Run capacitor replacement

[Electronic M]

It basically shorts out any differential RF noise on the line. You could probably clip it out and not miss it...I've done that, but prefer to replace them so as to keep the original design.

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by Jon A.

What's this particular white cap for though? All I know is that they should be replaced on sight. It's the only one in the set.

Originally Posted by Electronic M

It basically shorts out any differential RF noise on the line. You could probably clip it out and not miss it...I've done that, but prefer to replace them so as to keep the original design.

It's been a couple of weeks now so I should be able to mention this without jinxing myself:

I don't yet have a replacement for the above mentioned capacitor but I wanted it out of there, plus I wanted to get a closer look at it so I clipped a lead and fired up the set without issue. Now that I knew I could go without it, I clipped it out completely. I didn't see a brand on it before, but it was NYTRONICS. I know it doesn't really matter who made these paper-in-oil abominations, but apparently that company was caught buying "scrap" from a military-spec manufacturer.

But wait, there's more...

I had been chasing an intermittent brightness problem in this set for months. Putting in new power supply and horizontal B+ caps got rid of a lot of issues, but the brightness problem persisted. Ever since I clipped out that across-the-line cap brightness has been rock solid. I never, ever thought it would be the source of the trouble, I just didn't see how. I thought they would open or short and that would be the end of it. Before I did that the problem would resurface in no more than a week whenever I tried some sort of maintenance to correct it. Most of the time it would resurface immediately. Apparently that cap was sensitive to just about everything that would touch it, electrical noise, vibrations, sudden changes in ambient temperature and who knows what else. One time it was behaving quite well for a couple of days, then when I opened the sliding door to the deck, letting in a rush of cold air, brightness dropped dramatically.