Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Raster
Save yourself touble and frustration by replacing all of the paper caps before powering up the set!. When i replace the paper caps, For the fun of it i test them on the way out only to find that less than one in twenty tests within the value labled on the part. Further more these old paper caps change value as they warm up and for the worse, Going up in capacitance and at best they screw up tuned circuits to worst case causing other components to burn up. Working sets with old paper caps tend to need adjusting (fiddling) juring usage, Conversly i find that my sets that have been recaped with modern replacements are rock solid stable and do not need readjusting even after days of sitting. By first replacing all the failure prone caps i have gotten fast results by reducing the need to trouble shoot multiple faults.  |
I like replacing the caps slowly and I'll tell you why. I will of course replace all paper, and electrolytics before the set is finished on the bench. Replacing only a handful of caps at a time in specific parts of the set allows me to differentiate between problems with the set and mistakes that I've made. When I fire the set up after doing another section and I have moved backwards in progress then I know I have made a mistake and I don't have to look over a wide section to try to figure out what I may have done wrong. The set I am working on now is a great example of that. It is my first set that has B- at a different potential than the chassis. I made a mistake in recapping and had a couple of my electrolytics that weren't tied to B-. Having only 8 or so caps to trouble shoot made finding my problem much easier and faster.