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Old 02-16-2011, 09:14 AM
DaveWM DaveWM is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Orlando FL
Posts: 5,607
just replace, they are hidden on the underside of the vert chassis, near the HV section. They "may" be ok, pretty sure the are paper inside, but the hard tube shell prob protects against moisture better than the old wax tube kinds. I think storage conditions matter a lot here on whether or not they are going to be ok. I find about 7/10 are ok of the ones I have checked.

My prefered method of startup on old sets is to pull the HOT tube out (not just disconnet the plate), being very careful not to pull the plate cap off the tube, Check the B+ for shorts with a meter, looking for around 10k after the caps charge up a bit. if that goes well then a metered variac (both current and voltage) is used to bring up slow, maybe 10v watching the current, should be very low, if that goes well then I move up to about 20vac and let it set for a few min again watching the current. I keep doing this and monitoring the can for heat. If I can get up to about 70vac with no issues then I stop, replace the HOT and do again but this time ramping up to 115vac over about 10 seconds, looking/smelling for signs of distress.


I am sure everyone has there own approach, but I like this for that era sets that have been idle or unknown for a long time.

Not a big fan of shot gunning with out even check out, I like to base line the set before messing with it. Now if its older with wax paper caps, thats a diff story, on that I would just go ahead and replace them, then do the above.
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