Help with an Icom A210 radio

[kriening]

I am hopeful that someone out there may have some ideas for me. My ICOM A210 radio has less than 30 hours on it, but is out of warranty. Here is the problem. Will operate normally for a few flights, then slowly the screen will dim mid flight, then go out. The radio is still on, can transmit and receive, but can't tell what frequency I'm on nor will I know what frequency I am changing to. The issue seems to be only with the display. Sometimes a power down, let sit for 30 sec, then power up seems to resolve the issue. No warning of when it will happen. I have replaced the ribbon cable between the faceplate and the unit twice and even cleaned the connectors with some electronic contact cleaner. Seemed to work well for the next 5-6 hours of flight, but experienced blank display during last flight.

Any ideas? Don't want to send to factory for repair, as the cost is prohibitive. Trying to decide if I just have a bad radio.

You can direct email me at rebel56@rogers.com

Roli

[Walter Klatt]

I have an Icom 210 and had some volume straying issues with mine, but haven't heard about that one. You might try emailing them to see what they say. I was also out of warranty, but they told me to bring it in to have a look (luckily for me I live not far from their national service center). Not sure if it was just their way to get around paperwork, but what they told me is that they tried to upgrade the firmware and fried the display head unit in the process. So they just gave me a new one at no charge. Needless to say, I was happy with that.

I recently had a Skytec starter replaced that was out of warranty. So just because your warranty is up doesn't mean the company won't still honor it. Not saying it always works, but worth a try.

[Ray Mason]

Had a auto light dimming issue on my Davtron gauge a few years ago. I emailed them and they told my how to wire it so the digits were on max all the time. Not sure if the icom auto dims or not but if it does that circuit might be intermittent and probably easily jumpered across.

[Linlei]

Hi Roland,

If all else fails try this
web site:

http://forums.matronics.com/viewforum.php?f=3

Mike B.

[Ken]

No polaroid sunglasses ;)
Is the unit fully seated? My front panel opening for the A200 needed to be widened a touch to let the A210 fully seat about 0.020 (twenty thou) farther into the A200 tray which fixed a different intermittent issue with the A210. This was not at all obvious in my situation.
What about the menu settings for dimming or locking the brightness at full intensity.
The unit does not like unusually low voltage during cranking which is why the manual says to turn it on after engine startup.

For me, I've found it easier to ignore the instructions and leave the ribbon cable attached when installing or removing the radio.

I've been wrestling with squelch issues with my A210 since Airventure. The max squelch setting of 10 is not high enough especially when the radio is cold. I was hoping for an easy upgrade to monitor a second frequency but I'm not impressed so far. The A200 still works fine in the same tray.

Ken