Picked up an APEX converter box

[wa2ise]

Picked up an APEX CECB at the local goodwill. Tried it at the goodwill (plug it in and see if the indicator lights light up). It was flakey, but for $7 not a big risk assuming I can fix whatever. Got it home and popped the lid. Turned out to be a bad solder joint in the power supply, on the power in side. Fixed that, and it came to life. Resoldered many other joints while I had it apart. Also noticed one of the filter caps on the "cold" side was warm, so I replaced ot, and as the old cap says "low ESR" I added a ceramic SMD cap across the new cap (to handle the high frequency ripple, and make the new cap look like low ESR). The new cap also gets warm, but it's physically bigger and the heat would be more spread out, making it cooler. A heavy rectifier diode seemed to get a bit hot, so I added some copper strip to both ends (right next to the diode body) to act as heat sink wings. Copper is a good heat conductor, and solders, not like aluminum.

The box is average performance with respect to reception. It has an S-video jack as well, which encouraged me to get it. For some reason, it came with two identical remotes.