Acceptable repair?
 

I'm repairing an el cheapo RCA Victor AM/FM radio from the 60's and I wanted to see if my capactitor replacement idea is okay. It needs a 50MF and an 80 MF. I don't have any that high, so I connected a 47 and a 33 in parallel for the 80, and a 47 and a 10 in parallel for the 50.

It would be better to use a 100 UF and a 47 UF...but your idea will probably work ok.. These are likely just used for filtering...assume this is a hot AA-5 type radio--so a 160 volt cap will work ok.. If a cold chassis--better use 400 volt ones or so..

The old one was only for 200 volts, and I guess it worked okay. This is a 6 tube radio with a printed circuit board for a chassis. I just want to get it working good enough to sell at the next swap meat.

If it is a 200 volt cap--use a 200 volt or higher one...maybe 250 volt one.

The old timers may toss a fit but it will work perfectly fine.

I did a repair much like this when I recapped an old 1946 Arvin radio recently. I had no 40uF caps at 150V on hand, only 22uF caps at 450V, so I just combine two to make 44uF at 450V, works perfectly.

No need for the 10 in parallel with the 47 (no harm in it either).....47 is close enough to 50 to work fine.

Well I did the repair, and the radio is dead to the world. Completely silent. Oh well. If I can get $10 for it, I'll be doing good.

Old timers have been doing it, long before we started!
The best hackery, was when the old timers used to carve away, the old-fashioned dog-bone resistors to get the resistance they needed. :D

Do the tubes light?
If so, check the B+. Does the set use a silicon or selenium rectifier? If no B+, it could the surge resistor, before or after the rectifier. :scratch2:
BTW, did the set hum, before the 'lytics were replaced.

May you please post a photo of the radio. I have several 60s RCA Victor radios and my first radio repair ever was on a '62 RCA clock radio with faulty capacitors. Hopefully I can help you and it may turn out that you and I have the same radio!


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This is what I would say and want to back up because the "rule" is to never go lower than the rated capacitance (or voltage), but if you are real close like that, then I say go for it.

Many electrolytics have a 20% tolerance anyway so it's possible to have 50 that's actually a 40. 47 will be fine although a little higher surely won't hurt either.

Cap values have changed over the last few decades...a 50 UF is no longer common. 47UF has replaced it.

I measure the caps before I use them to restuff my can 'lytics, with my Chinese ESR meter. A few of my 47's read 46.5. :sigh:

Oh, do tell, what brand of caps are those 47's?