Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence:
Three times is enemy action, but we’re not there yet. I was willing to believe something I’d done had killed both of the radios, even though it seemed unlikely for them to last five years and fail almost simultaneously.
So I dismantled this one to see what’s inside. Pull off both knobs, remove the two screws at the bottom of the battery compartment, pry gently with a small screwdriver, and the whole PCB pulls out:
A bit more prying separates the big pieces:
Looking closely at the main PCB showed some problems I definitely didn’t cause:
Although it’s been riding around on my bike, the white blotches on the PCB came from inadequate flux removal after hand soldering.
A collection of images taken through the microscope reveals the problems:
I swabbed off the crud with denatured alcohol to no avail. The bottom side of the PCB has even more components and, I’m sure, even more crud, but I didn’t bother removing all the screws required to expose it, nor did I dismantle the other failed HT.
I doubt Wouxun’s QC improved over the last few years, which means the two replacement KG-UV3D radios I just bought are already on their last legs, despite my paying top dollar to the same reputable source that sold me the first pair.
We’ll be ready for new radios on new bikes by the time these fail.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Preemptive cleaning operation on the replacements is out of question?
Rule of Thumb: never look for trouble, lest one find it.
In this case, I must remove the entire PCB from the chassis to get to the back side, so I think the risk of wrecking something exceeds the possible benefit. If either HT fails, it’ll be time for deep cleaning!
Of course, I violated my Rule of Thumb by opening the tattoo power supply, but …
I desprung a battery latch in my wife’s laptop when I replaced the keyboard. One of these days, I need to get the relevant boards out of the way to respring the thing, preferably before it finds some conductors. Seems to be Torx heaven in that machine. It’s been offline for months, so I’m not worried about the Meltown/Spectre problems, but I would tackle them if I shift it to Slackware. Need to test one or two applications on Wine before taking that step.
I have the next-to-last 4.4 kernel version (I let the BDFL do the compile) and the most recent Intel microcode; part way covered. I need to do the other laptop; and I really need to document this stuff; looks like there will be a few rounds of fixes.
FWIW, I just saw a note that Wine 3.0 is out. Of course, you’ll need a bleeding-edge distro to get from wherever you are to there, with all the usual pitfalls along the way.
No, SlackBuilds offers Wine 2.0.4 with no hassles (I already have a 32 bit multilib setup). My needs are simple, just the Icom IC-F4 reprogramming app. (It’s not covered by the universal programmers I’ve seen; since it’s not a Ham radio and sort-of obsolete.) The cable should work with a standard driver, and if Wine does the rest, I’m good. I really don’t want to have to keep a Win 7 box just for that use. The radio is over 10 years old…
I wonder if a trip through an ultrasonic cleaner filled with iPrOH would be a non-invasive cure and/or preventative…
“Non-invasive” … I think that word does not mean what you think it means. [grin]