the most from it. That said, if you only go camping occasionally then some casual use will be fine. I know a few people who use the IC7k camping, so it can be done.

[VK2AAH]

Some here may disagree with me (sure wouldn't be a first...) but I don't believe in normally running a radio flat out anyway. Just because the IC7000 is rated at 100W, and that this is what it should put out when adjusted to 100% and supplied with 13.8VDC, doesn't mean to me that this is what it should be set to. I would far & away prefer to leave it at somewhere between 30 and 50W unless I really need that 100W. Being 3-4dB down is not going to kill me under most circumstances- I'm not using it for EME!

So if it is adjusted back to, say, 50% is the output power still voltage sensitive? My PSU isn't variable so I can't easily test it.

Cheers,

Richard
VK2AAH

[VK3OHM]

My first IC-7000, which had the driver board replaced, has smoked itself again. That makes 3 immolations for the two units so far. Back to ICOM again

[VK3ALB]

My first IC-7000, which had the driver board replaced, has smoked itself again. That makes 3 immolations for the two units so far. Back to ICOM again

If we accept that IC7000's are not lemons you have a problem with the remainder of your setup. If they were my set's I'd be looking at the rest of my equipment to ensure it was ok. Have you carried out any tests on the remainder of your equipment? At the time of the failure(s) what were you doing, did they fail the same way?

[VK3DXE]

My first IC-7000, which had the driver board replaced, has smoked itself again. That makes 3 immolations for the two units so far. Back to ICOM again

If we accept that IC7000's are not lemons you have a problem with the remainder of your setup. If they were my set's I'd be looking at the rest of my equipment to ensure it was ok. Have you carried out any tests on the remainder of your equipment? At the time of the failure(s) what were you doing, did they fail the same way?

I'd suggest that you check carefully that you're not having problems with stray RF getting back into the radio. The biggest problem I've found with the IC-7000 is that they are VERY sensitive to stray RF in the shack (or mobile installation). If your screen is doing funny things, including going slightly grey, losing some colour, lines across it or dropping out completely on TX, etc., then you have a problem with RF and this WILL cause problems like self oscillation.

The answer? Pay very close attention to your station earth, put ferrites on EVERYTHINGand try removing things connected to it one by one to isolate the problem. Also run a decent balun on ALL antennas.. I had the dreaded magic smoke incident, but I now know that that was most probably caused by running a vertical antenna on 6m without any sort of balun and I was experiencing some of the symptoms described above. Backing off the power seems to be the only way I can operate 20m with my current setup, but I can live with that as the mine spends the majority of it's time on the bottom end of 2m, including working EME.

If you Google "IC-7000 driver problem", you'll find some interesting stuff re an apparent permanent fix for the driver unit self-oscillation issue from SV8YM. Icom is aware of the issue, and mine was allegedly from a batch that had the Icom mod already done, but in the event of a less-than-optimum antenna installation, it still seems to take off.

The most common things I've found to induce these problems seem to be data, audio and video interfaces. I've completely given up on running an external monitor, as NOTHING I tried seemed to prevent that connection from picking up unwanted RF.

There were mentions about the frequency stability in some rigs in another thread. I'm currently investigating a way of providing better heat regulation around the master oscillator, but this only seems to be an issue when running low duty cycle and lower power, so the rig cools down considerably between TX preiods and then experiences up to 20Hz drift at the start of the TX period. Running JT65B on EME, the temperature rises to a level where things remain reasonably stable and doesn't seem to be an issue. Please note that the old IC-706 fan mod WILL NOT fix this issue, it will actually make it worse as what we're trying to achieve with the IC-7000 is to keep it at a reasonably high operating temp.

[VK2AVR]

Some here may disagree with me (sure wouldn't be a first...) but I don't believe in normally running a radio flat out anyway. Just because the IC7000 is rated at 100W, and that this is what it should put out when adjusted to 100% and supplied with 13.8VDC, doesn't mean to me that this is what it should be set to. I would far & away prefer to leave it at somewhere between 30 and 50W unless I really need that 100W. Being 3-4dB down is not going to kill me under most circumstances- I'm not using it for EME!

Each to their own but it depends if you're buying a toy or a real radio. If you can't run it flat out then it's a toy. You should be able to give a radio a hard time and have it come back asking for more, if it has been built well it will be overengineered and have no problem doing this. That said, there's no sense flogging the ring out of it when you're an armchair copy either, and you do get what you pay for so you wouldn't expect an entry level rig to be fully featured AND overengineered.

The IC7000 has known weaknesses in driver oscillation and so on. They also run very warm even when idling, let alone transmitting. We ran one at ILLW last year and even doing 20W PSK it started to get that "hot electronics" smell about it after a few minutes.. not real good.

On the plus side they crammed a hell of a lot of radio in for the size and the price, the display is great and I/F DSP is very useful sometimes. I ended up buying an FT-897D instead, and it look me a while to see past the IC7000's bells and whistles but with the number of reports of people having issues with the IC-7000 and my usage pattern involving camping / portable on battery the 897D was a better choice. The comments by VK3DXE above me serves to emphasise that the IC7000 radios are somewhat delicate.

Geoff

[VK2AAH]

Hi Geoff,

My car's speedo goes to 240km/h but I've never had the urge to see how well it goes at that speed... I guess it must be a toy. The IC7000 is not a toy, but it is a radio that needs to be treated with some respect. It has quirks like most radios do, but if you believe that you must flog your radio to its design limits or beyond then good luck to you... I prefer to have a radio last me a few more years. I used it in the VK-ZL 80m Contest- 5 solid hours and without an amp (not permitted in the rules) the IC7000 was run at 95% of full output. It got warm but nothing I haven't seen any other radio do. I'm happy with it.

Cheers,

Richard
VK2AAH

[VK2VHF]

As many others do, I ran a tiny 12v PC fan on my 7000 to keep it cool. You can even run it from the 12v wire on the AH4 ear plug.

[VK2XAX]

Hi Geoff,

My car's speedo goes to 240km/h but I've never had the urge to see how well it goes at that speed... I guess it must be a toy. The IC7000 is not a toy, but it is a radio that needs to be treated with some respect. It has quirks like most radios do, but if you believe that you must flog your radio to its design limits or beyond then good luck to you...

Hi Richard,
That is a bad analogy, the speedo and dashboard in your car is nothing more than inbuilt test equipment to measure telemetry coming from your vehicle. To use an analogy for your analogy, its like me hooking my spectrum analyser up to my radio and then complaining that the radio doesn't go to 22GHz!

Running a 7000 at 100 watts is not flogging it. Its design spec is 100watts for HF, Icom do not specify a duty cycle either in their data sheets, Owners manual or Service manual so it should be expected to produce 100 watts ad infinitum. In fact the Service Manual states that the HF high point should be set to 105 watts for HF ( page 4 section 7 )

Given the tight confinement of the PA and lack of suitable heat sink, the 7000 has a fan to keep it cooler during tx. It may be considered a design fault that this fan doesn't run as fast or as often as it should hence "the fan mod" that can be found on the net. The oscillating self destructive driver board is also a know design fault that is probably exacerbated by RF feedback.

Running a radio at its specification is not "flogging it" running a radio over and above its specifications is.

With any HF radio your station construction is important, especially grounding and matching.

If you have RF feedback into your shack, any radio will get upset and depending on its resilience to such things, may fail to proceed afterwards.

The output transistors of the 7000 are Mitsuibishi RD70HHF1's that are rated at 150w dissipation each, in fact the test circuit in the data sheets show a single device outputting 97w@12.5v for 3.5w in @ 30Mhz

So given that each output device is expected to produce approximately 50% of their design specs to contribute to the 100watts output from the 7000, they are certainly not being "flogged" either.

A limitation of the 7000, to continuous output at 100 watts - is the heat sink or lack thereof - fix that and all should be cool

regards

Tim

[VK2AVR]

That is a bad analogy, the speedo and dashboard in your car is nothing more than inbuilt test equipment to measure telemetry coming from your vehicle. To use an analogy for your analogy, its like me hooking my spectrum analyser up to my radio and then complaining that the radio doesn't go to 22GHz!

nicely said many speedos are hopelessly optimistic. My Pulsar SSS (2.0L) had a 240km/h speedo, yet my Skyline (2.5L turbo) only goes up to 180km/h. Go figure. I've had the Pulsar up to 200km/h and the Skyline off the clock too (speed limiter is about 190km/h), on a race track of course. I can sympathise with wanting to keep your equipment operating for a long time but you have to turn the wick up sometimes. Just look at any car that has been pottering around for a few weeks and the owner suddenly floors it, the amount of carbon (soot) that comes out of the exhaust is amazing. I challenge anyone to suggest that after said "cleaning" procedure that the car was in a worse state for it!! Colloquially it's called an Italian Tuneup (flog it). Heck, after a track day my car drives so smooth you can't even tell the engine's running. Of course, like a radio, any time you extract the maximum performance the chance of failure goes up slightly. However for well maintained gear the risk is absolutely minimal. To put it another way, if your radio is in such condition that running 100W will cook the finals, and you only ever operate it at 5 watts, you now have the equivalent of a postie bike with a 300km/h speedo on it. Try and extract the maximum and 'poof' up in smoke it goes. Anything in my opinion that can't be used at its maximum is better off broken, so at least you know you need to fix it. That said I don't go driving my car around at maximum speed all day, so I agree with Richard in the sense that if you don't need full output don't use it. But it should not be shied away from in the guise of "longevity" either. I have owned my Skyline for over 100,000km and it has seen the rev limiter countless times and it is still in amazing condition throughout, because I care for it properly!!

A limitation of the 7000, to continuous output at 100 watts - is the heat sink or lack thereof - fix that and all should be cool

Therein lies the problem. Icom under-specced the heatsinking and fan cooling on the radio which is why people want to baby their rig!

Geoff

[VK3OHM]

Update. To date, I have smoked 3 IC-7000 (driver board). Last week 3 ICOM tech's visited my shack to check it out. They could find nothing wrong. The only observation they made is that it is a known problem, and it seems to happen to people who have a separate earth for their radio (separate from the mains earth). I have a separate, and probably bad earth. There was a few volts different between the earth's, so I've gone against the conventional wisdom and connected all my equipment to mains earth.

The Icom service has been fantastic. They have replaced both of my IC-700, and apologised for the inconvenience. They have promised that they will fix whatever problems I encounter. As far as they are concerned the IC-7000 is indestructable, and nothing I do should cuase it to fail. Very pleasing to hear. There is a suspiscion that excessive differences between mains and radio earth are the problem.

Note: The smoke ONLY happens after 30-60 mins of RECEIVE only. It's not a TX or stray RF problem.