Kenwood L1000T Tuner with Bad Display

Hi-FiGuy

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
A friend of mine has a Kenwood L1000T Tuner that he loves and wants to repair it. The display does not light up except for 4 tiny dots. Does anyone have or knows where to get a display? Thanks!!
 
Hi
I have the same problem.I've heard that this the Achille's heel of this tuner.
This tuner is very well built and worth to repair it.
I'm looking to get a new display (Part N° FIP8AMW8) but didn't succeed (my google seems to search only in France).
But maybe the display coulb be repaired ?
I've been said that Kenwood can help finfing this part but I didn't succeed getting the Kenwood adress (only kitchen equipment) where to ask.
I need some help as well.
Thanks in advance
Regards
 
I 've just had an idea.
As it a VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) and th eproblem is that there is no more parts available, the only try would be to find a company that is able to redo the vacuum ?
Am I missing something ?
 
Big problem with this display technology, custom designs. Consumer couldn't be happy with LED :) that are cheap and easy to replace.
 
Hi
This is a pity because this tuner is very well build, has very high performances and very good sound.
I was not able to find the part to replace (FIP 8AMW8) from France (Google, Yahoo searchs are not very effective and work in your country). I guess that pals in the US will be find this part more easily?
I have 2 suggestions for high skilled technicians :
- 1 - Would it be possible to redo the vaccum in the display, since it seems to be the problem ?
- 2 - Is it possible to use a led display in place and put a controler (type Arduino) in front of the display in order to get again the display of informations ?
I know it is a little bit complicated, but not impossible. But I have not the skills to do that myself.
As there are a lot of these nice tuners Kenwood L-1000T with this display problem all around the world, there is a market for it.
 
need to be certain that it is the vfd in the first place, it could be the driver or something else.
1. I have no idea if this is possible or feasible.
2. It is possible but it is a timely task and the mechanical looks would probably be compromised. If you had the skills it would certainly be a great project. To have to pay for someone to do a re-design of the display, it would be expensive and probably be more $ that what the unit is worth.
 
Sometimes with some research you can find another tuner with the same display. Example.. Kenwood KT-5020 uses the same display as a KT-880D. Means scouring manuals for part numbers. Suggest hifiengine.com
 
Sometimes with some research you can find another tuner with the same display. Example.. Kenwood KT-5020 uses the same display as a KT-880D. Means scouring manuals for part numbers. Suggest hifiengine.com
Hint, see what tuners were made in the same time frame, as they have the best chance of having common components.
 
I think the L-1000T dates from the same time period as the KT-5020 and 7020 tuners, but it uses a different display with, for example 7 vertical bars in the signal strength/spectrum indicator, whereas the 5020/7020 displays have 5 bars. Even then the displays between the latter two tuners (which were from the same line) show some differences.
 
I looked at the schematic again to refresh my memory. Complicated beast. It is a shame that these fine tuners can not be fixed just because of one or more important components. Lots of special comps, with no stock, designed for the garbage can.

Like I said before, what have you tested to determine that it is the vfd, (fl1)? I would hope you used a scope,monitored the drivers,ic3,4,check filament drive etc to come to this conclusion.
Lots of fun to adapt another vfd to this one, trying to match all the pins, fun wow.

I like picking up dead tuners on ebay :) hopefully for you, it does not come down to this. In time, more will die, hopefully because of other issues and make a spare available. I hate vfds for this reason, like real expensive obsolete incandescent lamps :)

I have a crown fm1 that has a dead controller, real simple compared to a L-1000T. tl072 ;-)
I got it going again with a heli-pot to adj the varactors, added a center tune meter on the ca3189 afc ckt and today I got a freq display running = yea, but it is a bit of work just to get here, designing a new pll tuner, code display is a much bigger job.

So I can offer you ATtiny2313 code to display the frequency on a cheap lcd :) What pre-scaler is used? I can't find it now, sch are a bit hard to follow, need to print out to follow better.

Good luck
 
I figured the display was still working since the dots on the graph still lit up. I did some checking of the power supply board on top of the chassis (X13-645X-XX). The voltages around Q9 were about half of what they were suppose to be. I did some looking around and noticed a couple of the radial capacitors had domed tops. I replaced C64, C43, and C42. Powered up the unit and the display was back!!
 
Eureka, this may be the issue with many of them. Good to know, I have one which still works fine. Should the display croak, I'll look at those caps first.
 
I figured the display was still working since the dots on the graph still lit up. I did some checking of the power supply board on top of the chassis (X13-645X-XX). The voltages around Q9 were about half of what they were suppose to be. I did some looking around and noticed a couple of the radial capacitors had domed tops. I replaced C64, C43, and C42. Powered up the unit and the display was back!!
Would you mind disclosing the values and voltages of the caps you replaced?
 
If you are in there with a soldering iron and you have suspect or known bad caps, isn't a good idea to replace them all?
 
The three power supply caps and the one supercap are the real issue in here. The one 330/25 has blown its top. The new ones are higher temp units.
I’m waiting on the 330/40’s and the .047/5.5 supercap to arrive.
024E839E-D952-4055-901C-E18282D417B5.jpeg A0769310-FD09-40D7-9004-D29AF82F61A6.jpeg
 
If you are in there with a soldering iron and you have suspect or known bad caps, isn't a good idea to replace them all?

^^^ This. I would also replace the neighbor C65 (470uF 50V) for sure as a minimum. And also use 50V caps if 50V was standard there. The AC rectifier spikes are higher than the DC output.
 
Back
Top Bottom