In the last couple of months my several year old unit has been constantly been losing its time display showing instead "ZONE". When reset it shows the correct time for a couple of hours at most, then reverts to the "ZONE" display. (This unit has worked perfectly for several years and has not been moved or changed.) How can this problem be resolved?
The electrolytic cap responsible for hold the information locked in the eprom has most likely failed or is reading so high an equivelent series resistance as to be useless. That, and probably several others need to be changed out. Radial caps in a circuit, commonly referred to as lytics, act like a battery storing up electricity and dispensing it at a proper rate in their given circuit. After time the oil like fluid in them begins to deteriorate and the lytic breaks down becoming less able to function. Some simply open and this circuit collapses. But others, like the problem you have here, slowly die off and are not able to dispense voltage at a rate necessary to keep the charge across the gate of the IC storing the info you just programmed into it.. So, in laymen's terms it needs to go to the shop and have a few caps tested... Not an expensive proposition so I'd clearly recommend having it repaired. To do this yourself you would need at a minumum an ESR meter, which is more expensive than the repair will cost you... Hope this helps. Bill
Posted on Jun 07, 2007
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What is thew recommended replacement for the Emerson CKA1000 Clock Radio.
My Emerson clock had the same problem. Worked great for years, then it could never be kept displaying the time; it kept cycling back to ZONE.
I'd like to know: is there a way to switch this clock to "manual" mode where it doesn't listen for a signal? I'd like to keep this as a regular manually set clock.
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