Uniden BCD436HP Speaker Repair

BCD436HP

I bought a Uniden BCD436HP scanner in July 2022.  I keep it in my wood shop shed and I leave it on.  It is tucked in the corner and is largely forgotten about.   So much so that it took me a while to notice that I hadn’t heard it recently.

Sure enough I see it grabbing calls with no audio output.

And then just to make sure it works I plugged a set of headphones in and the audio output was fine.

A google search turns up quite a few speaker failures for this model. So I hit the Uniden Support site and see that they have a form to fill out and then you are directed to ship the item to Uniden for repair.

Uniden BCD436HP Speaker Test

Speaker Connection

Finally, I decided to open the unit up by removing the batteries, and six screws on the back.  To my surprise the speaker isn’t attached by wires, but rather has contact pads which touch pads on the main board when fully assembled.  The speaker is marked with a part number of SP631 and is 24 ohm and 1/2 watt.

Part Number

Testing indicated that the speaker was blown.  Rather than reading 24 ohms across the terminals I was reading between 3 and 4 megohms.

Yeah, That’s Bad

Ship Or Fix?

Shipping costs were probably going to run me about $15 and you can better believe I would ship a $500, almost new scanner with insurance and tracking.

Additionally,  I found an exact SP631 speaker on Amazon for $17.

Fix.

Also, it’s not worth the trouble to save $2 and wait a couple of weeks for a warranty repair.  And that is provided that they don’t come back and say it isn’t covered by the warranty.

Speaker Swap

I got the speaker in one day.  Swapped it in and all is well again.   It was an easy fix although I’d have preferred a free warranty repair.   Anyway if you have a BCD436HP with no sound it is probably the crap speaker they put in these things.

Video proof!  Old speaker is in the foreground of the video.