During the summer 2023, my Yaesu VL-1000 Power supply went bang.  One morning I switched the power supply on,  there was a small pop and a smell of burning. The amp would not power on.

After doing some research, I though the problem could be the 3 resistors R2A, R2B and R2C  (5.6 ohm 5W ceramic, Yaesu part   number J31379004) located on power supply board 1. But after stripping down the power supply I found the problem was a bit more serious. It seems a few of the capacitors had leaked over the board, destroying board 1 .

After contacting Yaesu it quickly became clear, parts for the VL-1000/VP-1000 are non existent. 

After contacting Yaesu UK , who were not interested in repairing the amp, but they did pointed me in the direction of the  Yaesu Quadra VP-1000 PSU Meanwell Retrofit document by Adam Farson VA7QI/AB4QI You can download it here

 This describes the process of replacing the existing module with two Meanwell SMOS Power supplies.

The two Meanwell Power supplied used are the RT-65B you can find it on  Digi key Here RT-65B

And the RSP-3000-48 Here RSP-3000-48  The RSP-3000-48 is not cheap.

This process was it bit above my abilities so I employed the help of James at www.eastridingelectronics.co.uk.

After a little bit of apprehension from James, we decided to try with the RT-65B first to see if we could get the Amp to

Power up, which it did, then bought the RSP-3000-48 to finish it.

Eventually James managed to get them both wired up and powering the VL-1000 properly.

I have been using the Amp for the last few days and it seems to power it OK, the only drawback is the noise from the fans on the Meanwell Power supplies, the RT-65B fan run continually and is a bit louder than the original power supply, but when the Amp goes it TX the RSP-3000-48 fan kicks in and its very loud.

I have had to move the VP-1000 away from the radio as it is very loud, luckily the separation lead are quite long, but at least the Amp is now    working. Here are some photos of the Meanwell power supplies fitted in the VP-1000 case.

Sunday, 03 December 2023

Steve G0OYQ