Grundig FR-200 Emergency Radio

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Allan Adler - 17 May 2006 18:32 GMT

Someone gave me a Grundig FR-200 emergency radio and I used it happily
for a couple of months. One day, when I was turning the crank on the
side to generate electricity for it, I heard a sound inside the radio
and after that the gears inside failed to engage when I turned the crank.
I decided to try to open it up to look at it. I removed the four screws
at the 4 corners on the back but still couldn't open it. Then I noticed
another screw near the bottom, inside the battery case. I removed that
screw also but I still can't open it and I can't figure out why.

Is it possible to open the case or not? If not, what good is an
emergency radio in which one can not make emergency repairs?

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Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

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K `Sleep - 18 May 2006 02:48 GMT

Send Grundig a Email...they are usually quite good at responding to
questions about their products.

> Someone gave me a Grundig FR-200 emergency radio and I used it happily
> for a couple of months. One day, when I was turning the crank on the
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Is it possible to open the case or not? If not, what good is an
> emergency radio in which one can not make emergency repairs?

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Dave - 18 May 2006 11:53 GMT

I got mine open in an attempt to make modifications... Seems like there is
a screw beneath the label on the back, or something like that. Right in the
very middle of the back, I seem to remember. Will try to check later on
today and confirm, if I can. If I am right, you have to punch through the
lable with your philips screwdriver, and permanently damage the lable (or it
least that's what I think I remember.) It definitely will come apart, you
just have to find all the screws.

Hope this helps. Sorry for the vagueries.

Dave

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Dave - 18 May 2006 19:50 GMT

>> Someone gave me a Grundig FR-200 emergency radio and I used it happily
>> for a couple of months. One day, when I was turning the crank on the
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Dave

Confirmation: the last screw is under the label showing which freqs are
covered by the tuner, in the very center on the back of the radio. Just
poke around with your philips screwdriver, and it will punch through the
label before seating into the screw. This pretty much destroys the lable as
a source of information, but that's where the last screw is.

Good luck...

Dave

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Allan Adler - 19 May 2006 04:28 GMT

> Confirmation: the last screw is under the label showing which freqs are
> covered by the tuner, in the very center on the back of the radio. Just
> poke around with your philips screwdriver, and it will punch through the
> label before seating into the screw. This pretty much destroys the lable as
> a source of information, but that's where the last screw is.

Thanks. Using a flat screw driver, I was able to peel off the label
without damaging it, so I can just glue it on again later. I unscrewed
the last screw and had no difficulty opening the radio. I think I see
what the problem is: the handle turns a gear (call it A) which engages
another gear (call it B) which turns another gear (call it C) which
turns another gear (call it D) which sits on the shaft of what I think
is the generator. Gears A and B are made out of plastic, while gears C
and D are made out of metal. I can't see very well what is going on with
these gears, but I think one of the teeth of gear B either broke or wore
out, so that it no longer gets driven by gear A at that point. I tried
rotating gear B a little with my finger and then I had no trouble driving
the gear train by turning the crank, but then it gets to that broken tooth
and won't drive gear B any more.

There doesn't seem to be any way to remove the gear train or replace
any of the gears. There are a couple of screws in part of the metal
frame of the generator. They screw into the housing of the lamp unit
and are probably intended to give greater stability to the gear train,
but unscrewing them doesn't do anything to help one remove the gears.

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Allan Adler - 24 May 2006 08:08 GMT

> There doesn't seem to be any way to remove the gear train or replace
> any of the gears. There are a couple of screws in part of the metal
> frame of the generator. They screw into the housing of the lamp unit
> and are probably intended to give greater stability to the gear train,
> but unscrewing them doesn't do anything to help one remove the gears.

It occurred to me that one way to deal with this is to construct another
gear train unit using another generator and just replace the connections
to the board from the old generator by connections from the new generator.
I'm clueless about the parts I need for this, including the characteristics
of the generator part that has to feed the printed circuit board, and also
where they are sold.

A variant of this idea is to instead construct another gear train and connect
it to the generator that is already in the Grundig, either by removing it
(if that is somehow possible) or by positioning it so that it engages the
gear of the generator. In that case I just need gears and a way to position
the gear train, but that's not electronics.

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Electronics Forum / Electronics / May 2006

Grundig FR-200 Emergency Radio