Batboard

I have an APX7000 that no longer powers on. I've swapped batteries with ones that work in my APX8000 and have tried a freshly conditioned battery so I'm pretty confident it is not a power issue. Sometimes you get a very short blink of the red LED and the SELFTEST text on the top display but not always. If you do, it disappears in a fraction of a second and then the radio appears dead.

Since the radio is past end-of-support from Motorola, I can't even pay them to fix it. So, there isn't much to loose by trying myself. That said, any common / easy-to-fix failure points on this that I should look at first?

I thought I had just sent one through the depot last summer but they may have been dropped since then.

Regardless I would try to clip an external current limited supply onto the battery contacts ...the negative can go to the chassis.

Set the voltage to 7.5 and the current fully limited /zero and then connect.

Turn on the radio and slowly bring the current up ...shouldn't really draw more than .2 amps on startup IIRC.

Just look at your working battery to get the positive connection location and use an EZ hook to grab on.

Believe there are three contacts to the battery ...Positive , Negative and serial data from the IC for the type and status.

You can look at the Detailed Service Manual for more information and there may be some trouble shooting in there as well.

You may have a bad volume control switch ...that part is only sold as part of the control top which is the same assembly used on the 6000's ....not sure if it changed on the 8000.

What bands are in the radio and what was programmed into it?
It gives the impression that it was inhibited, did you try to read the radio with CPS while it was turned on even though the display was off?