KX-155 Refurbishment, Replace??

Bumping this slightly dated thread to ask a specific on my KX155. A few days ago it started acting up. The gas display was about half lit up. If I put my finger over the left edge of the "glass" it would display fine. I'm sure this is where the dimmer is located. Is there a defect with the dimmer function or is this how the display failure shows up?

My #1 radio is an IFD 550 so this radio isn't essential but I do like having a 2nd com. Maybe I should just put a little piece of electrical tape over that dimmer and keep on flying. That works on my laser printer at the office that tells me to buy a new toner. lol
 
I think I'd call Bevan Rabell. I too have a couple KX155s and we are a little unsure exactly what we are going to do with them. Send them out for a tune-up, cleaning and whatnot and keep them a while or just pull and sell as-is.
 
Heya Arkvet, you could talk to LV Avionics in Allentown PA. Mike is very experienced in working on these radios.
 
bnt83 said:
I think I'd call Bevan Rabell. I too have a couple KX155s and we are a little unsure exactly what we are going to do with them. Send them out for a tune-up, cleaning and whatnot and keep them a while or just pull and sell as-is.
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So what did you end up doing with those 155's, anything?

My display is now unreadable during the day and a light on the photocell is not doing anything either. I called Bevan Rabell today and they quoted me $1700 to refurb and put in an LCD display. I'm heavily considering this. I was waiting on the MX155 but not sure how much longer until it becomes available. They told me this week they look to have pricing out for it by Sun n Fun and units ready shortly after. They did say they are looking at the 3500 to 4k range. But Im also afraid to be a first adopter so....$1700 isnt sounding so bad.. Anybody here had the LCD display installed in the kx155?
 
simtech said:
So what did you end up doing with those 155's, anything?

My display is now unreadable during the day and a light on the photocell is not doing anything either. I called Bevan Rabell today and they quoted me $1700 to refurb and put in an LCD display. I'm heavily considering this. I was waiting on the MX155 but not sure how much longer until it becomes available. They told me this week they look to have pricing out for it by Sun n Fun and units ready shortly after. They did say they are looking at the 3500 to 4k range. But Im also afraid to be a first adopter so....$1700 isnt sounding so bad.. Anybody here had the LCD display installed in the kx155?
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We traded a flakey KX155 without GS and a 6 year old GTN625 for a brand spanking new GTN650 for less than $2k with tax and labor.

Unfortunately we still have a KX155 with GS in that airplane but... priorities
 
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haha nice! I have a Kx155 without a GS sitting in my hangar and it too has a flaky display. not sure what Im gonna do with it. But first I must get the one in the plane fixed.
 
There should be plenty of KX155 parts around, with the amount of upgrading that's going on these days.

I would suggest a call to the avionics shop I use, Skycom Avionics. They have a guy who does component-level repair and is REALLY good at it (been there over 30 years), and you should be able to get it done for a lot less than $1700. If it's not economical to repair, they'll let you know, but I just let them have my old 155 for parts so I know they've got one with a good display. :) (mine had a bunch of blown caps that leaked all over the boards internally, not worth fixing just to keep as a spare but the display was still good). He did repair our KX165 and it's working like it was brand new.

http://skycomavionics.com/
 
bnt83 said:
We traded a flakey KX155 without GS and a 6 year old GTN625 for a brand spanking new GTN650 for less than $2000k with tax and labor.

Unfortunately we still have a KX155 with GS in that airplane but... priorities
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I know avionics are expensive, but that sounds like you got ripped off big time. 2 million for a GTN650?

(sorry, had to :) )
 
Get a decent KX125 for a Number 2. They have an LED display and will likely work with your existing indicator. A good chice for #2 if your #1 is GPS/NAV/COM. The display upgrade for a 155 costs as much as a used 155. Face it, Bendix-King has been steadily abandoning it's GA customers for over 15 years. The last thing they did right was the KLN-94. The guys that started Garmin were BK guys. They pitched a 430 type box and turned down, and no they've put BK pretty much out of business.
 
After only 40 years one of my two KX175Bs croaked. I'm VFR only now, and didn't want to spend half (or more) of the value of my airplane on an avionics update, and tie myself to an expensive database subscription. So today I pulled the dead radio out and slid a new TKM MX170C in. Took almost ten minutes, but I work slow. Between that and my iPhone and iPad with Foreflight, I'm ready for the next 40 years. :)

TKM says they'll have a slide-in replacement for the KX155 soon.
 
Pilawt said:
TKM says they'll have a slide-in replacement for the KX155 soon.
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I was excited to see that, since our remaining KX165 looks really ancient compared to all the new Garmin gear surrounding it.

Unfortunately, the MX155 looks a little hokey, and I'm not a fan of the design. They have two knobs for volume, and everything else is on the touchscreen pretty much. So they take the two controls that I NEVER touch and give them dedicated physical controls, but the things that I do most often (tune frequencies and flip-flop) are stuck on the screen, with a really awful UI to use one of the knobs for tuning and you have to push the knob in ("Enter") *twice* to tune one frequency... No thanks. :no:
 
I talked to TKM yesterday and they said they are waiting on parts to build and should have pricing and availability announced by or at sun n fun. They delay was they had an engineer leave and had to find a new one and get him spun up as well as delivery delays. So id be scared to get the first production in case it has problems and they can't keep up with the demand for repairs. I like the unit but I need something rather soon...I still have comm 2 in my gps but I'm now without an ILS as I can't see the freqs. With spring and summer coming beinf without an ILS isn't all that bad either.
 
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